Open Forum March 6, 2010 at Catallaxy Files

Open Forum March 6, 2010

983 comments

Written by Sinclair Davidson

March 6th, 2010 at 12:09 am

Posted in Uncategorized

983 Responses to 'Open Forum March 6, 2010'

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First

Andrew Reynolds

6 Mar 10 at 12:57 am
C*nt!

Michael Fisk

6 Mar 10 at 1:14 am
Portrait of a man intent on losing the election.

KEVIN Rudd has vowed he will not change his leadership style or government decision-making processes in a pointed rebuke to critics within his own caucus who fear his centralised approach is driving Labor’s slide in opinion polls and risking its re-election prospects.

The Prime Minister has also declared he is prepared for a political war with state governments resisting his proposed seizure of 30 per cent of their GST receipts to bankroll a takeover of public hospitals, warning premiers and chief ministers he will not “haul up the tawdry white flag” in the face of opposition.

This dude is crazy.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 1:34 am
Lordy Michael you have set the tone for the OF

tal

6 Mar 10 at 1:45 am
The white flag got “tawdry” from over-use in the climate change debate. (Previously known as the Greatest Moral Challenge of Our Time).

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:00 am
Immigration minister Chris Evans has deported a disabled 92 year-old Australian, ignoring pleas that she was granted residency in 1996.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:05 am
Good news. Rudd’s health “reform” is nowhere near a reality yet but the proposed new National Health and Hospitals Network already has a logo.

The logo resembles an Australia-shaped blob tied up in knotty string: white lines criss-crossing the continent, the white knots where the lines cross representing the local hospitals that will be linked together as part of the plan.

If you didn’t already know about the Rudd government’s reform plan, the logo might resemble other things: a misshapen spider’s web, say, or a fishing net with oddly spaced mesh.

Both might be apposite, because the deeper that some experts delve into the plans, the more potential traps and gaping holes they appear to find.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:08 am
The Prime Minister has also declared he is prepared for a political war with state governments resisting

The state governments are on the nose, Jc. Rudd doesn’t lose anything by picking a fight with them.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 2:20 am
I’m not playing politics, THR… (Not this time)

Yes, it’s true these state government blobs are on the nose. But why go out of your way to remind people that the things they’ve fucked up is going to be taken over by the federal blob that has completely fucked up that insulation policy and do so 2 days after admitting error and going into contrition mode.

The dude should first worry about cleaning up the mess he’s created instead of going for bore at the most complex policy we have.

This guy is a complete whack job. I’m not kidding when I say he is manic. I really don’t think he’s the full two bob.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 2:26 am
oops…… not the full two bob.

———

It appears that he’s as crazy as Latham in some ways and just coming up with policy changes on the fly.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 2:28 am
Another leaked batch of warmenist emails.

And guess which habitual end-of-the-world whack job features prominently…

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Ed Morrissey on lunatic fascist, Ehrlich:

Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, which also included this interesting advice for governments of the future: that they should put “temporary sterilants” in the water supply and then closely regulate the antidote in order to choose who could reproduce and when. If he’s the leading light of AGW theory, that explains (a) why it’s not science-based at all but rather a screen for statist control, and (b) why it’s collapsing as a science.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:35 am
I don’t think it looks that way to the electorate. If anything, he appears too cautious, too reactive. He probably is a whack job, as far as it goes. He’s been an extremely ambitious media tart for several years. I don’t think his policies are in question, though.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 2:36 am
….and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

Wow!!!!! That’s telling them. Hit’em hard and below the belt with a back page ad in the New York Crimes. LOL. The soon to be new owner, Carlos Slim could sure use the money.

My fear is they’re serious.

Trust Ehlrich to be there somewhere. Fucking moron.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 2:43 am
Perhaps, THR.

I just want this moron out of lives. We had some staunch laborities here over for dinner this evening and they all seem to want Rudd out and the Red head in as asap. They can’t stand Rudd.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 2:44 am
The ginger is better. Not greatly, but a little bit. She’ll surely take over as leader next term anyway. I don’t think they’d change leaders before that. Rudd isn’t loveable, but then, neither was Howard, and he got four terms.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 2:48 am
You think she’s great because she hails from the left. I think she’d be a much dryer than Rudd on economic policy and will learn some religion.

I also think she’d move some of the better lights into senior positions like Tanner and Emerson. The best you could hope for is Tanner as Treasurer and Emerson in Finance.

She wouldn’t have Lurch anywhere near policy and would offer a cooler head with less frenetic, manic, unbalanced grandstanding.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 3:15 am
A day trader’s home office.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vIR9lEpVYYw/S5ChUiyufqI/AAAAAAAAL8M/SRpyQefDQdw/s1600-h/daytrader2.jpg

You’d think that after the 28th screen you’d start to experience the law of diminishing returns.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 3:24 am
Gillard isn’t very ‘left’ these days, jc. She’s played a long, factional game. She won’t be the next leader because of her social policies, but her political maneuvering. Tanner would be a good treasurer, though. And I don’t think Lurch has any input into policy.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 3:32 am
JC

You think she’s great because she hails from the left. I think she’d be a much dryer than Rudd on economic policy and will learn some religion.

I wonder if being drier than Rudd is in theory incompatible with more left-wing policy? There is nothing necessarily inconsistent with tightening spending on the public service, gutting middle class churn, and redistributing the savings in favor of the poorer and less powerful sections of Australian society.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 8:32 am
CL..

top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.

Unfortunately without specific details about which skeptics they wanted to target, and what they planned to do to destroy them, this revelation lacks teeth.

daddy dave

6 Mar 10 at 8:45 am
THR

It is interesting you dismiss Gillard’s ‘leftyness’ on the basis of her “social” policies. Gillard has never shown any interest in ‘Culture War’ issues, and if anything has tipped her hat many times towards the perceived conservative values of the ‘Howard Battlers.’

I would question Gillard’s ‘leftyness’ on the basis of her “economic” policies. Her industrial relations regime is even further to the right than the Godfather of Neoliberalism – Paul Keating. However, Gillard still shows a strong centralist streak. Perhaps she will make her mark in other areas.

I still think that what Gillard has achieved with school education – the MySchool website and very open and transparent Curriculum Consultation – is an incredible advance in government policy making. I think left-wing people might be surprised at how Gillard uses MySchool to restructure school funding to benefit public and poorer private schools.

If Gillard continues her Government 2.0 policy-making style she will have strengthened our democracy more than any other political leader for quite some time.

I actually think Gillard is the only current leader I can think of who will be up to the political challenges of the costs associated with the great demographic shifts as the baby-boomers move into retirement and queues for hip replacements.

But no, her halcyon days of fiery redhead Welsh Socialist are long gone. Thank god!

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 8:47 am
The state governments are on the nose, Jc. Rudd doesn’t lose anything by picking a fight with them.
.
That’s the logic: when you’re in a pickle, pick a fight with someone who’s more unpopular than you. But it requires a certain amount of trust among the people that the Federal goverment is up to the task. I think it’s a mistake.

daddy dave

6 Mar 10 at 8:49 am
Reports of melting permafrost need to be taken seriously (show me the evidence?)

rog

6 Mar 10 at 9:00 am
any excuse to panic, rog. It’s like these guys don’t like having dry pants. From the article:

Some dissenters argue that since scientists only began monitoring the East Siberian area recently, it’s possible the shelf has been leaking methane for thousands of years. But does it matter? Melting permafrost releases methane, and methane causes warming, and warming melts permafrost — so no matter how long this process has been active, new scientific knowledge of it must immediately be factored into policy decisions.

daddy dave

6 Mar 10 at 9:07 am
You guys obsess about incontinence, is this some sort of alpha male bonding ritual?

rog

6 Mar 10 at 9:38 am
As expected, February was globally hot, and (to his small, tiny credit) Bolt notes the Spencer graph.

Also, Tamino (and others) have been ripping a big hole in one claim by Anthony Watts. Watts seem shy of addressing the issue:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/message-to-anthony-watts/

steve from brisbane

6 Mar 10 at 9:48 am
Stirring up trouble

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/03/two-more-economists-support-the-obama-fiscal-stimulus-the-arra.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal+(Brad+DeLong's+Semi-Daily+Journal)

pedro

6 Mar 10 at 10:15 am
rog, I simply can’t take it seriously. I’m amazed that you can. Suddenly they’ve found a previously unknown source of methand proction, and it’s “Quick Batman! To the models!”

daddy dave

6 Mar 10 at 10:37 am
Dave, they’re committing themselves to attacking anyone using their usual array of warmenist attack strategies. What they don’t seem to realise is that it isn’t working anymore and publics throughout the world no longer care much about “climate change.” (Record-breaking cold weather throughout the world and the collapse of Flannery’s hilarious whoppers on rainfall in Australia don’t exactly help). That they want to promote their hysteria on the back page of the far left New York Times says it all. Furthermore, that Ehrlich is one of the warmening cognoscenti is also telling. He’s one of the greatest frauds in the history of science. I would agree that in these circumstances the latest batch of emails doesn’t matter terribly. We already knew this is how warmenists roll.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 11:20 am
Can I get an ‘oops’?

James Taranto: Paul Krugman schizophrenic.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 11:32 am
Reports of melting permafrost need to be taken seriously (show me the evidence?)

Here is some evidence that suggests we don’t need to take these reports seriously:

The Siberian Arctic sea bubbles are the largest localized natural source of methane. It’s been reported in the article that 8 million tons are being released from that place every year. There exists no evidence that this amount has increased in any way during the recent millennia; the articles usually quote scientists who admit this fact but this fact is conveniently hidden near the end of the articles so that most readers will never get there because that would weaken the “message” of the “story”.

Multiply 8 million tons by a factor of twenty – see EPA – and you will see that this amount creates the same greenhouse effect as 160 million tons of CO2. That’s just 6% of the annual man-made CO2 emissions. The man-made CO2 may create something like 0.006 °C of warming per year – assuming that the whole 20th century warming was man-made (add or remove a factor of two according to your taste). So the methane causes an extra 0.00036 °C of global warming per year.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/methane-and-warming.html#more

dover_beach

6 Mar 10 at 11:54 am
hahahah Cl

He’s gotta put his foot down with the wife. Krugman’s wife is ruining him.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 12:27 pm
Meg Whitman perhaps may give the GOP another chance to fix California- the most financially degenerate state in the union.

She was the truly great CEO of Ebay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEtV4YxfXho&feature=player_embedded

I hope the GOP takes the libertarian life-line.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 1:18 pm
CBO: deficit tripler Obama low-balled ten year budget estimate by $1.2 trillion.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:12 pm
Newly nominated Democrat candidate for the Texas 22nd district: “I will take our troops out of the war zone and put them into space.”

Kesha Rogers is also a Larouchite who wants to impeach Obama. Her preselection victory speech:

The victory in the 22nd Congressional District yesterday by LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers sent an unmistakable message to the White House, and its British imperial controllers: Your days are numbered. Kesha’s campaign hit relentlessly at a single theme, that President Obama must go, that his attacks on this nation – with his dismantling of the manned space program, his efforts to ram through a fascist, killer “health care” policy, his endless bailouts for Wall Street swindlers, while demanding budget cuts which will increase the death rates among the poor, the sick, the elderly and the unemployed – are not acceptable, and will not be tolerated.

Skeptics said that LaRouche’s approach is impractical, it won’t work, that Democrats will never support someone who is calling for the President’s impeachment. Obviously, the voters of the 22nd district disagreed with those skeptics, as Kesha received 53% of the vote against two opponents. As Kesha told the Galveston Daily News last night, when a reporter asked if she expected support from the Democratic Party in the fall election, “I am leading a war against the British Empire. I’m not worried about what Democratic Party hacks say or do.”

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 2:20 pm
“I am leading a war against the British Empire.”

And all this time we thought the Jews controlled Washington. The sun really hasn’t set on the B.E.

Infidel Tiger

6 Mar 10 at 2:29 pm
She Won? lol… Good to see another “mainstream Democrat” win the nomination of the party faithful.

Here’s the rub though. How extreme is she compared to some of the nutters in the white house that say Mao is an admirable philosopher, or the eugenics Tzar, or the 911 troofer?

She’d fit right in.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 2:36 pm
This is great news. It would be a genuine improvement on the current sorry lot if a Larouchite got into Congress.

Michael Fisk

6 Mar 10 at 2:52 pm
Then be careful the Brits don’t fix bayonets. It’s well known the natives don’t like cold steel up ‘em!

Paul Williams

6 Mar 10 at 3:57 pm
lol… some great links today CL!

Fleeced

6 Mar 10 at 4:31 pm
More comment on Krugman and unemployment
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/03/unemployment_be.html

pedro

6 Mar 10 at 4:52 pm
“Yes, nobody wants to be Japan, the fallen angel that went from one of the fastest growing economies in the world for more than three decades to one that has slowed to a crawl for the past 18 years.”

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rogoff66/English
found on Mankiw’s blog

pedro

6 Mar 10 at 5:14 pm
Mind you, Krugman has clearly been verballed, at least to a degree, because he seems to be talking about automatic stabilisers:

“Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.”

pedro

6 Mar 10 at 5:18 pm
Pedro

Krugman has NOT been verballed. He knows that Bunning is talking about setting aside money through the Pay-As-You-Go Act.

Bunning not refusing to meet social security obligations. He simply wants to ensure that any new spending is not added to the deficit but taken from elsewhere.

Krugman of course knows this and is lying to give the Demolition party cover. He’s just a lying sack of turd… that’s all.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 5:52 pm
JC

Watching Krugman, a man who once worked at the top of his field to win a Nobel Prize, now dissolving into a spitting, foaming culture warring blogger is a tragic and grotesque spectacle to behold. But like car crashes, impossible not to gawk at.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 5:56 pm
Watching Krugman, … now dissolving into a spitting, foaming culture warring blogger is a tragic and grotesque spectacle to behold. But like car crashes, impossible not to gawk at.

Just like Catallaxy.

John H.

6 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
Hmmm…how come the Nobel Prize winners never post when I’m online?

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 6:04 pm
He’s not a just foamer as much as he’s a lying dishonest sack of shit, Peter. That’s all that can be said about the freaking lying clown.

Look, not even six months after those fuckheads in Congress and the completely useless innumerate president enacted into it law they are trying to breach the Pay-Go act.

Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2009

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act of 2009, H.R. 2920, is proposed legislation in the United States that would restore “pay-as-you-go” or “PAYGO” budget rules in Congress that were used from 1990 until 2002. These rules required that any new spending or tax cuts be budget-neutral, offset by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere. The proposed bill would restore those requirements, but with several major policy exemptions. It is supported by President Barack Obama.
[edit] Legislative History

The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 17, 2009, by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) and has been cosponsored by 169 of the 257 House Democrats.[1] On July 22, the House passed the bill by a vote of 265-166.[2]

On November 7, 2009, the language of H.R. 2920 was incorporated at the end of the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 3961) upon the passage of House Resolution 903, Section 4.[3] On January 28, 2010, the Senate added the language of H.R. 2920 to a bill increasing the statutory limit on the national debt. The House followed suit by passing the amended debt limit legislation on February 4, sending the bill to President Obama’s desk for his signature.[1]

Krugman ought to be tried for Capital crimes against economics and thrown out of the academy.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 6:33 pm
John:

Do laws count anymore because if they don’t let me know.

That law was supposed to be used to prevent the government introduce new spending and lock the deficit down.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 6:37 pm
JC

I read some of his scholarly international trade theory as a student, and I thought he was really sharp, clear, and a great communicator – a real scholar. When I recently started reading his blog, I suddenly felt like I really needed a bath. So poisonous, so petty, and as you say, I really have no trust in anything he writes on that blog. As I said a real tragedy.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 6:39 pm
Peter

His international trade stuff and earlier work was possibly some of the best we’ve ever seen. It was even better than first rate.

He’s now descended into some political rat hole he doesn’t want to get out of or has no idea how. According the New Yorker Article his wife has a really bad and large influence on him, so I would treat everything he writes these days as being directed if not entirely written by her.

It seems as though he’s been intellectually kidnapped.

He’s basically saying Bunning is morally bankrupt for wanting to keep inside a law that was passed only 6 months ago to prevent the deficit from blowing out.

Laws to these people are meaningless.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 6:44 pm
JC

His blogging suggests he has no clue about a very important reality about economics. Academic/theoretical economics is extremely important, precisely because it does not match what happens in the real world. What theoretical economics allows us to do is ironically to understand even more what actually is happening.

By showing us the efficiency/wealth gaps between where we are now, and where we theoretically could be, we then get into all the really neat policy stuff. People in the RBA, Treasury, IMF, GS product development, JP Morgan Economic Research, BHP Business Development, and so on, will really bust a gut asking, ‘can we really get there given the way this crazy imperfect world is with all these constantly changing obstacles, and yes, opportunities. If not, can we get closer than we are now?’

I think it would be a very rare person who was a genius at both the ‘Platonic’ theoretical model stuff AND the policymaker/investment/production/distribution decision maker.

In his blogging, Krugman errs in three areas. Firstly, he does not even realize these two different types of ‘economics’ exist, with each calling on very, very different skill sets, and more importantly temperaments. This first error largely explains his second error. He thinks his genius in theory means he is a genius at policy thinking/formulation, and even more erroneously that he has even the slightest clue or talent for actual market participation. Thirdly, as a pencil necky geeky trainspotter he knows three-fifths of sweet FA about hoi polloi. So everything he writes about politics is just cringe-worthy.

He really, really needs to close down that blog, go back to Princeton, and work on some more theory so that the REALLY smart operators of the commercial world might have new standards to try to negotiate.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 7:10 pm
Firstly, he does not even realize these two different types of ‘economics’ exist, with each calling on very, very different skill sets, and more importantly temperaments.

This can’t be true. If theoretical economics is that divorced from real world considerations then it not only fails as a science it fails at the level of common sense. The truth is that theoretical economics is immensely valuable in helping us with practical concerns, otherwise Sincs etc would be wasting their time.

John H.

6 Mar 10 at 7:40 pm
John H

You have completely misread what I have written, which is precisely consistent with what you have just posted.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 7:51 pm
Peter:

I disagree. He does have a clue. I refuse to believe that he didn’t read or understand the reasons why Bunning was holding up the legislation.

The reasons are all over the web.

Krugman seems to think that a law voted on and enacted only 6 months ago shouldn’t apply. The same goes for the entire lawless Democrat party.

The quicker they’re gone the better.

There is nothing theoretical about avoiding the reasons Bunning said he filibustered the extra spending.

Krugman has simply become a sack of shit liar and dissembling turd.

The debt spiral the US is falling into doesn’t seem to even register with him of the corrupt Democrats.

As a libertarian I think it’s almost time large junks of the country simply walk out of the union and be done with these people.

Indiana under Mitch Daniels, for instance, had a rainy day fund built up which they are using to get them through the slowdown. The worst offenders in terms of deadbeat states are all the Demolition states and California which has a turncoat governor and a rock solid welfare supported state legislature.

I really don’t think the US should exist in its current format.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 8:18 pm
Japan. It should be put to sleep, the poor thing.

I wonder if the Okinawans are thinking of independence (once more).

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 Mar 10 at 8:21 pm
Want to see the sight of a Democrat hitting the wall of reality?

Here’s a vid of the GOP Congressman carefully explaining the facts of life to Leftie Chris Mathews in that the current state of entitlement spending simply can’t go on.

Ryan has become the leading GOP spokesman against the budget disaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpt83xV-b08

It’s worth watching just to see Mathews acting like a deer caught in headlights.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 8:23 pm
JC

Sorry, but my comments were more broad. I wasn’t referring to the particular issue of Bunning, on which I concur with my learned amigo.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 8:27 pm
I think Ryan has become the most important Congressman now. The guy is 40 years old and has an enormous future ahead of him.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 8:27 pm
That’s fine , Peter.

I hope and pray the GOP ends up recruiting more people like Ryan who clearly does understand the gravity of the problem there.

The US has only 5 more years at the most to fix this or it’s done for.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 8:34 pm
JC, that was an uncharacteristically good interview with Ryan from Chris Matthews. (Who still thinks his voice is more important than his guest’s, however). Interesting that Ryan essentially puts the same view as Barnaby Joyce on the possible Grecan trajectory of the US economy.

Look, re Krugman, I don’t think the major problem is that he’s pussy-whipped. Krugman is a simple garden variety liberal Democrat and when Bush was in office he was able to sound like some non partisan voice of reason on spending. (Even though Bush slashed the deficit by 60 percent to $162 billion by 2007). Now that Krugman doesn’t have Bush to kick around anymore, he’s forced to critique a dud Democrat president and the most unpopular Congress (Democrat-controlled) in history. The result is a kind of intellectual breakdown: he just can’t – and won’t – criticise Obama and the wider “social democracy” Euro-lunacy that’s driving his agenda. He KNOWS that Paul Ryan is right but he resents having to side with a Republican against a president and a worldview that are falling to pieces. In other words, he’s a hack.

If you really want a reminder of why and how the unstoppable force of entitlements is on a collision course with the immoveable object of fiscal reality, watch what happens in this clip when Bush lamented the fact that the Democrat Congress had blocked his plan for social security reform.

The clip is entitled, Democrats Applauding Their Own Obstructionism.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 10:06 pm
Put it this way:

CBO: $10 trillion jump in debt under Obama budget.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If President Obama’s 2011 budget were put into effect as proposed, the U.S. federal government would add an estimated $9.8 trillion to the country’s accrued debt over the next decade, according to a preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

Of that amount, an estimated $5.6 trillion will be in interest alone.

By 2020, the agency estimates debt held by the public would reach $20.3 trillion, or 90% of GDP. That’s up from 53% of GDP in 2009.

C.L.

6 Mar 10 at 10:13 pm
Yea, you possibly right about Krugman, CL. Why try to analyze a lying dipshit and figure out why and who’s helping him lie as just better to simply accept that he’s a dishonest turd.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 10:39 pm
‘We have some strong disagreements on the numbers,” President Obama said after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) concluded his devastating critique of the Democrats’ budget claims, “but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” In the ensuing debate, what became clear is that the Democrats just don’t have an answer to Ryan’s arguments. They ducked, dodged, and changed the subject repeatedly, because Ryan’s numbers themselves are unimpeachable.

And

Representative Ryan blasted Obama’s “insurance care” today and none of the Democrats could counter his arguments. Basically he pointed out that Obamacare front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending! The true cost of the bill is $2.3 Trillion not the $950 Billion advertised by Obama.
Ryan focused further on other Democratic gimmicks:
• Double Counting: “savings” are counted as offsets for spending and at the same time reserved to pay for future entitlements. Example, $52 Billion in Social Security tax increases.
• “Doc Fix”: The bill’s 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements is put back in via separate legislation not subjected to combined CBO scoring.
And what does the wimpy Obama say in response? “We have some strong disagreements on the numbers, but I don’t want to get too bogged down!” If there were disagreement you would think he would have answered the criticisms.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 10:44 pm
@CL

The look of ecstasy in the eyes of the entire Democratic caucus as they jumped up and applauded their fiscal demolitionism demonstrates that they are a bunch of Jacobin extremists who will happily destroy the country for votes. Once the US Mark 1 collapses, the founding fathers of the next republic should place a clause in the new Constitution criminalising the Democratic Party.

Michael Fisk

6 Mar 10 at 10:54 pm
They can’t criminalize the party, Fisk, as they’d turn up under another name. These people don’t like America and want to change what it is to something else entirely.

However for the most part it is basically a criminal outfit.

I think the only way to rebuild it is to ensure that Washington no longer exists as a going concern and that way as the left destroy regions or states people are able to move elsewhere.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 11:00 pm
“It is a mistake to look for a systematic body of neoliberal theory, for none has ever existed. In order to criticise neoliberal ideology, one must first reconstruct it, and this is exactly what Plant does. The result is the most authoritative and comprehensive critique of neoliberal thinking to date.

Plant’s central charge against neoliberalism is that, when stated clearly, it falls apart and is finally indistinguishable from a mild form of social democracy.”

I didn’t see that one coming.

http://www.newstatesman.com/non-fiction/2010/01/neoliberal-state-market-social

Capitalist Piggy

6 Mar 10 at 11:33 pm
It’s a pretty shallow piece, Cap. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about nor understands what is even going on.

JC

6 Mar 10 at 11:39 pm
The New Statesman article looked pretty reasonable. Neoliberalism was only ever ‘small government’ in theory rather than practice.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 11:42 pm
Hmmm. yaaiirrsss. I see these mythical ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ once more wheeled out instead of an argument based on evidence.

Peter Patton

6 Mar 10 at 11:53 pm
There are several critiques of neolibe3ralism founded on evidence. Just because you’ve been led by some nominalist eccentricity to deny the very existence of neoliberalism does not mean that everybody else is obliged to follow.

THR

6 Mar 10 at 11:56 pm
Meanwhile from the “Oh shit, we’re really f***ed now Department” comes this news:

Ocean floor frozen methane calthrates appear to be melting

For context, this is the one thing – the one feedback – that has scared the s**t out of people for years now.

There is a lot of frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans but it’s unstable and only kept there by cold water and high pressure. If the temperature goes up even a little bit it vaporizes. (There have also been incidents where ocean oil drilling has disturbed them and they’ve boiled – there is a video of this somewhere but I can’t find it at the moment.)

It seems it might be starting to happen. If it is, it’s a tipping point. We can’t stop the warming “in the pipeline” and that means we can’t stop this stuff.

For an idea see this video showing what is happening now. (Unfortunately it’s in French but it does show burning ice. It also shows bubbling water – that’s methane being released.)

There’s another one here with a pretty good background explanation. It’s mostly about permafrost sources, but touches on ocean floor stuff at about 3:30.

Now if you believe this is all a scientific fraud, or a global conspiracy you can sleep tonight.

Otherwise, move to higher ground.

JM

6 Mar 10 at 11:58 pm
Sorry, the second video link should (in French) should be

JM

7 Mar 10 at 12:00 am
As the article says, neoliberals aren’t anarchists nor libertarian. The implication, as I read it, is that neoliberalism can be viewed as the right-wing of social democracy.

So it seems that social democrats criticising neoliberals are, in fact, criticising a faction within their own party.

Capitalist Piggy

7 Mar 10 at 12:23 am
Well, the author’s claim was a little more vague and Hegelian than that – the social democrats and the neoliberals are ‘dialectically linked’. But there’s a grain of truth there – for social democrats to view the GHFC, for instance, as principally being a failure of regulation is missing the point.

THR

7 Mar 10 at 12:26 am
The author’s claims are no more vague than any of the other people using it.

Peter Patton

7 Mar 10 at 12:38 am
Surely this guy is lying, right?

Capitalist Piggy

7 Mar 10 at 12:44 am
JC – the First Amendment should be changed to make it illegal for any government official or recipient of government funding to advocate or implement socialism, communism, fascism or sharia, or any policies that are clearly drawn from one of these ideologies; any violation would trigger deportation, cancellation of citizenship, and confiscation of all gross assets. It is not enough to simply outlaw certain government infringements of liberties as under the original Bill of Rights, as the Supreme Court is wont to fudge the boundaries – we must go further by criminalising any discussion of eroding liberties by government employees, including the President and Congress. This is not a violation of free speech, as public officials have no legitimate interest in advocating oppressive policies.

Of course private citizens, businessmen and employees would be totally exempt from this part of the First Amendment and thus free to advocate even bigoted or tyrannical policies, as being in the private sector they clearly do not have the power to aggress against liberties.

Michael Fisk

7 Mar 10 at 12:59 am
JM:

Sorry to sound alarmist about your almarmists but the first video I looked at was from the Roda Group a pressure group based in Berkley California. Berkley????

It’s an almarmist video with the least amount of science in there.

How random though that the minute “da” science looks like it’s in a spot of bother out comes the methane. lol.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:05 am
JM

YOu second link talks about methane under the artic waters. Are you honestly suggesting that is about to be released? Are you?

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:08 am
JM

Your third link is an excerpt of the second link. The piece basically discusses the instability of methane in the artic waters.

This has NOTHING to Do with global warming when reading it closely.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:12 am
JM

Your 4th link is again an excerpted link to the the second link.

Again no information is at hand to suggest the relative stability is due to global warming.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:14 am
I’m not moving to higher ground and I think you are scaring yourself half to death with scientific stories that are incomplete and at best preliminary findings that require much further study.

There is nothing in there that would concern me more than I was concerned before.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:16 am
Water’s bubbling somewhere.

Say your prayers.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:21 am
THR:

There were people that understood the problems associated with moral Hazard and the banking system. It appears the guy who wrote that piece understands even less.

At one stage he is suggesting that Thatcher’s positions were really no different to those of New labor.

This is preposterous.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:22 am
It’s amazing CL. This week alone I’ve read several references to problems with Methane gasses and AGW.

When the alarmists are in trouble out comes the methane in more ways than you’d care to think.

Even the IPCC wasn’t as brazenly dishonest.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:24 am
At one stage he is suggesting that Thatcher’s positions were really no different to those of New labor.

This is a pretty common position on the left. New Labour’s ‘third-wayism’ and Clinton’s liberalism are viewed as the continuation of policies initially implemented by Thatcher or Reagan. The author does not argue that social democracy is identical to neoliberalism, but rather, that the latter has, contrary to its rhetoric, brought about a ‘bloated market state’.

THR

7 Mar 10 at 1:25 am
Surely this guy is lying, right?.

No I don’t think he’s lying. I think he’s being honest and saying there actually isn’t a guarantee of the US banking system. He’s right.

The entire banking system was in trouble which made this issue a little redundant at the time.

Thinking about it now the US government should have guaranteed the payments system and allowed bankruptcy with the bond holders pushing their stakeholder position into equity. IT would have taken a few weeks but the banking system would have survived.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:30 am
JC: Are you honestly suggesting that is about to be released?

Yes, if you read the first link that’s what it says. These are non-linear processes, phase changes, tipping points if you like. They can happen quickly. What the story (and attached paper) indicates is that we may be seeing the start of it.

the minute “da” science looks like it’s in a spot of bother out comes the methane. lol.

Don’t laugh. This sort of release of methane is a feedback, not a primary source. If it happens we’re in a lot of trouble, for one thing there will be no time for adaptation.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 1:34 am
THR:

For the far left all the parties look similar. It might be a common position but it is grossly wrong.

The author is also bullshitting and doesn’t know much other than his own narrow social-democrat view. There have been several attempts by the right.. from Reagan to Thatcher to dislodge the welfare state once and to repair the welfare system and entitlements and on each occasion they have been thwarted by the left either through scare tactics of blocking the reform.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:40 am
What evidence do you have that it is about to be released, JM?

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:41 am
JC, Bolt featured a story this week about a warmenist with a unique angle on whaling. He said that dead whales usually drift to the bottom and act as carbon capture units and that the Japs are contributing to global warming by killing a few of them and hauling their carcasses away.

Dude called whales the “trees of the ocean.”

Honestly, warmenism is getting into the LSD zone.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:44 am
Do you want to bet on this outcome JM? Do you want set some parameters that this won’t happen.

IF it does, as you suggest then the money we bet is worthless, so from that perspective it wouldn’t be a bad bet as you sort of lose nothing if you’re wrong and would stand to a little if it weren’t true.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:46 am
There have been several attempts by the right.. from Reagan to Thatcher to dislodge the welfare state once and to repair the welfare system and entitlements and on each occasion they have been thwarted by the left either through scare tactics of blocking the reform.

The best example was Bill Clinton’s collaboration with the Republican opposition to cut welfare rolls in half. But Clinton wanted to keep the federal government solvent. Obama wants to destroy the US. Hence my proposal for amending the US Constitution (see above).

Michael Fisk

7 Mar 10 at 1:48 am
Honestly, warmenism is getting into the LSD zone.

The extreme part of it are. These are the very same people that also don’t support nuclear energy.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:49 am
JC: What evidence do you have that it is about to be released, JM?

The story I first linked to, the paper in Science Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (behind a paywall unfortunately) which shows methane venting across most (80%) of the area at about 8x normal, and in some places up to 250x.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 1:51 am
Wanted for grand larceny.

President Obama to appear on ‘America’s Most Wanted’.

What a classy presidency this is turning out to be.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:51 am
BURP!

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:54 am
LOL: BURP!

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:54 am
JC: Do you want to bet on this outcome JM?

In what timeframe? The arrival of conclusive proof via it actually happening, or would a consensus be good enough for you?

I prefer the latter, I want to make sure that the money I’ll get from you is actually worth something.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 1:56 am
JM

There have been period before when there was no permafrost over the that region.

It seems they are observing a phenomena that hasn’t been measured before this extensively and we have no real way to check its relativity to other times.

Your finding is pure fantasy speculation.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:57 am
Capitulation. They now admit they can’t call the weather for the following weeks and months.

After those ‘BBQ summer’ and ‘mild winter’ fiascos the Met Office admits defeat and cancels seasonal forecasts.

But a century hence? No problemo!

If you believe that, you probably also believe that killer methane bubbles portend the End of The World.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:59 am
Nope no consensus. You are saying that it will happen and happen fast. I would presume that the tipping point would occur over the next decade if you’re right.

The tipping point would be inescapable as we would see huge amounts of methane in the atmosphere and current out of control warming.

We could escrow.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 1:59 am
Nope no consensus.

So you want to see it happen before you pay up?

JM

7 Mar 10 at 2:03 am
So you want to see it happen before you pay up?

Which drugs are you on? Bet now, escrow the money and the payout is in a decade. How exactly is that looking back?

JC

7 Mar 10 at 2:06 am
Ok, Business As Usual, 10 years, methane emissions over East Siberia going up by more than 2%.* Escrow is not necessary.

* I’m basing this on the following comment:

The release to the atmosphere of only one percent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to 3 to 4 times,” Shakhova said. “The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict.”

I figure 1% versus 2% gives you a bit of leeway. Mind you, I think thats a bet you might lose because of this bit:

Methane levels throughout the Arctic are usually 8 to 10 percent higher than the global baseline. When they flew over the shelf, they found methane at levels another 5 to 10 percent higher than the already elevated arctic levels.

This stuff has been measured before JC. We could very easily be looking at something very unusual.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 2:23 am
THR

You have already showed you have not a clue what ‘liberalism’ of any stripe is, and let’s be honest, far-left people in general are hopelessly naive and/or uneducated and/or ignorant of the commercial world.

Peter Patton

7 Mar 10 at 2:31 am
So you want to see it happen before you pay up?

Fuck oath. Unless I come home and find a polar bear squatting in my deep freeze, you eco-freaks can kindly stuff your mouths with yellow snow and die.

Infidel Tiger

7 Mar 10 at 2:37 am
You have already showed you have not a clue what ‘liberalism’ of any stripe is

Rubbish. You’ve were caught with your hand on your chorizo on the other thread, pretending that Mill wasn’t racist, when he himself said that darkies need white mans’ ‘despotism’, as they were unfit for self-government. You’ve also decided that neoliberalism does not exist, which is fine, but you then insist on foisting this nonsense onto everybody else.

As for ignorance of the ‘commercial world’ – if one works in it, one can hardly be ignorant of it.

THR

7 Mar 10 at 2:37 am
Solid press conference by Geert Wilders in hostile territory:

http://www.breitbart.tv/wilders-islam-and-democracy-incompatible/

“I think we should stop the Islamization of our society…it is a violent and dangerous religion.”

Michael Fisk

7 Mar 10 at 6:07 am
Now if you believe this is all a scientific fraud, or a global conspiracy you can sleep tonight.

Otherwise, move to higher ground.

JM, I’m starting to think you and Steve from B are real estate agents on the high plains.

See my above comment for a less dramatic interpretation of this news:

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2010/03/06/open-forum-march-6-2010/comment-page-3/#comment-20731

dover_beach

7 Mar 10 at 8:17 am
Explain the bet, JM.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:32 am
JM

As far as I’m concerned, the bet is that methane emissions will cause the tipping point.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:48 am
Just be cause Krugman is a partisan hack doesn’t mean everything he writes is deceitful rubbish. Some of it is honestly believed rubbish and some of it is true.

On the dole extension he said this:

“In Mr. Kyl’s view, then, what we really need to worry about right now — with more than five unemployed workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression — is whether we’re reducing the incentive of the unemployed to find jobs. To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.”

To say that the particular circumstance Krugman is talking about implies a general disagreement with the statements in his own text book is rubbish. It is also descending to his level.

Who here thinks Krugman is wrong about the problems in the Euro-zone resulting from the Euro?

pedro

7 Mar 10 at 11:12 am
It’s not rubbish at all. It’s a plain, straight out contradiction.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 11:19 am
The ACTU launches an ad campaign against Tony Abbott:

“Tony Abbott will bring back Work Choices. He just won’t call it that,” a voiceover says.

Kevin Rudd’s Insulation Choices killed four people and ruined hundreds of workers’ homes and lives but the ACTU couldn’t care less.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 11:22 am
Guess how much Rudd blew on this thing.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 11:23 am
Pedro:

The Bunning or Kyle’s view is that the congress needs to conform with the laws (PayGo) it voted on on 6 months ago.

It is not to cut social security benefits for the unemployed. The lying sack of shit knows this of course however he didn’t discuss this point in his column for the obvious reason that he’s trying to score a win for the Demolition Party.

The problem with your thesis is that Krugman may not be lying all time time which is of course true. However when you see an intellectually corrupt column like this one you can never rely on anything he says as it has to be double checked and cross referenced as he lies and distorts at any opportunity.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 11:31 am
CL:

the ACTU ad is falling on deaf ears. They ought to save their money as the marginals aren’t listening to them and it’s only the diehards that are.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 11:33 am
A minor NHS detail.

Neglected by ‘lazy’ nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255858/Neglected-lazy-nurses-Kane-Gorny-22-dying-thirst-rang-police-beg-water.html#ixzz0hRnm1ddQ

JC

7 Mar 10 at 11:52 am
Lefties running schools watch:

Ionia kindergartner suspended for making gun with hand.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:22 pm
Andrew Lewis at Menzies House makes an interesting suggestion about restoring Whitlam’s original Australian honours system – whose epitomes were knighthoods and damehoods.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:45 pm
better:

…whose zenith was knighthoods and damehoods.

C.L.

7 Mar 10 at 1:47 pm
JM:

Let’s not forget about the bet.

Here’s what I’m thinking. The bet should be constructed on the basis that Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets disappear by 2020 as a result of runaway methane gases. If there’s one foot of ice in there hills I win. If there isn’t you take the pot.

This bet pretty much conforms with what you were telling us about the tipping point leading up to the final melt.

Hows that?

JC

7 Mar 10 at 6:31 pm
JM:

As I said earlier , this is really a one way bet for you. If you believe the story you were spinning us is true, the money you’re leaving in he pot is basically worthless crap anyway as there’s no way paper money will be worth the paper it’s printed on in the scenario you’re painting.

In other words you would be paying with what is essentially worthless money. If I lose that means the money is worth much more.

Either way you’re on a winner and I can’t see how you lose in this bet.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 6:34 pm
JC: As far as I’m concerned, the bet is that methane emissions will cause the tipping point.

Well I’m not sure how to structure the bet in that case. If you want to see the tipping point happen, and you want to bet it won’t happen within a set timeframe, then I’m a bit lost.

First, neither of us can bet on a timeframe because we have no idea when it might occur – that’s why it’s called a tipping point.

Second, if the tipping point were to actually occur in any timeframe we agreed on, I could never collect.

On the other hand if you want to bet that the tipping point doesn’t exist at all, we’ll have to bet against a scientific consensus emerging that there is one.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 8:24 pm
Jm

Not for nothing but you were the one that suggested there was a tipping point because of the methane release.

A decade seems to be enough time for your theory to work out, so I thing the bet is a good one. You lose both sides of the bet I might add.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 8:28 pm
Sorry, JC I only just saw your two most recent comments – I drafted my comment at 8:24pm about 3 hours ago, but got distracted and didn’t post it.

It’s not true that the money having value zero in 2020 means I’m on a winner – I don’t have the use of my stake in the meantime.

In other words you would be paying with what is essentially worthless money. If I lose that means the money is worth much more.

I think you’ve got that the wrong way round haven’t you? If I lose, I’m paying with real money; if you lose you’re paying zero.

(In any case I don’t think the odds of a tipping point before 2020 are high enough for even stakes)

JM

7 Mar 10 at 8:31 pm
WHAT?! Rudd spent 930k on THAT puny little mobile classroom? Oh my God, he’s an idiot. I’m sorry I ever overestimated his intelligence. Somebody just put this dude out of his misery please.

Michael Fisk

7 Mar 10 at 8:40 pm
By the way, those Lefties who are always salivating and dry-humping the armchair about IIIIINNNNFRAAAASSSTRUUCCTURRE!!! (*slurp*) can stick that 931,000 dollar dog kennel in their pipe and smoke it. I’m fuckin’ angry now. This is criminal.

Michael Fisk

7 Mar 10 at 8:45 pm
Further proof of Australia’s racism. Murdered Indian child murdered by… Indian.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/man-charged-over-gurshans-death-20100307-pq2w.html

Infidel Tiger

7 Mar 10 at 9:17 pm
I don’t think anybody claimed that the death of this boy was racist. Even the Indian newspapers toned down their usual reporting. There was a recent study of attacks on Indians, and I think it concluded that 1 in 7 were accompanied by racist remarks and the like.

THR

7 Mar 10 at 9:20 pm
JM:

If I win/you lose the world is saved… You win in a way.

But yes that right , you win you end up with carp mullah.

As for evens, you’re the one predicting fast warming not me.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:14 pm
oops crap..

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:21 pm
This man has besmirched the position of PM:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/rudd-gets-fighting-fit-for-election-year/story-e6freuy9-1225837734548

“While his approach to his fitness is low-key, he watches closely what he eats and has cut fatty foods from his diet.

On a Brisbane-Sydney flight last week, he passed up chicken and lamb cutlets for a vegetarian sandwich and a cup of coffee.”

Abhorrent.

Infidel Tiger

7 Mar 10 at 10:30 pm
JC what I actually said was that the methane feedback scares people.

It’s hypothesized that it is the explanation of a major extinction event where around 90% of life on earth was destroyed and also ta sudden and otherwise unexplained rise in temperature of around 6C around 55M years ago where there was another period of rapid extinction and massive change in lifeforms.

People often accuse Hanson of being an alarmist, but they don’t actually listen to what he’s saying. Methane release is the feedback that causes him to lose sleep, and it’s definitely not a totally absurd hypothesis.

There’s a lot of active research in this area and I think a reasonable chance of papers appearing in Science or Nature proving it one way or the other within 10 years.

BTW this is why I accuse Lubos of being deranged. A 13C global temperature rise would very probably cause release of the methane in permafrost but also possibly the deep ocean stuff. Simple chemistry shows that stuff becomes unstable with those sorts of temperature increases.

That’s leaving aside that 13C would destroy the southeast Asian rice bowl, and we all know what happens in China when the price of rice goes up.

JM

7 Mar 10 at 10:36 pm
He’s been eating shit sandwiches for several weeks now, so I’m not surprised he’s getting stuck into that crap

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:37 pm
JM:

look I’m not a sceptic, I think AGW is a pretty big damned long term problem.

However I don’t think the way to go about is to increase the cost of energy. The way to do is to get to where we can produce energy at a cheaper cost than coal. We can achieve that with reasonable time to spare if people start giving nuclear power a chance and do it now.

To be perfectly honest it was the environmental movement that really stopped nuclear power dead in its tracks otherwise I really believe the US would be 90% nuclear by now and the technology much more advanced.

IF the far northern latitudes look like they’re going to boil we could as a last resort explode a few nuclear bombs up there and that ought to keep it cool for a while.

JC

7 Mar 10 at 10:44 pm
Recent revelations about the “racist” attacks on Indians hoax do make the “racism panic” merchants look even siller.

Peter Patton

7 Mar 10 at 10:55 pm
Hanson has been saying that for years, not just the last few weeks.

Ok, so if burning fossil fuels like coal contains an uncosted externality (climatic effects) how are alternatives supposed to supply at a lower cost when they bear all their production costs, but coal doesn’t?

And as I’ve always said, if anyone can get nuclear going without massive government subsidy (largely through taking the downstream risks off the industry) I’ve no problem with it at all.

(Apart from the minor point that world supplies of uranium won’t last for very long after full conversion to nuclear. Fusion looks just as hopeless as ever.)

Exploding nuclear bombs – ie. primitive geoengineering – is unlikely to work. Aerosols don’t stay in the atmosphere for very long, months or a couple of years at best, CO2 does. (Methane’s a bit nicer in this respect, it hangs around for about 7 years)

JM

7 Mar 10 at 10:58 pm
JM:

Coal has been “uncosted” because it’s benefits have been monumental and the externalities at this stage- even at this stage have been positive. Even another 1 degree of warming would be positive for the world. So lets not start pretending the burning coal has been a net negative to us as it hasn’t.

The problem of course are the potential impacts further down the line.

It’s pretty disingenuous of you to suggest you want to nuclear power industry to survive off subsidies while you remain quite about the subsidy whores such as wind and solar that can only provide transient energy.

How about this proposition. Don’t subsidize any of them and most certainly don’t hobble nuclear to the point where it simply cannot compete because of burdensome regulations.

Impose a zero emissions policy…instead of pricing carbon and then introduce it over a period of say 30-50 years on a graduated basis.
However such a policy has to be honest. it has to allow nuclear to develop unimpeded by sandal wearing anti-science freaks.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 12:10 am
“While his approach to his fitness is low-key, he watches closely what he eats and has cut fatty foods from his diet.

On a Brisbane-Sydney flight last week, he passed up chicken and lamb cutlets for a vegetarian sandwich and a cup of coffee.”

I have less problem with people being vegetarians for ethical reasons than fitness reasons because the latter are simply being irrational dunderheads. A ‘vegetarian’ diet is usually a diet high in processed carbs for taste unless one is content to eat leaves all one’s life and that is worse for physique and overall fitness than good old fashioned meat. The leanest people on earth are hunter gatherers and they don’t eat a modern ‘vegetarian’ lifestyle.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/02/26/cavemen-who-walk-among-us/

Animal fat-phobia is also utterly misguided, especially for males. Guess what is used to produce testosterone? Cholesterol. A low fat diet literally turns men into sissies.

Jason Soon

8 Mar 10 at 12:25 am
Even another 1 degree of warming would be positive for the world.

That’s a kind of dubious proposition, care to outline how? And if you really think burning coal is a net benefit why don’t we increase it?

Tell you what, let’s combine these “benefits” with aerosol cooling. Terminate the Acid Raid Program, repeal the Clean Air Act and reintroduce 19thC coal fired industry.

Dirt cheap, with the side benefit of plenty of soot to offset the CO2 effects.

you want to nuclear power industry to survive off subsidies while you remain quite about the subsidy whores such as wind and solar that can only provide transient energy.

Show me an existing nuclear industry that doesn’t rely on massive subsidy and risk shifting.

Show me a coal industry that doesn’t survive on uncosted externalities If those externalities were priced in to coal then nuclear could (possibly) stand on its own two feet.

Lastly the “transient energy” thing we’ll have to leave for later as it’s a bit more complicated.

JM

8 Mar 10 at 12:32 am
The Insiders panel this morning discussing Kevin Rudd:

“The problems are not with the way he [Kevin Rudd] identifies them. They’re nothing to do with him having to work harder, they’re nothing to do really with communication skills. They’re all to do with the fact that he, in many cases, is a very bad policy maker, and he thinks he’s a genius.”
- Brian Toohey

So much of what he says is about “I have to lift my game, I have to do more”. You sometimes think that Kevin Rudd does think he is the government. Everyone talks about how much of a control freak he is, but all he is doing is reinforcing this image that that is what happens.
- Laura Tingle

Capitalist Piggy

8 Mar 10 at 12:41 am
That’s a kind of dubious proposition, care to outline how?

Ask Richard Tol. He’s actually spent time working through science papers and figuring a cost benefit analysis what various degrees of warming would look like. According to him, if we stopped at 1% world GDP would enjoy an additional flip. It’s beyond those rates of warming which is also dependent on the rate of a change that would adversely affect people.

The trouble with your analysis, JM is that you only think of costs and not benefits too that ought be taken into account. 1 degree of warming would further open up the tundra in Canada for instance and who knows why sort of goodies are there. That’s just an example by the way.

And if you really think burning coal is a net benefit why don’t we increase it?

No, I said coal burning has been a monumental boon to humanity. I didn’t suggest it will in the future or that we can build new coal plants on every street corner. Read what I say. I say this unequivocally: coal burning has been an absolute godsend to humanity and you ought to thank your lucky stars it happened during the time you’re were alive to enjoy its benefits.

Tell you what, let’s combine these “benefits” with aerosol cooling. Terminate the Acid Raid Program, repeal the Clean Air Act and reintroduce 19thC coal fired industry.

You’re obviously being silly because you misread my earlier comment.

Dirt cheap, with the side benefit of plenty of soot to offset the CO2 effects.

Yep, it’s dirt-cheap and it’s been great. But perhaps now is a time to think about how else we can produce abundant energy at a cheaper rate than coal thereby scrapping that form of technology for something far superior that doesn’t produce emissions.

Show me an existing nuclear industry that doesn’t rely on massive subsidy and risk shifting.

I can’t because it doesn’t exist. The zealots almost regulated it almost out of extinction. I recall energy bills in Long Island were the second highest after California because the environmental loons forced the scrapping of a plant and the charge pushed back on the consumer.

Show me a coal industry that doesn’t survive on uncosted externalities If those externalities were priced in to coal then nuclear could (possibly) stand on its own two feet.

There you go again talking about externalities. It’s the most abused economic term in the dictionary. Nearly all externality studies are an incredibly difficult thing. There are all sorts of trade offs etc that need to be worked out. You can’t just go and determine coal had an externality without giving proper recognition to the benefits side.

What are the benefits? Well how about industrialized civilization? You think that’s been beneficial or not so much?

Lastly the “transient energy” thing we’ll have to leave for later as it’s a bit more complicated.

There’s nothing complicated about the fact that the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow at optimum all the time. Storage at our technological level is potentially feasible scientifically however it’s about as economically feasible as painting each car with gold. These two are subsidy whores that will never work as they are dilute forms of energy with serious engineering limitations and economic indivisibly problems. In other words they are complete crap and the faster that people understand this the better, as it will save lots of scarce money and resources. They aren’t really cheap, do little to optimize energy flow into the grid and are basically fucking as useless as an old tit on an old bull.

Don’t even try to get me started on these two wacko technologies and I use that word advisedly as you will lose the argument. Don’t even go there as the mere thought of that shit gets me really, really angry.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:01 am
I saw that insiders program. Toohey is right. The piddly, little former bureaucrat really thinks he’s a genius when he’s anything but. He’s a total clown.

He’s really like the terrible boss at work who doesn’t know shit and is only playing political games. Eventually these sorts of turds get found out and they go down pretty quickly.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:04 am
According to [Richard Tol], if we stopped at 1% (sic, I think you mean C) world GDP would enjoy an additional flip. It’s beyond those rates of warming which is also dependent on the rate of a change that would adversely affect people.

I haven’t looked, but I will. If we accept 1C for the moment there’s estimated to be about 0.5C in the pipeline so we have to start winding down now. The IPCC estimates 2C by 2100 which doesn’t sound good even on Tol’s analysis.

We’ll have to talk later about solar and wind, it’s all down to what you understand by baseload and whether they can be scaled up. It looks like wind is, and solar can. But I’d be looking at geothermal with nuclear as a bridge.

JM

8 Mar 10 at 1:15 am
I’m not suggesting there was any empirical evidence Tol suggested that warming would stop at 1 degree. I was trying to explain that he gave various economic scenarios at different levels of warming and the effects it would have on GDP. He wasn’t making any scientific prediction.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:22 am
JC the historical benefits of coal are a pure contingency. We wouldn’t be where we are without them, but we can’t even guess if we would have been in a similar place without them either – probably not on the same timescale, maybe a longer one, maybe not, maybe we would still be in a Malthusian economy.

I can’t say, neither can you.

As for the nuclear industry, you’re eliding that the regulations were imposed on it because of repeated safety failures – it’s only got a chance of a comeback because now it can say “well that was then, this is now”. Without regulation it wouldn’t be able to say that.

JM

8 Mar 10 at 1:24 am
I’m not suggesting there was any empirical evidence Tol suggested that warming would stop at 1 degree.

Neither was I. I took your comment to mean that he says so long as warming wasn’t greater than 1C it would be beneficial, but that more wouldn’t be a good thing.

JM

8 Mar 10 at 1:26 am
We wouldn’t be where we are without them, but we can’t even guess if we would have been in a similar place without them either – probably not on the same timescale, maybe a longer one, maybe not, maybe we would still be in a Malthusian economy.

We never were in a Malthusian economy as human numbers and progress has always been dependent of technology. That applies even in earlier times, although the rate of GDP growth was always miniscule without the introduction of the steam engine and other good things that came out of the industrial revolution, with the effect of greatly speeding up economic growth.

Malthus was wrong and his contemporaries gave him a huge smacking. Others invalidated his numerical workings-out and after he saw the smack downs he stayed silent.

I can’t say, neither can you.

Actually I can, as there has been no other technology that could compete with coal otherwise it would have shown up. I would except nuclear from that statement, as that technology promising so much was almost obliterated by the anti science environmental zealots and various strands of bedwetters.

As for the nuclear industry, you’re eliding that the regulations were imposed on it because of repeated safety failures – it’s only got a chance of a comeback because now it can say “well that was then, this is now”.

There were no “repeated failures. Only successes. On a kilowatt basis Western nuclear power stations have been safer than lying in bed. Lying in bed with a cig has caused lots of deaths.

Without regulation it wouldn’t be able to say that.

Yes I can, because regulatory zeal primarily fostered by the anti-science left almost killed it.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:47 am
Glenn Milne has a leaked email from a public service whistleblower on Rudd’s insulation disaster.

If you care to read that paragraph again, I put it to you that was the one that killed four young Australians and despite the opprobrium Garrett suffered it was Rudd who behind the scenes was pushing an under-resourced bureaucracy to implement a program that was meant to get Rudd good headlines about his swift and timely response to he global financial crisis.

The environmental bonuses were just as much tosh. As were the lives of the four kids just trying to make a buck.

I hope the families of the four dead boys are reading this. Better still I’m hoping Rudd knows they are. Now we know why, of course, Garrett was not sacked. To do so would have put him outside the tent, where he would have been free to expand much more greatly on the Prime Minister’s hitherto covert role in this deadly disarray that now potentially affects at least one million people’s homes.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 2:05 am
We never were in a Malthusian economy

We can argue about that later, there are modern analyses that suggest we used to be until we found nearly free energy.

there has been no other technology that could compete with coal

So why didn’t the industrial revolution happen 2000 years ago? There was a time, prior to the 20thC, when coal could be found in rocky outcrops and oil by poking a stick in the ground (or Beverly Hillbillies style by “shootin’ at some food”). Since it was freely available for so long, why was it only the 18th and 19th centuries that saw it take off?

Of course, it’s contingent, don’t be silly.

There were no “repeated failures.

C’mon. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and heaps of other small scale accidents and near accidents; and now the industry keeps saying “we don’t build reactors like that anymore, we’ve got the new improved ones”.

JM

8 Mar 10 at 2:07 am
Tim Blair with the headline of the day:

Warmists overwhelmed by fear, panic and deranged hatred as their ‘science’ collapses.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 2:19 am
The racist New York Times – house organ of the formerly KKK-aligned Democrat Party – argues that blacks can’t get a fair shake if they’re expected to score well in tests:

Victims of employment discrimination are increasingly finding the courthouse door closed, as conservative judges twist the law to throw out civil rights suits on technicalities. The Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in a discrimination case that African-American applicants to the Chicago Fire Department won on the merits only to have the suit thrown out on the ground that they had complained too late.

Chicago administered a test for firefighters in a way that discriminated against blacks. Instead of designating anyone scoring above 65 — the passing grade — as “qualified,” it adopted a second benchmark of 89 and decided to hire only from this “well qualified” category.

Hiring the best candidates available is now “discrimination” – well, yes it is – using the word in its former sense – and negros (as Harry Reid calls them) cannot pass muster.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 2:28 am
Did anyone catch the 60 Minutes profile of Abbott last night? I was half watching it, and noted the following:

* he really must think the speedos are a vote winner, as they featured prominently in circumstances (swimming and being interviewed around his own pool) where he could have chosen something else
* I didn’t really get that good an impression of his wife (not that this matters one way or another). She gave the impression that Tony is more of a pest at home than a help.
* There was one good question: wasn’t his treatment of Garrett in parliament too harsh, considering Garrett’s mother died in a house fire. Abbott’s answer (saying the problem was Garrett wasn’t showing remorse, even if he felt it) seemed a bit glib to me.
* Abbott’s answer about how does he feel about homosexual people (laughingly saying he probably feels a bit threatened by them) will provide much amateur psychoanalysing at LP.

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1020354

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 8:33 am
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/05/2837591.htm?section=justin

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 8:46 am
C’mon. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and heaps of other small scale accidents and near accidents; and now the industry keeps saying “we don’t build reactors like that anymore, we’ve got the new improved ones”.
.
There were plenty of accidents in the early days of human flight; and indeed there is still the occasional disaster, but we live with it. Nobody’s trying to ban commercial airlines. I don’t see why nuclear should be any different.
Incidentally, JM, do you know how many people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster? (Socratic question alert)

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 9:07 am
Recent Pentagon gunman had same obsessions as Bird!

He must be leading a revolutionary cell

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-05/the-crazy-gunman-who-attacked-the-pentagon/

In his online musings that have already been made public, the gunman refers to the “demolition” of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, a key assertion of 9/11 “Truther” conspiracy theories. In the Truthers’ view, the twin towers were brought down by implanted explosives placed there by government agents representing the “new world order”—not al Qaeda-hijacked airplanes

Bedell also appears to associate himself with the extreme edge of “End the Fed” efforts, the work of libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises, and calls for a return to constitutional purity, specifically with regard to states’ rights.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 9:07 am
Pentagon gunman advocated a monetary system based on pot. Nice variation on Bird’s idea of using carbon nanorods and liquiefied coal as currency

http://www.bazpedia.com/en/j/p/a/User~JPatrickBedell_18fb.html

One desired result of my effort is (will be) billions and billions of carefully cultivated, highly valuable cannabis plants growing throughout the United States with complete security of property. I have posted the image to the right in order to illustrate the use of cannabis as a monetary system using digital financial instruments. There are two information currency units in each of the PDF417 codes pictured. One of the information currency units is drawn from a series with “one gram cannabis” with the underlying asset, and the second ICU in each code has as its underlying asset the URL http://www.mises.org/humanaction/pdf/humanaction.pdf and the SHA-1 digest value of the file at that location (fd8205cb8b4793d43b57ba6f6c7367aa700c307a). This is a way of associating the work of Ludwig von Mises with financial value, which may be a tool to implement his ideas in reality. I hope someday to see full-reserve banking and observance of Article One, Section 10 of the US Constitution.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 9:13 am
Brilliant article by michael Crichton on humans and the environment… some of you may have read it before.

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 9:17 am
* he really must think the speedos are a vote winner, as they featured prominently in circumstances (swimming and being interviewed around his own pool) where he could have chosen something else
.
Boardies? They came in long after his youth. My take is that he’s wearing what he’s used to wearing, even though it’s a bit unfashionable. “choosing something else” would be the fake option.

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 9:19 am
Yes, Crichton was truly a brilliant. He was lost too early in life.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 9:35 am
Quadrant is obviously ‘watching’ LP

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2010/03/culture-catcher-22

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 9:40 am
DD: I knew that “he’s just being genuine” argument would be someone’s response, and I can understand it for the swimming in the pool bit. But it doesn’t take too much to wrap a towel around yourself (or put on a pair of boardies) for a poolside interview.

I want to make it clear: this is all minor stuff in the scheme of things. It’s just very lightweight observations.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 9:44 am
“C’mon. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and heaps of other small scale accidents and near accidents; and now the industry keeps saying “we don’t build reactors like that anymore, we’ve got the new improved ones”.”

That is because they don’t. Three mile island happened when? Chernobyl was due to the shitty USSR manufacturing system.

Society will never really make another big advance unless we can up our enegry consumption many times over cheaply. This is why nuclear is needed. We’re also more likely to get people working on fusion if a nuclear industry exists.

Semi Regular Libertarian

8 Mar 10 at 9:51 am
Hilarious. So Quadrant seems to be talking about the same intellectual deformities at LP we pick up here… the old gang
Hal, Mecurious, Trotsky etc. To name but only a few.

Someone ought to tell Quadrant that Trotsky is a complete sook who cries at the crop of a hat. Bird used always make him cry.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 9:51 am
There was an interesting profile of Ian Plimer in the magazine section of the SMH on the weekend. I don’t think there’s a link to it though…

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 10:04 am
Steve:

In your book who’s worse, the reprobates at LP or Plimer?

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:29 am
I like this one that Quadrant picked up by Hal:

There are four possibilities [about Bob Carter], Brian, albeit not necessarily mutually eclusive: crook, liar, fool or madman. If we allow that his academic career is evidence ruling out the fool option, the only guilt-free option is madman. Come to think of it, why else would an academic spend his retirement lecturing, as 4 Corners showed, the Barnaby Joyce fan club in regional RSLs across regional Australia?

Quadrant obviously isn’t aware that Brian has been frightening the shit out of himself with swirling water and meteors stories for ages. Hal is talking about someone else’s mental health to Brian.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:33 am
One very telling revelation from that Quadrant piece, and the response to it, is the presumption that because Quadrant in ‘old media’ – the MSM – it is more powerful than ‘new media’ such as blogs.

I have seen these sorts of blogs often cheer that the number of people who read their blogs is many multiples of those who buy The Oz – let alone a tiny backyard publication like Quadrant. So I’m a bit concerned about the cognitive dissonance required to now see themselves as the victim, being bullied by the Quadrant MSM Goliath!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 10:42 am
I think we need to psycho-analyse you, Steve. You seem to be wrestling with some homo-erotic issues with Tony Abbott’s swimwear.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 10:45 am
Some of the stuff in Quadrant is actually pretty good, Peter. I don’t really go for the poems and the short story stuff as I’ve never been able to get my head into fiction or poetry crap. However the other stuff is pretty good.

They really have decent writers at times who know how to really get stuck into lefties and leave the daggers hanging in the wound.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:47 am
Three Mile Island? Rudd’s warmenist-inspired insulation debacle killed more people.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 10:48 am
“Come to think of it, why else would an academic spend his retirement lecturing”

What a stupid question.

Semi Regular Libertarian

8 Mar 10 at 10:53 am
Hives Hamilton on another whinge.

This time I have to say I sympathise with him about mobile phone talkers. I have stood in front of people who were basically shouting into my ear while they were on their damned mobiles. I detest the damned things and refuse to have an extended talk on them unless stationary.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/kick-back-and-endure-being-bored-and-uncomfortable-20100307-pqhz.html

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 10:56 am
lol

That should be the Libs ad.

Rudd’s insulation debacle killed more people that Three Mile Island.

———–

I’m really freaking concerned this deplorable numb nut is taking us to financial hell. He can’t even organize sticking cotton wool on people’s roofs without catching on fire or electrocuting people and now he’s talking about a hospital takeover and spending 43 billion of a fiber wire.

I hope there is adult supervision in the PM’s office.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:57 am
Speaking of Malthus, a good take-down and reminder re the record of serial kook, fraud and (of course) “climate change” bed-wetter, Paul Ehrlich.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 11:01 am
JC

Oh, I don’t doubt it. My point was merely that it is a bit rich for these large blogs to crow about their readership and ‘player’ status, then burst into tears they are being bullied by a mag they dismiss as small fry.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 11:04 am
…then burst into tears they are being bullied by a mag they dismiss as small fry.

They’re wimps. What else do you expect?

Definition:

wimp |wimp| informal
noun
a weak and cowardly or unadventurous person.

Yea that’s about right.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 11:07 am
CL, last week you thought people following Bird implied homo-erotic interest, which (given his apparent appearance) is the biggest stretch ever. Bigger than the bulge in Tony’s speedos even. (Last comment designed to provide you with fodder for years of word twisting, as is your wont.)

If you ask me, the images from last week indicate that Abbott is probably overplaying the Putin/Bear Grills thing now, with the risk that people are getting a bit cynical about the PR image game.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 11:12 am
So Abbot is just faking being in the lifesaving society?

Semi Regular Libertarian

8 Mar 10 at 11:13 am
Lefties talk, righties do

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/opinion/a-true-believer-in-the-community/story-e6frgd0x-1225830656446

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 11:16 am
CL, last week you thought people following Bird implied homo-erotic interest…

No, I mocked BirdLab alone for his obsession with Bird. At least you haven’t changed your moniker to AbbottBulge or AbbottEyes but that does seem imminent considering your new obsession.

I don’t “twist” people’s words, by the way. I simply quote them – with links. It has always amused me how this annoys people. You, for example, last year predicted that the electorate would blame Nick Minchin for the summer weather in summer. That was pretty daffy and definitely worth quoting.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 11:19 am
Anyone caught the pilot of the remake of V last night?

I thought it was pretty creepy and well done. Definitely looks like there’s a pointed allusion to Obama in there. The aliens even start offering universal health care!

For Firefly fans, that actress who played the courtesan in Firefly plays one of the alien leaders.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 11:22 am
“I simply quote them – with links.”

Except when the previous posts have disappeared, and you are free to twist at will.

Jason: I generally agree with the sentiment “lefties talk; righties do”. The majority of “Righties” at the moment, however, are inclined to “do” nothing about CO2, which presents a significant problem as to who I am supposed to support electorally.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 11:48 am
Steve

I really can’t get too excited about the ETS issue anymore now that Copenhagen is dead in the water. I was on the pro-ETS side previously before when I thought something was going to be agreed upon in Copenhagen and a market based instrument, howerver badly designed, was superior to the alternative. Now that the world is flailing about Australia really can do little about AGW on its own. Pragmatists now how to change their tactics as the situation changes.

The main benefit now from having an ETS is if the worst predictions come through and Australia is far ahead in being set up for a zero carbon emissions economy than other countries and so the dislocation of any drastic multilateral solutions imposed then will be minimised.

I suspect what will happen is we will keep muddling through till something happens in which case the world will try throwing money at alternative energy or shooting SO2 into the atmosphere.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 11:57 am
Me
“there has been no other technology that could compete with coal”

JM
“So why didn’t the industrial revolution happen 2000 years ago?”

It took that long to compound our knowledge. It takes a long time to go from hunter gatherer to industrial civilization with our IQ level and everything that goes into the mix including the accidental mix and interplay of human evolution that caused a bunch of Anglos to go for it.

<There was a time, prior to the 20thC, when coal could be found in rocky outcrops and oil by poking a stick in the ground (or Beverly Hillbillies style by “shootin’ at some food”). Since it was freely available for so long, why was it only the 18th and 19th centuries that saw it take off?
Of course, it’s contingent, don’t be silly.

I’m not being silly, you are. It’s all to do with timing, accident of birth, capital accumulation, social acceptance of industrialization. This combination of events happen a great deal by fate and chance

Me
There were no “repeated failures.

C’mon. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and heaps of other small-scale accidents and near accidents; and now the industry keeps saying “we don’t build reactors like that anymore, we’ve got the new improved ones”.

Please, JM. Stop the bedwetting. Nuclear is actually the safest form of energy production we know off.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 12:03 pm
The aliens even start offering universal health care!

hahahahahhahaha

JC

8 Mar 10 at 12:06 pm
There was a time, prior to the 20thC, when coal could be found in rocky outcrops and oil by poking a stick in the ground (or Beverly Hillbillies style by “shootin’ at some food”). Since it was freely available for so long, why was it only the 18th and 19th centuries that saw it take off?
.
Yes, I also failed to understand JM’s point here. No doubt papyrus was growing in the Nile for many years before some long-forgotten Egyptian genius decided to turn it into paper. Resources lie around in plain sight until we figure out how to use them.

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 12:08 pm
Daddy:

JM seems to think we’ll be able to produce enough energy with wind and solar.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 12:10 pm
I agree with jtfsoon on AGW and the ETS. The only debate that is really relevant in Australia is how we prepare ourselves to buy into whatever policy consensus is reached multilaterally, which in reality means what negotiated agreement is reached between China and the US. To that end, Australia should use whatever diplomatic influence/capital/muscle it has to be part of the Chinese and US negotiating positions. All the other noise beyond that is just farts in a hurricane.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 12:12 pm
dd

I don’t know how much of the US you have seen, but one sight that never failed to astound me was a single oil derrick periodically appearing on the side of the road as one drove about.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 12:15 pm
The US is going to do jack squat over emissions from a cap and trade point of view. That’s why brother Obama has nicely tilted his policy towards nuclear.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 12:16 pm
And therefore all the gum-flapping in Australia to the contrary is truly noxious CO2 emitting!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 12:28 pm
hahaha, Bob is still at it, now giving us his mini life story

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2829332.htm#comments

Bob Ellis :
06 Mar 2010 6:04:36am
No. As I said below, I have Jewish ancestry, am historically bisexual, an Obama tragic, would like to see Maxine (not Gillard) PM, believe killing Muslim children is wrong, hate the oppression of Muslim women, think Canada’s terrific and worry about nations that don’t play cricket. Kerr’s bisexuality meant he could be blackmailed by the CIA into sacking Whitlam, mine is less relevant. Any bigotry here so far? How dare you. Don’t you understand bigots are stupid? Please quote one sentence of mine that is either. Do it now.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 12:32 pm
One of the issues that seems to have gone missing in action in respect of the health and hospital debate is the interaction between what goes on outside hospitals and hospital admissions. Where is the analysis that “outside” spending – eg. on better primary care, aged care could actually reduce admissions to hospital. There also seems to be little acknowlegement that ‘activity based’ funding can have perverse effect of driving up unnecessary activity and thereby drive up hospital costs. It is not factually correct to assume excess demand for hospital admissions everywhere and all the time. The fact that Victoria choses to block-fund some 40 small regional hospitals is also a point that has been under-appreciated.

Judith

8 Mar 10 at 12:47 pm
It’s sad to say, but Abbott may have just lost my vote:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/business-to-pay-for-abbotts-paid-parental-leave-plan/story-e6frgczf-1225838194179

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 1:00 pm
You know you’re on a loser when Bird is defensing you like he’s defending Ellis.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:16 pm
I hadn’t intended to vote for them anyway, but this is just showing that he might be turning into a male Germaine Greer!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 1:18 pm
more performance art that Susan Sarandon would enjoy

http://gothamist.com/2010/03/01/ps1_censors_performance_art.php

At the event Saturday night, artist Ann Liv Young criticized the performance of Georgia Sagri, who was on before her. According to one report from an audience member, “she viciously insulted Georgia, peed in a bowl, stripped, masturbated… and got into a shouting match with several people in the audience,” including Sagri—who left the room when Young began masturbating in front of her (so 1972). Sagri later came back and gave the artist the finger—and sometime after this incident the museum decided to cut the power. Left without lights or a working mic, Young allegedly finished up her performance by simply pouring the aforementioned bucket of urine over herself

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 1:18 pm
More on the ‘artist’

http://www.revelinnewyork.com/videos/ann-liv-young

On stage, Ann Liv Young has rolled around in her dog’s ashes, had sex with her co-stars, covered herself in blood, drank urine and attacked a PETA activist. Off stage, she has given the audience lap dances and ridiculed her own cast for fucking up during a performance

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 1:21 pm
Young allegedly finished up her performance by simply pouring the aforementioned bucket of urine over herself

Susan would have been annoyed the urine wasn’t poured over her.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:22 pm
Where is that going to leave you, Fleeced? You won’t vote for Labor because of the Internet filter, won’t vote for the Coalition because of the parental leave, won’t vote LDP because aparently we are crypto-carbon-taxers. I’m presuming the Greens are out, Christian Democrats & Family First are for the filter too…

Might be the Sex Party for you…

Tim Quilty

8 Mar 10 at 1:22 pm
…. and attacked a PETA activist.

I would have lied to see that part of the performance.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:23 pm
Fleeced

Don’t worry, if Humphreys gets a seat he’ll smack that shit out of him.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:24 pm
Tim, never said I wouldn’t vote LDP – just that I couldn’t be bothered being a member anymore…

This isn’t a mere compromise on maternity leave (which I was expecting), he seems to be saying the business will taxed and that the maternity amount will be relative to their salary (though the article says, “more to come” – we’ll see where it goes)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 1:32 pm
Anyone caught the pilot of the remake of V last night?

Yeah, I decided to tune in. It was pretty good.

It was amusing that universal health care is the carrot the aliens and their cultists are using to seduce people. I almost expected Anna to say she’d come to stop the Blame Game.

Morena Baccarin is even hotter when she lets her hair down, by the way.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 1:33 pm
I thought you just like the fat chicks, CL. What happened?

JC

8 Mar 10 at 1:35 pm
Actually, it looks like the story has been updated since I posted the link…

The new tax will $2.7b from “the 3200 biggest companies”, and with baby-bonus rolled in, will fund 26 weeks paid leave “at an annual income up to $150,000 for every woman who is in the workforce prior to having a baby”

High-class welfare, bureaucratic nightmare, and sucking $2.7b out of business – so much for campaigning on “Say no to a big new tax”.

The whole “tax on big business” is an ALP thing, isn’t it? Wasn’t the complaint about the ETS that it would simply pass it onto customers?

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 1:37 pm
Why is Abbott calling it “parental leave” rather than maternity leave?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 1:38 pm
Not fat, JC. Curvaceous. But I pretty much like all types and flavours of chicks.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 1:39 pm
Morena Baccarin will certainly have a life-long invitation to sci-fi conventions if her career flops. From the lovable whore in Serenity/Firefly, to the villainous Adriana in SG-1 – and now the arch-villain in the new V series.

The V series isn’t too bad. I didn’t watch last night – rather some time ago… but their talked a lot of “hope” as well. Did make me think of the Obama campaign.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 1:46 pm
Morena Baccarin will certainly have a life-long invitation to sci-fi conventions if her career flops.

And I’m sure a gal of her calibre will be so grateful for the social networking opportunities this presents

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 1:57 pm
Hehehe… indeed! I always feel sorry for sci-fi actors who end up at these things. I guess if they’re getting paid, they can’t complain, but quite often it’s a promotional tie-in, so they don’t.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:01 pm
Fleeced ignore the little things like that . As I said Humphreys will beat that crap out of him.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:02 pm
JC

Humphreys is not a miracle worker.

Based on what he wrote in Battlelines and a talk he gave a while ago in the CIS I think Abbott genuinely believes in this stuff and it isn’t just a way of getting the LP vote.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 2:04 pm
Here I was saying that LP would be psychoanalysing Abbott’s “feeling threatened” by homosexuals, but Andrew Bolt has gone there first.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_does_abbott_fear_they_might_do_to_him/

How amusing.

By the way, CL, how do you feel about Abbott explicitly taking the Clinton line on abortion? Must rub you up the wrong way at least a little bit?

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 2:08 pm
Can we go back to the drought please.

I saw hail as big as golf and tennis balls hitting the ground the other day. I was kind of getting used to the dry conditions.

I’m a global warming victim, as our top floor got flooded as a result of the roof drain getting blocked with hail and not letting the water through.

The insurance quote is going to be interesting.

There’s all these services I never knew existed. All these dudes with businesses drying shit out.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:09 pm
A woman on $150k a year can get $75k in welfare and six months off, if she has a kid. That’s my reading of the policy, anyway (full maternity leave up to 150k is what he said)

The only hope is that Hockey is a strong treasurer to keep him in check. Rudd is an awful PM, but is even worse than he would be by virtue of the fact that Swan has the Treasury.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:10 pm
Jason:

Humphreys is God. He just doesn’t know it. And Bird is the devil. Humprhreys is the second coming and Bird is the anti-Christ.

On a serious note, yea I know this stuff is pretty disappointing. But anything but Rudd.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:12 pm
I just didn’t expect to be so disappointed quite this soon

And it does take the wind out of the “no big new tax” slogan…. and is easy for ALP to paint as ($75k!!!) welfare to the rich (while tax hikes to business get passed on to “the little people”)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:15 pm
Fleeced:

From my understanding he’s pretty damn serious about this policy. He thinks middle class gals are not having kids and this is one way to promote more children for that strata.

It’s pretty silly, but there you have it.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:15 pm
Sadly, I know other conservative types who think like this… they want to encourage richer people to breed.

Think of all the male business-owners who will suddenly employ their wives on $150k before they plan on having a kid!

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:21 pm
Think of all the business owners who won’t be employing any chicks unless they’ve had their tubes tied. It’s a good policy for getting barren old dames back in the work force.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 2:29 pm
Think of all the business owners who won’t be employing any chicks unless they’ve had their tubes tied. It’s a good policy for getting barren old dames back in the work force

Umm no IT that would only happen if each business bore the cost only of their own employees who took maternity leave. The point of Abbott’s proposal is that ‘big business’ are going to be taxed and the money put into a government scheme to pay their employees maternity leave. If they’re going to be taxed anyway they will in fact have less incentive to care about their employees going on maternity leave since there is nothing they can do to reduce such costs.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 2:35 pm
I was just thinking that IT… that could be one of the office perks – a pay rise for getting your tubes tied.

Obviously, they made the tax a flat levy on big business to avoid the direct cost of funding maternity leave… but the cost of having women disappear for 6 months is too great. There will inevitably be women trying to get jobs just because they are planning on falling pregnant and want to receive extra money – so employers will be reluctant to employ new women.

If they really wanted to increase number of middle-class gals having kids (though obviously, I don’t think this is the role of government,) they should just allow income splitting (most of my income comes through a discretionary trust anyway)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:35 pm
Fleeced
Women get maternity leave now anyway don’t they?

I don’t see the *direct* cost to businesses of employing women increasing because of this. I just don’t think there is going to be an increase in the % of women who are getting jobs in high income fields just to fall pregnant.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 2:40 pm
I agree. if you’re getting hit with the tax anyway it doesn’t really matter.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:43 pm
Abbott’s proposal is a lesser evil and will have less disincentive effects for employing women compared to legislating to force businesses to pay generous benefits for maternity leave (which is a possibility the lefties are contemplating). The cost has basically been socialised.

Of course it is still a crappy proposal.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 2:45 pm
If only Abbott introduced Sharia marriage fellas could live like kings.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:45 pm
It will be fun watching his over-ruling the Sex Discrimination Act if he only goes for ‘maternity’ pay. The whole policy should keep a fair number of barristers in Ferraris for the rest of their lives.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 2:45 pm
“Women get maternity leave now anyway don’t they?”

Yes – my main point was that the rate might increase, and that some would be reluctant to hire new women as they would be sceptical of their intentions.

In truth, this risk is more likely to be factored into the wage offered to women – and they wonder why there’s a pay gap?

@Peter – is welfare subject to discrimination act?

Then again, if two gay (male) parents adopt a child…

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 2:51 pm
It’s not exactly being socialized though, Jason as the tax is focused on the 3200 largest firms firms.

In other words he’s taxing what possibly are our most successful businesses and to top it off he’s teaching the left that its okay to open the flood gate in terms of ear-marked taxes for larger firms. It’s a horrible fucking idea when you think about it.

What is it with always going after the more successful parts/people of/in the economy? I guess they’re using the same old logic that led the American bank robber to them.

Asked why he robbed banks, Willy Sutton replied, “that’s where the money is”.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 2:51 pm
I wonder if Abbott’s costings have taken into account the increased rate of births? You expect they would have – but have they accounted for the increased claims amongs existing mob (ie, those who were having a baby anyway, and will quickly sign onto any job to receive more welfare?) If expenses exceed welfare, does the tax increase? What happens if revenues exceed expenses? Does it go to general revenue, or is it an earmarked fund? This whole thing just is a mess.

Is Abbott still ahead of Rudd? Yes, but I’m hardly as enthusiastic about About as I was.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 3:03 pm
Obviously, Abbott is making a pitch to the “Doctor’s Wives” set, who tend to vote lefty. It may just work.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 3:03 pm
The sad thing is that properly targeted immigration would be a lot less expensive and in fact would immediately add to out productive capacity.

Why not entice people of that strata who are fully grown and won’t be a burden on the system as a result of schooling and stuff like that.

He could get the $2.7 billion and promote business entry here with a tax holiday for x years.

A woman going on maternity leave at 75K is going to produce a pretty expensive kid. It’s worse if the kid turns out to be a no hoper as we have no chance of ever recovering the money.

In any event a properly targeted immigration policy would see a bunch of people coming over here that would fully integrate or their kids would fully integrate in no time at all.

I’m not suggesting that sort of immigration policy but it would be a miles better way than saddling firms with ear marked taxes.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 3:04 pm
I would have thought Tone’s position would have been “children are their own reward”. Oh well, best to be disappointed early.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 3:07 pm
Obviously, Abbott is making a pitch to the “Doctor’s Wives” set, who tend to vote lefty. It may just work.

Who? Rog and harry? The freaking greens can have the Doctors wives set. We don’t want them.

I’d rather vote marxist than a Doctor’s wives party.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 3:07 pm
I would have thought Tone’s position would have been “children are their own reward”. Oh well, best to be disappointed early.

Yea especially with big government bucks going out the window.

The more I think about the more freaking shocking this policy is. As though it’s not bad enough with middle class churn he’s promoting government provided welfare to very productive members of country, so we then have further middle class dependence that can only be built on.

Can’t someone knock this shit out of him?

JC

8 Mar 10 at 3:12 pm
Steve’s Abbott homo-eroticism knows no bounds today, it seems.

In relation to abortion, Steve, like Abbott I have never believed in or advocated its re-criminalisation. I can’t think of any prominent Catholics who have. It is a moral crime and the campaign against it is essentially a moral project. Unlike Clinton, Abbott believes (as per the science and the theology) that life begins at conception and that each abortion is the illicit and tragic ending of a life. He doesn’t believe there is any moral “right” to an abortion but rather maintains that the realities of secular politics make his and other believers’ desire to be rid of this enormity a work of persuasion, not of legal stricture.

Must rub you up the wrong way at least a little bit, Steve, to have bungled yet another analysis.

Finally, I never backed Abbott for the job before the events that led to the spill, do not believe either Turnbull or he had/have any realistic chance of beating Rudd – who has bought himself a fairly comfortable re-election – and I would have no hesitation in agreeing with anyone who suggested that Abbott may be one of the caretaker leaders who carries the party forward to a more realistic time when its re-election is solidly attainable, before himself fading back into the broader Coalition team. That said, I do indeed admire him and hope he does very well in the months ahead.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 3:13 pm
What happens if something goes wrong with the birth? I’m not asking horrible questions to be silly – just pointing out that policies like this require bureaucratic rulings on all sorts of nonsense. Reminds me of these charming IRS regs:

Kidnapped child.

You may be eligible to file as head of household even if the child who is your qualifying person has been kidnapped. You can claim head of household filing status if all the following statements are true.

1. The child must be presumed by law enforcement authorities to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or the child’s family.

2. In the year of the kidnapping, the child lived with you for more than half the part of the year before the kidnapping.

3. You would have qualified for head of household filing status if the child had not been kidnapped.

This treatment applies for all years until the child is returned. However, the last year this treatment can apply is the earlier of:

1. The year there is a determination that the child is dead, or

2. The year the child would have reached age 18.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 3:15 pm
No kidding, if you think we’re too bottom heavy in terms of the various strata then import what you want to get ballast.

I don’t think he’s wrong in thinking that we could do with more at the top end of potential income earners, but why promote that sort of dependency?

JC

8 Mar 10 at 3:15 pm
the late great Joan Robinson in 1972.

What was the state of orthodox opinion when the world was struck by the great slump? First of all, there was the famous Treasury View of 1929…. Lloyd George was campaigning for a policy of public works; Keynes with Hubert Henderson produced the pamphlet Can Lloyd George Do It?, which first adumbrated the theory of the multiplier and of the relation of saving to investment. To answer Lloyd George, the Conservative government produced a White Paper in which various ministers stated the case against spending money in their respective departments on housing, schools, roads, etc. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Churchill; he could not bring himself a second time to defend deflation and sound finance. It was left to the officials to produce the argument for the Treasury. Their case was very simple. It was based on the idea that investment is governed by saving. If the government borrowed £100 million to spend on public works, there would be £100 million less for foreign investment. The surplus of exports would fall by a corresponding amount. There would be a transfer of employment but no change in the total. It is not fair to put much weight on this. The Treasury, after all, was required to say something and this was what they thought of to say. The fact that it appeared to be a respectable argument, however, certainly was a symptom of the state of opinion at that time….

The main orthodox reaction to the slump was the argument that wages were too high. This could be backed up by statistical argument. In those old days, prices used to fall when there was a decline in demand, so that prices were lower relatively to money-wage rates than when employment was higher. In a style of argument nowadays familiar in another context, a correlation was exhibited as a cause. The theory that unemployment could be due only to wages being too high received solid support from the evidence….

While the controversy about public works was developing, Professor Robbins sent to Vienna for a member of the Austrian school to provide a counter attraction to Keynes. I very well remember Hayek’s visit to Cambridge on his way to the London School. He expounded his theory and covered a black board with his triangles. The whole argument, as we could see later, consisted in confusing the current rate of investment with the total stock of capital goods, but we could not make it out at the time. The general tendency seemed to be to show that the slump was caused by [excessive] consumption. R. F. Kahn, who was at that time involved in explaining that the multiplier guaranteed that saving equals investment, asked in a puzzled tone, “Is it your view that if I went out tomorrow and bought a new overcoat, that would increase unemployment?”‘ “Yes,” said Hayek, “but,” pointing to his triangles on the board, “it would take a very long mathematical argument to explain why.”

This pitiful state of confusion was the first crisis of economic theory that I referred to…

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

8 Mar 10 at 3:15 pm
Homes

Please learn to use hyperlinks and clearly delineate your comments from those of the late Mrs Robinson.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 3:19 pm
Homer:

You’re now posting economic spam?

JC

8 Mar 10 at 3:19 pm
Statman do not be a prat all the time.
It is obvious even to an idiot like Credit Crunch Forrest what has been quoted.

go and take some sensible pills.

Forrest do not try and rad it.you will not understand it

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

8 Mar 10 at 3:23 pm
I rad at a year 3 level.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 3:27 pm
Homer, how old were you when you first became intimate with Mrs Robinson?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 3:27 pm
CL

Labor’s primary vote is now constantly behind that of the Coalition, Qld and NSW hate the ALP, Rudd is terrible, the Unions have just found out that the new ALP IR rules mean huge pay cuts for lots of union members.

The Rudd Government will lose in 2010

Rococo Liberal

8 Mar 10 at 3:29 pm
Calling it as I see it, RL, not as I’d like it to be.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 3:33 pm
Fleeced

I would imagine that welfare is subject to the Sex Discrimination Act. I know Tones has only just announced it, so who knows where it might go, but is his current proposal likely to be administered as “welfare?”

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 3:36 pm
Good news:

Biden to try to boost Middle East peace prospects.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 3:37 pm
BBB

If you are going to continue copying and posting from Brad de Long’s blog, at least have the courtesy to acknowledge so.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 3:43 pm
I’m assuming these maternity payments will be taxed as normal? Talk about churn!

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 3:50 pm
Tony Abbott: the Swedish socialist Prime Minister you have when Labor won’t go that far.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 3:54 pm
Steve: the old-fashioned man who wants pregnant women sacked.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 3:57 pm
Suddenly opposed to socialism now, steve from brisbane?

Rudd’s still worse, no mistake about that – though Abbott has a worse maternity leave policy by the sounds of it (for the moment at least)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 3:59 pm
What’s your preference in this area, Fleeced?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 4:04 pm
Peter,

Joan Robinson wrote the lectures as part of a series in the AER.

you want people to note that have copied and pasted from a person who has copied and pasted.

Yeah that makes sense

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

8 Mar 10 at 4:06 pm
Yes Homes
It is part of regular blog etiquette to give a ‘hat tip’ to your blog sources.

I guess power corridor walkers like yourself who are on first name bases with central bankers are above all that.

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 4:08 pm
In fairness to Homer, it’s quite easy to tell what he’s lifted from others and what’s his own handiwork. One is readable and the other reads like a Polish phone book.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 4:11 pm
BBB

The wink meant it was a part-joke, Joyce. But there is a wider point, even if quite minor, and that is you are not really just reminding us of a speech in economic history, but you are inserting it into this blog thread in the context of its use by Bradley. All very meta perhaps, but there you go.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:12 pm
My preference is that people pay for their own damn kids… knowing that that isn’t going to happen, I would rather see incentives awarded as tax breaks (I don’t believe their should be incentives, but that’s another story). Income splitting would be preferable in that regards, but usuallu gets shouted down for being pro-traditional family at expense of single mothers. There may be something to that complaint.

We just shouldn’t be subsidising other people’s kids – but if we are (and politically, I’d say the horse has bolted), then we should keep it to a minimum – and certainly not insrease taxes to fund it!

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 4:15 pm
A woman friend was outraged by the baby bonus, because it produced the wrong incentives. She insisted the government should have spent the money instead on the NO Baby Bonus whereby the government pays quite handsomely for the proles to undergo voluntary sterilization!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:19 pm
you have nice friends pete.

I bet she liked to shake hands too

jtfsoon

8 Mar 10 at 4:20 pm
She sounds like one of those women you shake hands with and say “how ya fuckin’ goin’ mate?”

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 4:21 pm
Very important that the inmates be made aware of the link. They may not be good at countin’ ‘n’ ‘rithmetic and commit outrageous libel by the minute but are very pertickuler ’bout etikette

rog

8 Mar 10 at 4:22 pm
I’m guessing she was a Green voter… they’re obsessed with population control – they still believe in Ehrlich’s Population Bomb

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 4:23 pm
Without going into too much personal info, she is actually a lefty lawyer, who deals with a lot of family law stuff. While on the economic front she remains a socialist, on the social front her views have changed remarkably on quite a few things since the birth of her first child.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:26 pm
Fleeced

Oh god no. She is a transgeneration tribal Labor Useful Idiot!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:28 pm
Whom I love dearly!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:28 pm
Definite hand shaker. And more than likely a comfortable shoe wearer.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 4:34 pm
Avatar flops at the Oscars winning only 3. Best Picture and Best Director to Bigelow. Cameron must be suicidal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/mar/07/oscars-2010-liveblog

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:36 pm
on the social front her views have changed remarkably on quite a few things since the birth of her first child.
.
That happens a lot.

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 4:37 pm
Infidel

You’re not doing too well here. She’s actually a Jimmy Choo type.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:37 pm
But absolutely a hand-shaker AND air-kisser.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:38 pm
Champagne socialist. As I suspected.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 4:39 pm
Abbott’s generosity will be wound back before the election, no doubt, as business reaction includes stuff like this:

The National Independent Retailer’s Association chief executive Peter Strong said costs for larger businesses would be passed on to smaller operators .

Landlords will increase rent, banks will increase charges, Coles and Woolworths will increase the cost of their goods and decrease the money they pay to suppliers,” Mr Strong said.

He said the Coalition did not have a good record of defending small business from big business and demanded further assurances from Mr Abbott his scheme would not be disadvantageous to small business owners.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/business-attacks-abbotts-paid-parental-leave-plan/story-e6frgczf-1225838315435

CL: come you, you can do better than that.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 4:40 pm
Sorry, stuffed up italics. And it was “CL, come on..”

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 4:41 pm
Infidel

NOW, you’re getting warm!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:42 pm
I was thinking that if Abbott insists on going ahead with this, he should at least taper it down to being less than 100% of current salary, depending on how long they’ve worked there… so 4 years, you get the full 100%, with decreasing amounts… but it just occured to me he could leave it at 100% – but cap it at a maximum amount of total income tax they themselves have previously paid.

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 4:47 pm
My take on this is if they are going to it, the philosophy behind the idea should be along these lines:

‘in a modern incredibly rich world like ours, it is a great social good that women’s lives should not be so restricted by what we all agree is a great social good as well as individual joy – parenting. And thus, the costs of paternity leave should be borne socially. That is through Centrelink. To impose yet another tax on the true wealth creators – businesses – is counterproductive.’

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 4:53 pm
Fair enough, Fleeced.

You seem a bit angry on this one.

Look, I’m not dogmatic on the subject but I’d rather invest national resources in “other people’s kids” than spend billions “fighting” “climate change” with a religious policy like the ETS.

I do think tax and churn has infantilised people regarding their finances, though. People want someone to pay for maternity leave but many of the same people have no problem at all running up credit card debts and vanity reno bills in the hundreds of K.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 5:29 pm
Did Abbott really have to say he feels “threatened” by homosexuals? Was it that necessary? To me it means one of two things: either he has a problem with homosexuals generally, or he is a homosexual. It’s probably neither for him, so it would be nice if he could put a lid on some of his more eccentric thoughts.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 5:35 pm
Re Abbott on homosexuals:

“I probably feel a bit threatened, as so many people do… (but) it’s a fact of life. I try to treat people as people and not to put them in pigeon holes.”

Another honest statement of belief and a complete non issue. Insecure Kevin, however, ogles strippers while pissed to impress other males and is the only prime minister in Australian history to be written up for in-flight hooliganism directed at one of the women he seems to fear and/or loathe.

Bolt has assimilated the viral gay propaganda that anyone who criticises gays must themselves be secretly gay and he therefore lays it on a bit thick on these questions. It’s almost as though he’s trying to remain above suspicion. This is the rather bizarre corollary of this particular meme from the gay movement. Macho men feel compelled to say how much they love gays (for fear of being labelled gay) and gays sledge people they suspect of denigrating gayness by implying they’re gay.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 5:38 pm
CL, he’s thinking out loud. We all have weird thoughts and most of the time we try to bottle them up. If it’s not that, then see a shrink.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 5:40 pm
Oh FFS. “Why can’t Abbott put a towel around him?” “Why doesn’t Abbott say what I want to him say, not what he wants to say?” What a bunch of wet nappies.

If you don’t like Tony Abbott the way he is, don’t vote for him! But stop demanding that he turn into, well, YOU!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 5:41 pm
“I do think tax and churn has infantilised people regarding their finances, though. “

That’s why I suggested capping their maternity to the amount of tax they’ve previously paid (in last few years)… politically, this should help Abbott because it will neutralise the “you’re giving more to the rich” – since he’s simply giving back what they paid – plus it stops people trying to get jobs just to exploit the system. It also inserts a little trojan of libertarian thought for the recipient since:

1) They won’t consider it a government handout (at least, not as much); and
2) It reminds them how much bloody tax they’re paying!

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 5:41 pm
Fisk, on these sort of topics, Abbott strikes me as being a lot like Gunny Highway in Heartbreak Ridge. It’s as though he’s been secretly reading pop magazines trying to learn how to comment on touchy-feely things like homosexuality – about which, truth be told, he couldn’t care less.

It’s also interesting that Rev. Kev ~~Flanders~~ Rudd the evangelical Christian (and churchyard homilist) never gets asked the same questions.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 5:44 pm
Er, Michael, I think you will find that shrinks earn most of their income from people who “bottle up” their “weird thoughts.”

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 5:46 pm
Furthermore, all middle class churn n’ burn welfare should have to be collected at Centrelink offices in person. None of this direct debit shit. If you’re receiving a handout you should bloody well be seen to be doing so.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 5:48 pm
Let’s get serious now,it’s Oscar frock time
http://www.shinystyle.tv/2010/03/oscars_2010_kate_winslet_diane.html?pic=5#gallery

tal

8 Mar 10 at 5:49 pm
Considering Rudd eats salad sandwiches, I think he’s answered the question.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 5:49 pm
Cl:

Why the fuck does he have to go there. Why the hell say such crap.

I wish the doofus would keep his opinions to himself.

What’s wrong with saying…

Look I’m want to be the PM, the political and executive head of government. I’m not getting into those discussions as I don’t want to talk people’s personal lives and what they do in a bedroom.

Why the fuck is it important to know his opinion and why do we even need to know what he thinks.

Aboott needs to keep his trap shut and try to glide into government come the election. He’s nothing more than a piddly administrator.

Tony, STFU.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 5:54 pm
Candidate for quote of the week:
“Corruption and ineptitude are bipartisan, but Dems at the moment seem to have the edge in criminality and incompetence,”
Doug Muzzio of Baruch College, NY State.

Andrew Reynolds

8 Mar 10 at 5:55 pm
JC

The opinion polls would suggest you are wrong. The more Abbott opens up, the higher his poll ratings.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 5:56 pm
In fact it is on economic issues that Abbott should shut his trap.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 5:56 pm
CL, Leftist journos are trying to bait him and he keeps taking it and a lot of those who otherwise might sympathise with Abbott get a mild case of the creeps. He should cut it out. I think Abbott should just say that he doesn’t give a flying fuck next time someone from The Age asks him whether sodomy is morally inferior to normal sex. Or, if he’s not comfortable on a topic, then he should just say “this ain’t my jurisdiction”. In fact, the second half of his latest comment was pretty good “I don’t pidgeonhole people”. That’s all that needs to be said.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 5:59 pm
It’s also interesting that Rev. Kev Flanders Rudd the evangelical Christian (and churchyard homilist) never gets asked the same questions.

That’s true, for a good reason. Rudd would bore everyone shitless with the answer.

But not our Tony, oh no. He has go and answer honestly… how he feels.

I’m not interested in how he feels. His job is defeat Rudd by showing the government’s enormous weak spots in economic policy. That’s what everyone is interested in and not he feels about gays.

One of these days these conservatives may learn.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 6:00 pm
lol… The Australian has a poll: Who should fund maternity leave?

Option 1: Taxpayers
Option 2: Business

Alas, there’s no option 3 (nobody/the parents)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 6:00 pm
I know Fleeced, it shits me too

tal

8 Mar 10 at 6:05 pm
I think he answers because he’s asked, JC. Rudd and others are not asked questions about what they think of homosexuals. Maybe somebody like Gillard should be because despite having a “partner” who’s a hairdresser, she effortlessly switched on the anti-gay dog whistle with her sledging of Christopher Pyne. I suspect that Abbott’s been so mauled for his Catholicism – ‘hey Tony, what do you think about abortion/contraception/divorce/homos? hehe’ – that he feels he has to disarm the audience with candor. ALP stooge Laurie Oakes even asked him whether he believed in evolution. If Abbott doesn’t answer moronic questions like that, the headline reads ‘Abbott refuses to back Darwin’ etc.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 6:07 pm
Peter:

The polls haven’t shown anything about gays. Show me the last poll about how scared people felt in front of gays? Do you have one?

The fact of the matter is that nearly everyone possibly with the exception of Bird and Tony feel funny about gays.

Lord almighty win the election over economic policy, don’t lose support as a result of opinions about gays.

And Abbott could actually try to win some gay votes seeing they’re 2 to 3% of the electorate and last time I looked he needs every single vote he can muster to turn these trogs out of office.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 6:14 pm
If you’re going to have a paid maternity leave, it should be via a super type scheme, where people get to poke a % of their income into an account tax free, and then draw it out as taxable income when on leave. User pays (with a tax break). I’d push the idea harder, but I’m not entirely convinced there needs to be a paid maternity leave scheme at all.

Tim Quilty

8 Mar 10 at 6:14 pm
Andrew Bolt’s site now has picture of 4 men wearing speedos in public as an example of the bad gays…

AJ

8 Mar 10 at 6:15 pm
tal: I haven’t seen many really awful frocks in the links yet, although I would have to say that Charlize Theron’s dress seems about as subtle as having red arrows pointing to her breasts saying “Touch here”.

http://www.nj.com/oscar-awards/index.ssf/2010/03/oscar_red_carpet_go_big_or_go_home_go_home_charlize_theron.html

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 6:18 pm
CL:

He knows that obese lardball (Oakes) is after his scalp. Don’t give the fucker any breath.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 6:18 pm
You’re right Tal.. Lets focus on the academy “frocks”.

This mum and daughter routine are wearing nice frocks. The mother looks sexier than the daughter in a mILF sort of way.

http://www.shinystyle.tv/2010/03/oscars_2010_kate_winslet_diane.html?pic=6#gallery

JC

8 Mar 10 at 6:22 pm
Agreed Steve and lilac is not her colour

tal

8 Mar 10 at 6:22 pm
Bolt is copping a lot of flack for pursuing this but see his updated post. I think he’s just trying to be consistent.

Jason Soon

8 Mar 10 at 6:22 pm
BirdLab seems MIA Joe,he usually posts the frocks

tal

8 Mar 10 at 6:24 pm
she effortlessly switched on the anti-gay dog whistle with her sledging of Christopher Pyne

Huh? Chris Pyne is gay?

Jason Soon

8 Mar 10 at 6:24 pm
Doesn’t it bring out her eyes, steve?

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 6:25 pm
“Huh? Chris Pyne is gay?”

Was confused about that comment as well… first I’ve heard if he is. (NTTAWWT)

Fleeced

8 Mar 10 at 6:27 pm
Bolt’s getting a bit hysterical with that update. Abbott hasn’t criticised homos or launched a “homophobic attack”. I think he just pre-emtpted what he believes others would say about his attitude (using that cliche word in gay discourse – “threatened”) before saying that he avoids pigeon-holing anyone. I wish intelligent people would stop using the word “homophobic” too. It was essentially invented by the gay movement as a canned ad hominem to shut down critics by implying they were secret homosexuals.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 6:28 pm
The fact of the matter is that nearly everyone possibly with the exception of Bird and Tony feel funny about gays.

Yeah you’re probably right about that JC. Abbott is saying what most people are terrified to verbalise, that while they accept gays many people find the more open displays of some gay behavior unsettling. You see, if you express an idea like “really camp behavior upsets me” you either accused of being homophobic, a latent homosexual, or a gay basher. You can’t fucking win with the PC crowd.

Take the Mardi Gras for example, I pointed out to a friend years ago that if the Mardi Gras is representative of Gay culture then they really are hung up on sex. If Gays really want to promote their contribution to society then they should get their hands out of their pants and point to the incredible number of Gays that have made tremendous contributions to society and this at a rate far in excess of heterosexuals. Now that would do more promote an acceptance of the gay community then the Mardi Gras which serves to confirm what many believe(wrongly) about gays: they are sex addicts who are frivolous and pointless.

John H.

8 Mar 10 at 6:28 pm
I’m a bit pissed off with you guys,not one of you wished me a happy international Wimmins Day

tal

8 Mar 10 at 6:28 pm
happy Wimmins day Tal.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 6:30 pm
“BirdLab seems MIA Joe,he usually posts the frocks”

No, I’m here tal. Pretty ordinary selection this year I thought.

I’ll have to come up with something.

BirdLab

8 Mar 10 at 6:34 pm
Eek! Why is JLo dressed in bubble-wrap?

http://www.nj.com/oscar-awards/index.ssf/2010/03/oscar_red_carpet_go_big_or_go_home_go_home_charlize_theron.html

BirdLab

8 Mar 10 at 6:38 pm
Thanks JC, gotta go now the ironing won’t do it self

tal

8 Mar 10 at 6:39 pm
Pyne is not gay (he’s married with three young kids) but it is true that he looks and sounds a bit like he could be. Hence his “mincing poodle” taunt from Gillard, which is obviously heavy with homosexual innuendo. Pyne himself shrugged it off, but I agree with CL, it was pretty rich coming from Labor (and from Gillard with a hairdresser boyfriend in particular.)

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 6:46 pm
I’m sick of poofter bashing, it’s just another form of denial.

rog

8 Mar 10 at 6:49 pm
Jason,
If he were I take it that it would be a bit of a surprise to his wife and four kids.

Andrew Reynolds

8 Mar 10 at 6:50 pm
Could be steve, he is a bit of a pyne in the ass

rog

8 Mar 10 at 6:50 pm
I think Abbott should put the journos on the defensive rather than taking their bait with his slightly off-putting answers. He should really drag them over the hot coals. There’s a great Youtube video called something roughly like “Bill Clinton kicks the crap out of Fox interviewer” (it was a bloodbath). That’s how you deal with people who ask you questions that they don’t of the other side. Abbott should watch it and learn from the master.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 6:54 pm
Could be steve, he is a bit of a pyne in the ass

He just pines for the days when he wasn’t married and could visit those special pubs.

John H.

8 Mar 10 at 6:55 pm
Actually, Abbott’s answer to Oakes was precisely along those lines. But he should have gone harder. Journos ought to fear going head to head with the guy. They should be crapping their pants at the prospect of a one-to-one interview. Fear is the only thing these creeps understand.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 6:57 pm
I’m sick of poofter bashing, it’s just another form of denial.

Gee , rog. No one could that coming. Who’s “poofter bashing” here nut ball.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 7:01 pm
Yes, more brilliant “wit” from the indispensable rog.

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 7:03 pm
They should be crapping their pants at the prospect of a one-to-one interview

All interviews ti be conducted while hill climbing with Tone. That should see off that calorie vacuuming toad, Oakes.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 7:03 pm
Julia Gillard’s comment was not homophobic. It had nothing to do with gays. Effete men have been ridiculed since the dawn of time, just as butch women have. It doesn’t translate that they are therefore homos, just failures at what society expects from their gender. The success of Julia’s gibe was the “failure” aspect, not the “gay” aspect.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 7:11 pm
Tiger, that’s an excellent idea. He should take all the journos on a 2km swim, followed by 30km on the bike, a brisk body pump class, ending with a few heavy sets on the bench.

“Sorry, Kerry, what were you asking me about lesbian rectal IVF conception again?”

“*Gasp*…nothing Tony…*puff*…seriously nothing…gargh!”

Michael Fisk

8 Mar 10 at 7:15 pm
That’s an amazingly generous interpretation of the intent of the import of calling Pyne a mincing poodle, Peter, as well as one which 95% of the population would not agree with, by my reckoning.

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 7:17 pm
Sorry, that needed editing

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 7:18 pm
Don’t worry, steve, most of Peter’s female friends spend their weekends arm wrestling, scratching their arses and greeting each other with language that would make a wharfie call the discrimation officer in.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 7:19 pm
Steve

Have you ever MET Pyne? He IS a mincing poodle. NTTAWWT.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 7:21 pm
He is like those vile little white yappy dogs

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 7:21 pm
The “gayest” part of the insult is in “mincing”. There are some very straight poodles out there, but using “mincing” of a man carries only one connotation. (Unless he’s a butcher.)

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 7:25 pm
Steve

The world is full of extremely heterosexual men who are world champion “mincers.” David Beckham anyone. Hullo?

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 7:27 pm
Fisk, with respect, Clinton agreed to those interviews on the strict proviso that FOX spent half of the air time discussing his ‘Clinton Global Initiative.’

I also have doubts about your theory of frightening interviewers. That was Keating’s thing and after one full term (only) the public hated his guts.

Julia Gillard’s comment was not homophobic. It had nothing to do with gays. Effete men have been ridiculed since the dawn of time, just as butch women have. It doesn’t translate that they are therefore homos, just failures at what society expects from their gender. The success of Julia’s gibe was the “failure” aspect, not the “gay” aspect.

Oh bullshit. She was implying he was a poof. Are you honestly saying Abbott could get away with ridiculing Penny Wong for dressing like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Julia Gillard for having the maternal instincts of Sir Les Patterson?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 8:37 pm
Bernard Keane at Crikey mentioned what Pyne has had to put up with – mostly from orchestrated “shit sheet” operations run by Labor – at Crikey last year. Gillard’s insult was playing to the gallery and everyone knew what she meant.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 8:44 pm
It was homophobia, pure and simple. Nice try though, Peter, playing devil’s advocate on Gillard’s behalf.

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 8:48 pm
The business opposition to Abbott’s maternity leave plan is philosophically interesting. Will the same Kevin Rudd who spent several months damning “greedy neo-liberals” and the Gordon Gekkos of the corporate world come to his defence?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 9:01 pm
I have no idea what Bolt is on about in regards to Abbott’s alleged homophobia, but by God he’s good at generating hits.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 9:14 pm
Of course Gillard knew exactly what she was doing. The ALP ranks always get a pass when they’re involved in a gay bash.

I wonder why no one mentioned her 70′s coiffured Haridresser pal when she went after Pyne. I would.

Looksee.

Does anyone think like I do that the leather jacket matches the winter tan?

In case no one knew he’s the new health ambassador.

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2006/12/05/va1237224510154/Julia-Gillard-5324133.jpg

JC

8 Mar 10 at 9:22 pm
For no reason JC gets all defensive

“No one could that coming.”

Mr No one is busy tonight

rog

8 Mar 10 at 9:34 pm
Rog:

Defensive? LOl. You are strange.

Good to the only thing left for you to do is to do is people’s gram-check. Lol.

That’s the extent of your use here now. Great work.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 9:37 pm
Health ambassador with a particular interest in prostates:

“He says part of his role will be to engage men in pubs and urge those aged over 50 to have a prostate check once a year.”

http://tinyurl.com/y8kx9o5

steve from brisbane

8 Mar 10 at 9:39 pm
JC, I’m calling vinyl on that jacket.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 9:48 pm
Well Julia Gillard’s ultimate meanings are beyond my knowledge. I gave a scenario that still strikes me as very likely. Other clearly disagree. So be it.

Oddly nobody has commented on the mincing David Beckham. And Australia’s former Minister for Mincing, Bruce Baird!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 9:49 pm
LOL. I blogged on that, Steve. Joycey nailed it.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 9:49 pm
No Peter, I agree with you. There’s definitely a question mark over Beckham.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 9:50 pm
Beckham could have had any woman in the world, but he chose Posh Spice. I’m calling lavendar marriage.

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 9:55 pm
Yeah, Posh would scare a dog out of a butcher’s shop.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 9:59 pm
CL

I am not for a minute suggesting that either Beckham or Baird is even remotely gay, just that they would medal in the Olympics 100 metres Freestyle Mince!

But why would Beckham marry that rank skanky ho? YUK!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 10:04 pm
Posh Spice is an Asian warlord’s mistress?

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 10:05 pm
Expect ‘Chairman’ Mark to find something reactionary about Abbott’s Sweden-lite policy

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/08/abbotts-parental-leave-non-policy/

I rather doubt that the Liberal Party, not traditionally known for imposing “special levies” on the top end of town, will actually take this funding mechanism to the election. Abbott’s rhetoric is very much a bob each way, with a few sops thrown out to those who might be sceptical about the big government nature of this idea, and also incidentally includes a little story about his own ‘getting of wisdom’.

The framing of the speech shows a lot about Abbott’s paternalism, and the patriarchal nature of his beliefs about women. But, somehow, I suspect all this will get lost in the spin. Who’d have thought?

Not the specifics of the proposal or the proposal itself or even anything specific he can point to about the speech but its framing points to something patriachal about Abbott. Who’d have thought? If Rudd had announced the same policy of course it’d be different.

Jason Soon

8 Mar 10 at 10:07 pm
No, she’s really Janet Albrechtsen on her days off!

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 10:08 pm
Jason

There are a few posts on that blog that tell posters to check the blog’s posting guidelines. One of them forbids posting about people’s real intentions, motivations, psychological states and so on. Yet I’ll be buggered if I can find one thread by Mark that is not primarily about some public figures psychological state/motivations etc.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 10:11 pm
Look, my own domestic life arrangements are a lot more “progressive” and ‘pussy-whipped’ than Abbott’s appear to be, but it would never in a million years even cross my mind that his more “traditional” family division of labor is even remotely questionable.

One of the great successes (and yes I do acknowledge there are also not so rosy bits) of feminism is making men and women much more comfortable and willing to make choices about what arrangements suits them. In that respect, the choices made by Mr. and Mrs. Abbott are just as ‘modern’ and ‘right on’ as mine.

Peter Patton

8 Mar 10 at 10:17 pm
rog, how do you feel about the homophobia coming from the national cabinet?

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 10:29 pm
Good question, Dads.

Rog will now not appear on this site until he thinks people have forgotten what you asked.

He’s very courageous that way.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:31 pm
rog, how do you feel about the homophobia coming from the national cabinet?

Just so long as there are no homosexuals coming in the national cabinet.

John H.

8 Mar 10 at 10:34 pm
yeah, because of course that would make them immune to all criticism of bigotry.
Excuse the sarcasm.
“some of my best friends…”

daddy dave

8 Mar 10 at 10:45 pm
Greens energy.

Bishop hill blog.

A German aristocrat of my acquaintance has figured out that the price he will be pay for the output of a solar panel is so high compared with the price he will pay for his input of normal electricity, that he is thinking of rigging up powerful arc lamps to shine on solar panels on his extensive roof.

JC

8 Mar 10 at 10:58 pm
Chrissy Pyne was the subject of rumour and innuendo a couple of years ago, implicating him in all sorts of bath-house shenanigans. I’ve no idea whether those rumours were true, but he’s surely the campest fellow in Federal Parliament.

THR

8 Mar 10 at 11:02 pm
What THR means is that the Labor Party concocted a ‘shit sheet’ on Pyne. And because Pyne is a Liberal, THR feels perfectly comfortable in spreading the gay panic.

C.L.

8 Mar 10 at 11:18 pm
Did you feel the same way about the Michael Kirby rumours, THR?

Infidel Tiger

8 Mar 10 at 11:20 pm
The rumours are one thing (likely false) CL, the camp is another (blatantly obvious).

THR

8 Mar 10 at 11:24 pm
“If Rudd had announced the same policy of course it’d be different.”

Not really. It’s still paternalism.

Semi Regular Libertarian

8 Mar 10 at 11:24 pm
If it minces like a duck, then…

Capitalist Piggy

9 Mar 10 at 12:18 am
Western warmenists open up a new front in the environmental movement’s long war against poor black people.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 3:31 am
From American Conservative:

Whenever possible, I refer to the Iraq war as a war of aggression, because that is what it is and has always been. One thing that has often puzzled me about the reflex to declare victory in Iraq, as a Newsweek cover story did recently, is that I don’t know what it could possibly mean to achieve a victory that anyone would want to celebrate as the result of a war of aggression. Tens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans are dead. Tens of thousands of Americans are injured, some of them severely, and Iraq now boasts one of the highest percentages of disabled people in the world. Millions of Iraqis were turned into refugees or displaced within their own country. All of this has come about because of a war that did not have to happen. All of this has come about because of a war we started. It is bad enough that our government unleashed this hell on people who had never actually done America any harm, but it is unconscionable that any of us celebrate what has been done as if it were something good and worthwhile.

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/03/07/who-would-want-credit-for-iraq/

THR

9 Mar 10 at 3:38 am
Nonsense. It was war of liberation to end the rule of the late twentieth century’s worst mass murderer – a man the Western left believes should still be in office slaughtering people.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 3:50 am
Except that no ‘liberation’ has actually occurred, hundreds of thousands have been killed, and 4 million have been displaced. The Western left opposed Saddam since the 1980s, when he was supported by Reagan in his murderous campaign against Iran.

THR

9 Mar 10 at 4:10 am
Just how does killing people ‘liberate’ them?

rog

9 Mar 10 at 7:29 am
Julia Gillard wasn’t spreading ‘rumors.’ She was yelling loud and proud to Pyne’s face in front of the rest of the nation. And she never even hinted at any impropriety. OTOH, that Liberal redneck hick who spread rumors that a sitting High Court judge was involved in the most serious criminal activity and using his trappings of public office to do so. That whole episode actually suggested a lot of very disturbing things about that redneck hick’s own psychological issues.

Peter Patton

9 Mar 10 at 7:30 am
Further, um, clarification, from Tony the Threatened (I am enjoying this):

“There is no doubt that (homosexuality) challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things,” he told ABC TV last night.

Yes, yes, CL, it’s all very uncontroversial for conservative Catholics. But it’s hardly a helpful line from a political point of view.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 8:13 am
Damn it. Now that I’ve started to try html, I keep forgetting where it ends.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 8:14 am
Yes, yes, CL, it’s all very uncontroversial for conservative Catholics. But it’s hardly a helpful line from a political point of view.

I wonder if either of those points is true. The first, in the sense, that this sentiment is only limited to conservative Catholics, and the second, that sincere answers to questions are not helpful from a political point of view.

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 8:25 am
I also see that neither Blair nor Bolt think his maternity leave scheme is a good idea. And last night, he mentioned his ‘Green Army’ as a key policy, when I think people will assess it as very “last decade”, and also unduly expensive.

Quite the fiscal conservative, is Tony.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 8:30 am
It’s LP over-reaction time again

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/08/tony-abbotts-deepest-darkest-fears/#comment-863218

That is a vicious bloody homophobic comment from Abbott. He would create an open season on gay bashings in which some hetero-lout has drives in to Oxford St all the way from Penrith in order to have the opportunity to feel “threatened” and then bash some poor bastard. That’s personal experience, BTW, and I’m not gay. Wrong place, wrong time, non-hegemonic masculinity (ie = gay).

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 8:55 am
What a disappointment from Abbott.

pedro

9 Mar 10 at 9:16 am
Guy Pearse accuses Andrew Norton of ‘dining out’ on his mention of Andrew in his silly conspiracy theory laden book

http://andrewnorton.info/2010/02/24/will-clive-hamilton-reflect-on-alarmist-failures/#comment-84032

Poor choice of words, Guy

http://www.guypearse.com/

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 9:23 am
At LP I noticed this:

Corey Irlam, spokesperson for Australian Coalition for Equality (ACE) will today write to Abbott, inviting him to meet with ordinary gays and lesbian people to help overcome his self-confessed sense of “threat” about homosexuality.

Tony Abbott should absolutely take this up. It would would be a PR dream… would make him look open minded enough to challenge himself; tolerant, all kinds of great stuff. Do it, Tony.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 9:56 am
So what rog, al Qaida sympathisers and remnant Ba’athists kill people at free elections and it’s America’s fault because they toppled a dictator who has mass graves with at least 400 000 victims in them?

Well it is a little bit.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 10:01 am
rog

I am as puzzled as everyone else as to how disagreeing with a fair chunk of the right on the AGW issue (which I share with you) has also made you turn around 180 degrees into a Sea Shepherd cheerleading contrarian on just about everything else?

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 10:03 am
It would look as fake, staged and (probably) uncomfortable as hell, DD.

I was thinking, didn’t Howard once manage to deflect any questions about his personal feelings towards gays by saying he has had some on his staff, and it was never an issue? I assume Tony can’t say the same?

He could probably claim to have unwittingly known some gay clergy in his time, though, and that they were fine. Heh heh heh.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 10:04 am
Sean Penn is angry… or maybe just mad.

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 11:25 am
He could probably claim to have unwittingly known some gay clergy in his time, though, and that they were fine. Heh heh heh.

You don’t need to look in anyone’s eyes when they are writing this sort of guff.

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 11:26 am
Mr Penn is quite the little dictator himself

tal

9 Mar 10 at 11:39 am
What the tit?:

“World Net Daily has good JOURNALISTIC values.”

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/monetary-methodone/#comment-27659

World Nut Daily:

http://www.wnd.com/

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 12:11 pm
Our future head of state speaks

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/just-96-months-to-save-world-says-charles-1738049.html

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 12:18 pm
Dinner time with his father must be fun. (Andrew Bolt notes that Phillip is apparently a fan of Ian Plimer.)

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 12:26 pm
Except that no ‘liberation’ has actually occurred…

The tens of millions of Iraqis who keep voting in elections disagree. The Western left’s view was that they’re not white people and therefore should not have been given this freedom. Thankfully, the Western left was wrong and the Iraq War was won. Even Obama and Biden are trying desperately to associate themselves with the triumph.

THR is thinking of Cuba and China.

I don’t know what pro Iraq War hawk, Rog, is thinking.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 12:28 pm
Corey Irlam, spokesperson for Australian Coalition for Equality (ACE) will today write to Abbott, inviting him to meet with ordinary gays and lesbian people to help overcome his self-confessed sense of “threat” about homosexuality.

I’d like to suggest that Kevin Rudd meet victims of spousal abuse so they can tell him how harmful it is when men like him verbally assault women for not preparing the dinner they want and other crimes of womanly negligence.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 12:35 pm
Prince Phillip? I didn’t realise he was still around, Steve.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 12:36 pm
That’s personal experience, BTW, and I’m not gay. Wrong place, wrong time, non-hegemonic masculinity (ie = gay).

Ah yes, I remember the spike in violence after LP hero Paul Keating mocked homos by saying that “two jokers and a cocker spaniel isn’t a family.”

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 12:38 pm
I also see that neither Blair nor Bolt think his maternity leave scheme is a good idea.

They’re also Australia’s foremost critics of the “climate change” hoax. Steve finally accepts their authority.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 12:43 pm
Do try to keep up with Royal news, Birdlab.

Here I see that Phil and the Queen recently met with President Zuma of South Africa. Given Zuma’s umpteen wives and children, it must have taken gaffer tape to prevent Philip from making some un-diplomatic jokes.

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-03-05-a-tough-audience-to-please

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 12:46 pm
Back to Abbott: I liked the way he admitted on Lateline that he was sure that his maternity plan would have some of his own colleagues nervous.

He is making the comparisons with Latham a touch more convincing, at least as far as being a “loose cannon” to even his own colleagues. (I don’t think support for the idea in his book counts as appropriate warning to his colleagues that he’s about to fly the kite pretty specifically about a policy.)

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 12:53 pm
someone has stolen Bird’s identity on Twitter (no it isn’t me or anyone I know, I came across this because I get regular emails about people ‘following’ my so far non updated twitter account)

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace?evid=CcWAcIev3jhgCb2AMeL4AzqlW7xbGl6KCVUU7CNtTD8%3D&utm_source=follow&utm_campaign=twitter20080331162631&utm_medium=email&utm_content=profile

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 12:56 pm
Steve the appropriate person to be comparing to Latham is Rudd.

It increasingly looks like the loon makes policy on the run and has killed 5 people and burned down countless houses.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 12:56 pm
More leaked emails.

This time, an Obama administration campaign to discredit the truth about the “green jobs” disaster in Spain and the failure of “wind power” was orchestrated in conjunction with wind lobbyists and George Soros’ Center for American Progress.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:00 pm
Have you seen some of the comment’s Jase?

Clive asks who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying. I am, you c..t

It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. And no it wasn’t me either. there’s even a photo of the idiot.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:01 pm
…I liked the way he admitted on Lateline that he was sure that his maternity plan would have some of his own colleagues nervous.

Acoording to the last two weeks of press, it’s Kevin Rudd’s colleagues who are starting to believe they’re being led by Mark Latham II.

Though, to be fair to Latham, he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to electrocute workers and burn people’s houses down.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:02 pm
Bird’s Twitter kidnapper says:

Is banking causing my baldness?

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:03 pm
Generally, I thought Abbott’s performance on Lateline was pretty poor and stumbling. Then this morning on the radio he’s having to talk more about whether the government will have to top up money for the scheme during some parts of “the cycle”. It’s clear he’s very much just making it up as he goes along, and his colleagues are not impressed.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 1:07 pm
Abbott’s making it up? And the resident loon isn’t?

STFU, Steve.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:08 pm
wow
The Devine Ms M endorses Keating for Mayor

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/its-time-for-the-old-grey-mayor-20100305-pot5.html

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:11 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I would be very happy to see Rudd replaced within the party. Just that it’s kind of unlikely given his somewhat puzzling approval ratings.

But deriding Abbott is my current enjoyment in life.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 1:11 pm
Missing W.

Poll: 51 percent of Americans now say US less respected around the world than it was under Bush.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:12 pm
Nicely played on the Twitter thing, JC. V funny.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 1:12 pm
Generally, I thought Abbott’s performance on Lateline was pretty poor and stumbling.

And we all regard your analysis of Abbott as being the very epitome of impartiality, Steve. Why, it was only a few months ago that you predicted disaster for Abbott after he opposed Rudd’s ETS “policy” to solve the Greatest Moral Challenge of Our Time.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:15 pm
Me?

I’d have no problem claiming it if it was me. I think I do have an account but I could never figure Twitter out and haven’t been there for ages.

I know it was you Birdlab.

Anyway it will confuse bird to no end as he and his new girlfriend (Phil) think we’re the same.

It’s actually a brilliant spoof of the fat head.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:16 pm
BirdLab is now spoofing Bird in another internet medium? What next, prank phone calls, stalking?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:22 pm
It’s not me JC, but it’s fucking brilliant!

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 1:25 pm
CL:

Somehow I can’t imagine the fat head getting any sympathy he was he victim of stalking.

No one could ever see him a a victim of anything.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:26 pm
hmm maybe it’s JohnZ

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:28 pm
Wrong place, wrong time, non-hegemonic masculinity (ie = gay).
.
So, if you’re attracted to women, that’s “hegemonic masculinity”? For the love of God.
That LP crowd are
stark
raving
nuts.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 1:29 pm
Can someone explain this to me… Do those twittters go out to people on the friends of Bird list. Do they get his twitters as Kylie Minogue is on the list. She’s also getting those twitters if that’s who it works.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:30 pm
That LP crowd are
stark
raving
nuts.

Are you sure you’re not understating things?

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:30 pm
No sympathy, JC. I’m just one of those Catallaxians who has never understood how setting up a mock Bird blog or becoming a Twitter stalker constitutes anything other than an advertisement of the subject’s psychic defeat at the hands of Graeme Montgomery Bird.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 1:32 pm
@mayoclinic So when you say you’re a ‘mayo clinic’, do you ship mayo, or do patients have to buy it direct?

More Bird twitters. I really can’t stop laughing as I read through them again.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:33 pm
JC

There are followers and following. I think the pictures there are of the twitters that the fake Bird are following. I notice it includes KFC

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:35 pm
I know CL. However I never set it up and find the thing hysterical. Some of those twits , twitters are very funny.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:36 pm
All the convergent evidence points to Obama being gay. I haven’t met a single one of his girlfriends, and Michelle is just a hologram.
8:32 AM Feb 26th via web

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:36 pm
JC, I think if you have a look at the other Twitters you’ll find they’re all spoofs.

That’s one perspective CL. But I think that JC and Jasaon might agree that it’s akin to watching Basil Fawlty or Homer Simpson. Except, of course, that Bird is entirely his own comic creation.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 1:37 pm
Jason

I would also assume that some of those names he’s following have let him through and accept his comments.

It may mean that Kylie has let the fake bird’s through to her account.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:39 pm
hahaha

fake Bird has been twittering Kevvy Rudd too

@mises @KevinRuddPM Actually, when I say my burger’s cold, McD’s will sometimes give me a free lunch.
3:22 AM Feb 10th via web in reply to mises

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:39 pm
Oh okay thanks, Birdlab. That explains it now.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:40 pm
Can the fake Bird go viral?

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:41 pm
I may be wrong but Miranda Devine’s twitter looks legit to me

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:41 pm
“‘The magistrate said Bird would appear by videolink because he has a history of spitting and throwing bodily excrement at prison guards. ‘ “

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 1:41 pm
@RonPaulcom Would Ron Paul institute mass-executions, I means, mass-sackings of public servants?

I think people on his account are getting this stuff.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 1:43 pm
I think I might know who’s behind it.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 1:47 pm
Abbott. Just STFU. Please.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/not_a_joke_abbott_says_which_is_sad/

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 1:54 pm
with a few honourable exceptions, reading an LP thread is just depressing. to think that that bunch of hysterics and conformist thinkers are disproportionately responsible for the education of future generations even more so.

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 1:56 pm
Fisk’s link:

“Well, there is no doubt that it challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things, but as I also said on the program, it happens, it’s a fact of life and we have to treat people as we find them.”

Perfectly true.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:01 pm
China’s Green Revolution:

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

As someone at The Corner said, send these pics to Thomas Friedman.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 2:02 pm
That’s a pretty uncontroversial statement Fisk.

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 2:02 pm
I was shocked the last time I read an LP thread. Most of the commenters appear to be not very educated or literate. It was always a hate site but it has become steadily more deranged over the past year or so.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:05 pm
Robert Merkel’s & Brian’s posts are OK, by and large, don’t you think Jason?

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 2:09 pm
Fisk, it’s a good policy to simply ignore anything Bolt writes on that subject. He seems to be terrified of offending the gay lobby. His take on Peter Hitchener’s coming out was simply bizarre.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:10 pm
Steve

Firstly I did say ‘with a few honourable exceptions’.

Secondly I said ‘thread’ not ‘blogpost’. I’m thinking particularly of such regulars as Paul Burns, Fran Barlow, Katz, lefty elitist, lefty Helen, joe2 and the like.

Anna Winter is also one of the best LP bloggers.

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 2:12 pm
Is Anna writing about other stuff now or still mostly abortion?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:15 pm
Wow.

Schoolboy sumo tipped to crush opponents.

A 15-year-old Japanese schoolboy tipping the scales at 145 kilograms is set to make his professional sumo debut and is already being tipped as a future ‘yokozuna’.

National junior high school champion Ryoya Tatsu stands 1.93 metres tall and is expected to take part in the Osaka grand sumo tournament beginning this weekend.

The Japan Sumo Association said Tatsu had passed his first health check and was waiting for the results of internal tests to determine if he could wrestle in Osaka.

“I want to be a yokozuna (grand champion) in six to seven years,” Tatsu told the Nikkan Sports newspaper. “I want to become an aggressive champion.”

Tatsu, who hails from the hot spring resort of Nanao in central Japan, is already similar in size to his idol, Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho, who boasts a 152-kilogram, 1.92-metre frame.

Japanese officials are desperate for the next homegrown yokozuna, the country’s last being Takanohana, who retired from the sport in 2003.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:17 pm
It’s a very, very sad site, which is why I like reading it

I’ve always like Brian’s scare stories. He hasn’t had one up in a while. A really hilarious post he had up recently was when he warned that he would delete any comments that disagreed with him on AGW.

He said that he wasn’t going to tolerate intolerance, or some such.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 2:21 pm
I stopped following Sumo after Freakonomics exposed them as a bunch of cheats!

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 2:22 pm
That’s some big freaking 15 year old kid. Fme.

Sumo is pretty dull. A real man’s sport is UFC.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 2:26 pm
I don’t want to watch some fat guy rolling around on the floor with another fat guy.

It challenges orthodox notions of the right order of things.

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 2:28 pm
Prince Charles speaks, my brain says:

“Republic or die”

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 2:34 pm
Speaking of LP threads, I thought Ken Lovell’s comments on the Abbott/gay threat thread were somewhat independent minded:

I’d be more concerned about Abbott’s opinion if I wasn’t pretty confident it’s shared by most of the Labor front bench. There’s no place for hearing poofter jokes like a union officials’ pissup.

… except perhaps a senior managers’ pissup in the building industry.

Ken himself “came out” at a very advanced age, if I recall correctly.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 2:35 pm
D’oh. Not watching my italics again!

Speaking of which, why can’t more blogs have the little row of formatting commands at the top of the comment box? Makes things much easier.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 2:38 pm
yea, I remember when Ken came out. It was quite amusing. He thought it was like some humongous big deal announcing on his blog that he was gay and no one gave a crapper. Yea like, gee Ken, isn’t that really amazing?

He used to be a regular writer at the Road to Insanity blog where he showed perfect timing.

A self-described conspiracy theorist, he was insinuating that the Brown government had planted the fist London bomb to gather public sympathy for the UK’s role in Iraq. Three hours later the Scottish airport bomb went off.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 2:46 pm
Here’s the thing.

Who gives two shits if someone is gay? It’s not even a novelty anymore when one fo your friends come out. Even more backwards people I know don’t care if they aren’t camp.

The younger kids insult each other as “gay” but it’s devoid of any meaning.

Anyone who actually participated in a “gay bashing” would be likely to be sentenced severely if found guilty.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 2:46 pm
Speaking of generic poofiness (and unfounded rumours), Paul Keating is in the news doing his George Costanza architect-imitation routine and raving on about pretty buildings and aesthetics etc in Sydney.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:46 pm
Macquarie Airports has a call option of the second airport…. in case anyone wanted to know.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 2:48 pm
There is nothing wrong with architecture or aesthetics, C.L.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 2:49 pm
Cool:

U.S. push for former President Ronald Reagan to be immortalised on $50 bill.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:51 pm
The Paul Keating rumour was relayed to me at the time by someone very involved in her union, who insisted she had it from very reliable sources. Ever since then, I have wondered if Lefty’s are just generally more inclined to believe gossipy rumours of that kind than more pragmatic Righties. The way they have carried on about Pyne makes me think so still.

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 2:53 pm
I know, SRL. Keating also loves elegant Italian suits, designer loafers, French Empire clocks, listening to classical music, simply fabulous terrace houses and, for all I know, cats.

NTTAWWT.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 2:54 pm
Everything but the cats. Dogs love you. Cats couldn’t give two shits.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 2:56 pm
There is nothing wrong with liking cats.

Cats are selective.

Fellow cat lover VS Naipaul

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/img/naipaul_04_06.jpg

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 2:57 pm
And French empire clocks.

Anyone who likes them has no business talking about taste.

looking at the fucking things.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CZw6P7-_SVM/SABQEFVSZjI/AAAAAAAAAKI/73dwrKOxBeU/s400/SDK+15.JPG

Can anything be gaudier.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 2:58 pm
another example:

http://www.antiquesandwine.com/catalog/prodimg/20070531152841.jpg

these freaking things ought to be outlawed and destroyed on sight.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:02 pm
Cats? Fucking wankers.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 3:02 pm
JC,

I will build anything in Georgian style just in case you are ever Mayor of where I live.

I must have been confused. Neoclassicism is okay and from a similar time, but know I have been corrected about Empire style clocks. Thankyou for education. Yes they are fucking gaudy.

The evolved and more simpler forms of regency style like Federal are still good.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 3:09 pm
Keating’s taste overall is terribly gaudy and frillish. It probably accounts for his raving over Mahler too.

this is my idea of architecture

http://architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends/ig/Modern-Architecture/Modernism.htm

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 3:13 pm
Modernism is all well and good but attention to finishing details and landscaping would make that I M Pei building kickarse.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 3:18 pm
True SRL. Like this. Meier has done some of the most beautiful homes in the world.

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architects/features/2008/03/meier_slideshow_032008#slide=1

I can’t understand how people like older stuff when there’s potential creations like this.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:37 pm
JC

I just clicked on the link and there was an ad for a free issue of Architectural Digest featuring Jennifer Aniston. WTF does she have to do with architecture??

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 3:40 pm
Or this:

http://drsamlamart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/exterior.jpg

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:40 pm
Oh but I do. I like Pratt’s old residence. I like modernism but still want my house to look like one.

Fuck up the landscaping on anything modernist even back to Lloyd Wright and it can be a disaster.

Maybe the dumbest thread ever on doctors:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1302046.html

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 3:42 pm
WTF does she have to do with architecture??

Probably $300 million, no kids and desire the make a statement

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:43 pm
Apparently Aniston became interested in architecture because Brad Pitt was. Turned out she should have got bigger tits, poutier lips and scary tatts.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 3:44 pm
anyway better a pic of Aninston than a pic of bird on the fake bird account.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:45 pm
Yea Indidel. I agree. I raad that shit in the doctor’s louge too.

But I would have thought Jen was a better catch than Ang.

I’m not kidding but Ang is starting to look like a trannie these days.

It’s time for Brad to model up, me thinks.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:47 pm
oops infidel

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:47 pm
Well, while we’re on architecture, and for those who may not have read my post about this in 2008, I suggest you have a look at this for the ultimate in architecture porn:

http://www.dezeen.com/2007/04/25/jean-nouvel-in-doha/

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 3:51 pm
But I would have thought Jen was a better catch than Ang.
.
You’re kidding right? It’s not even a contest.
Jennifer Anniston is nice if you’re into the cute-girl-down-the-road thing. Jolie on the other hand is spectacular.
Plus, Jolie isn’t a left wing nutcase like most Hollywood chicks. For one thing she apparently can’t stand Obama, because she thinks he’s a “socialist”.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 3:52 pm
(The comments following that post are pretty amusing too.)

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 3:53 pm
Of course steve. Every bit of architecture is a phallic symbol in your mind.

How you shock us at times. NOT!

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:53 pm
I agree with DD on something.

Aniston is just a boring girl next door.

Jolie is actually smoking and slightly exotic.

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 3:54 pm
Not sure if I’m into the world’s largest condom.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 3:54 pm
I just thought it was funny, JC, as did about 100 people commenting after the post…

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 3:55 pm
hmm dd is correct about Angelina’s political opinions

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/11/26/2009-11-26_angelina_jolie_hates_president_barack_obama_she_thinks_he_is_really_a_socialist_.html

Angelina Jolie isn’t happy with the state of politics today … and that includes President Barack Obama.

“She hates him,” a source close to the actress said in the latest issue of Us Weekly magazine. “She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise.”

Despite her displeasure with the leader of the Democrats, the 34-year-old actress is reportedly not a Republican like her father, actor Jon Voight.

Pitt, 45, who attended the 2008 election party in Chicago, is apparently a big fan of the President.

“They get in nasty arguments all the time about it,” the source said. “She doesn’t respect Brad when it comes to politics, but, in the end, this won’t tear them apart.”

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 3:56 pm
Anyone related to Jon Voigt is all right by me.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 3:56 pm
JC, if you don’t think that particular building is phallic, you’re in some kind of denial!

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 3:57 pm
isn’t

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 3:58 pm
I agree with DD on something.
.
Okay, there’s the whole AGW thing, but even so, does it happen that rarely?

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 3:58 pm
Bah… I made a correction when I didn’t need one… I gotta pay attention

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 3:58 pm
Yea Dad’s jen is a bit of an airhead, but she’s also pretty cute.

However your last bit won me over. Did she say that?

Plus, Jolie isn’t a left wing nutcase like most Hollywood chicks. For one thing she apparently can’t stand Obama, because she thinks he’s a “socialist”.

I love ang now. Jen goes to the bottom of the my list.

Dude, we’re not exactly comparing industrial quality diamonds here. This is like going choosing between the same sized pink and colorless diamond at Van Cleef & D’Arpels.

And after your post about what she said about Brother Obama I take back the tanny bit.

(I’m now referring to the prez as Brother Obama as he likes Nuke energy).

JC

9 Mar 10 at 3:59 pm
Fleeced :

Of course it looks like a dick. It’s just that I’m not shocked Steve would write about shit like that. That’s all.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:00 pm
They get in nasty arguments all the time about it,” the source said. “She doesn’t respect Brad when it comes to politics, but, in the end, this won’t tear them apart.”

I’d imagine (and hope) that Pitt is nothing but a bit of award night fluff on her arm and occasional DNA for her baby making pursuits. By all reports he’s thicker than clotted cream. She’d run rings around the stupid galoot.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 4:02 pm
I like Jolie’s dad too. The dude joined the tea party movement and spoke at a Washington anti Brother Obama rally.

I read somewhere Jolie has a pretty high IQ, so I can’t imagine she’s well suited to Brad as he sounds really thick.

Ang hasn’t been in great movies though. Most are just crap. She was really sexy in Pushing Tin about flight controllers from when I saw it years ago.

I read she was to take the lead part in Atlas Shrugged at Dagny.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:09 pm
Well, regardless of whatever JC is crapping on about, for those interested in the finished product, I found a photo here:

http://attakatphotography.com/images/20091230193759_doha%20skyline.jpg

The slot at the top now makes it remind me of Bender’s head (from Futurama).

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 4:10 pm
this is what I mean by LP being depressing.

Abbott is now being accused of having the same mental disorder as someone who bashes gays to death

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/08/tony-abbotts-deepest-darkest-fears/#comment-863348

Just think, these sickos are actually let loose in our schools and unis/

jtfsoon

9 Mar 10 at 4:12 pm
Of course, Trotsky’s there on the thread laying in with the dancing slipper.

Gummo TrotskyNo Gravatar
Mar 9th, 2010 at 2:42 pm

Laura @ 30:

I vote he be asked if he’d let one of his daughters marry one – is it one of “the options that I would like for my own daughters”?

Bird and I would always make Gummo cry. He wrote about that once about how awful we were for making fun of him with tears literally swooshing out of the web.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:18 pm
and then there’s Grace, who seems to have never seen normal sized male genitals if the LP beta collection are anything to go by.

grace pettigrewNo Gravatar
Mar 9th, 2010 at 10:15 am

And so the Tony Abbott Freak Show rolls on…

He displays his genitals in tight pants, on the beach, on a bike, and in his hotel room (just ask Barnaby).

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:28 pm
Not really Jason, I would like CL to explain the logic of his statement.

CL likes to take the high moral ground over abortions but shrugs when it comes to a little warfare; eggs, omelettes etc

To me there is no logic.

rog

9 Mar 10 at 4:30 pm
Shorter Rog:

Snide = abortion.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:32 pm
As for JC’s logic…it doesnt’t exist

One minute he is saying he believes in AGW, the next he says he doesnt….and this crap about real cheap nuclear power…pie in the sky

rog

9 Mar 10 at 4:38 pm
Jolie ruined herself with the tramp stamps. I can believe Pitt is pretty thick. He comes across as slightly retarded.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 4:39 pm
“To me there is no logic.”

- Rog

Yes, we noticed, Rog.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 4:42 pm
CL likes to take the high moral ground over abortions but shrugs when it comes to a little warfare
.
they’re completely separate moral issues.
.
One minute he is saying he believes in AGW, the next he says he doesnt
.
He changed his mind… just like you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone changing their mind about something. Some people even change their mind about what gender they’re attracted to.
It happens.
We should accept it, and not expect people to be impossibly consistent.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 4:44 pm
Fuck off Rog. I’ve maintained that i think it does exist as a long-term problem. I’m just not in the bed wetters camp.

You’re such a lying dishonest douche.

As for the question of logic. You don’t even know what i means you moron. Even if I changed my opinion everyday, it would have nothing to do with logic. It would be a change of opinion, not logic, you meat-head. Opinion may or may not be based on logic, but a change of opinion is about logic.

snide = abortion.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:45 pm
I normally prefer the “girl next door” look, but Jolie is way better than Aniston… not a fan of tats on girls though.

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 4:46 pm
oops …….isn’t about logic.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:46 pm
Right

rog

9 Mar 10 at 4:49 pm
exactly.

You doofus, Rog.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:51 pm
“I’m just not in the bed wetters camp.”

See, here is this topic of incontinence popping up again.

Some sort of group bonding

rog

9 Mar 10 at 4:51 pm
Only you can understand your logic JC

rog

9 Mar 10 at 4:52 pm
Tell us about the logic of combining the whale watching and whale slaughtering business, Rog.

Any interest so far from investors?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 4:59 pm
Rog, you deadshit.

You came on the thread obsessing about CL, as usual, implying that he’s a hypcrite because he makes snide remarks about lefties etc. while holding an anti-abortion view.

That would have to rank as one of the stupidest associations I’ve seen for a while now.

You really have self-esteem issues for a stupid fuck, Rog.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 4:59 pm
“See, here is this topic of incontinence popping up again.”

It’s Catallaxy rog. It’s all about the pissing-contest.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 4:59 pm
How that that go, Cl.

That’s right Rog is going to start operating as a tour operator for his newly incorporated venture, “See a while, kill a whale”.

He got that idea after seeing the huge demand coming to tour operators running gigs at all the local abattoir plants.

Meat head takes on anew meaning with Rog.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:03 pm
Then there was Rog’s plan to privatise Australia’s beaches. That was another goody. Haven’t heard it being discussed in the media, oddly.

But Rog isn’t entirely stupid:

“Go Archbishop Pell, lay the boot in to secular democracy and militant Islam.”

- Rog, November 13, 2004.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:07 pm
Go Archbishop Pell, lay the boot in to secular democracy and militant Islam.”

It was okay for “rog” to go after lefties and people or groups he disliked. But the moment he changed his “mind” the hypocritical douchebag is affronted when others do so now and lectures everyone else.

Just fuck right off , Rog.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:12 pm
LOL. Lefties are hating the fact that Abbott’s corporate tax for maternity leave plan has triangulated them out of the business bashing business. Labor’s media wing – the ABC – is now running a hard news story on Abbott’s maternity leave plan based on “Reaction from ABC readers.” Another source the reporter cites is a Facebook comments thread.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:13 pm
Well looks like the inmates are proud of the fact that they have learnt to piss beside the bed not in the bed.

Considering where they are coming from it’s quite an achievement

rog

9 Mar 10 at 5:14 pm
Wow! That’s really deep and meaningful stuff.

“inmates”?

You’re copied that of Homer obviously.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:18 pm
“…the inmates are proud of the fact that they have learnt to piss beside the bed not in the bed.”

Another quote from General de Gaulle, Rog?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:18 pm
The Greens have come out in support of Abbott’s plan – they say he deserves a pat on the back… now you know it’s a bad idea!

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 5:22 pm
Let me say that I really hate the Abbott’s policy as I think it creates a whole new layer of dependency and it’s bad economics.

However it must really grate on lefties nerves that Abbott is going after female votes this way.

It’s fun watching them squirm. One senior ALP’er had the audacity to talk about how we should be raising taxes during an economic slowdown forgetting what the ETS will do.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:23 pm
Ugh… this sort of thing is a complete turn-off:

Coalition spokeswoman for the status of women Sharman Stone is refusing to call the levy a tax.

“We don’t call it a tax – we’re calling it an investment in human capital.”

Investment in human capital… that’s a fancy name for the spending component – but the tax is still a tax. People aren’t idiots – and they resent this sort of nonsense from politicians – it’s why Rudd is falling in the polls.

But as I stated easrlier, Bob Brown gives it the thumbs up:

But Greens leader Bob Brown has praised the policy.

“Tony Abbott needs a big pat on the back,” he said.

“His funding of the scheme is very appropriate and Australians will like it.”

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 5:28 pm
Let me say that I really hate the Abbott’s policy as I think it creates a whole new layer of dependency and it’s bad economics.

It is shocking economics and I hope the business community labors the point that this must increase costs to consumers. It is a cheap trick by Abbott. He has had his fun with hit and run games now it is time for him to show some substance in policy. If this example is any guide he is fucked.

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 5:29 pm
Not to mention the fact that Rudd fully intends to raise taxes pursuant to the Henry review after the election. Pretty clever politics from Abbott, at least, because Rudd has nowehere to go. He’s the one who raved on about corporate greed and Gordon Gekkos. Abbott will be able to say he was up-front before going on to ask Rudd to rule out new taxes following the election, if Rudd wins. How’s he going to answer that?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:30 pm
At least Bob Brown, to his credit, is being consistent. The lefties complaining about it are the sort who would be applauding if it came for the ALP.

It’s a disastrous policy… I still hope they’ll link it to tax paid by the individual in previous years… so they can’t get back more than what they personally paid in income tax.

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 5:31 pm
He has had his fun with hit and run games now it is time for him to show some substance in policy.
.
I agree.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 5:32 pm
Speaking of statistical significance or insignificance:

First off, the IPCC used a well known statistical trick to lower the significance of the increase—that is, switch from monthly values to annual values. This trick generally has little impact on the trend value, but can have a sizeable impact on the statistical confidence of the trend. A trend that is supported by a larger amount of individual data points (in this case, monthly values) has more statistical confidence than the same trend supported by fewer data point (in this case annual data values). So, by using annual data instead of monthly data, the IPCC effectively lowered the perceived confidence of the Southern Hemisphere sea ice trend.

Secondly, just how did the trend drop by 38% when adding another 13 months’ worth of observations? Well, it is not because of the influence of those extra months, as they fell very near the established trend line (in other words, they had little direct influence on the trend). And switching from monthly to annual data also wouldn’t do it. So it had to be something else. One possible explanation is that the figure from the First Order Draft was actually (mistakenly) depicting Comiso’s determination of the area of sea ice, rather than the extent of sea ice. There is a difference in definition between these terms. The sea ice extent is taken to mean the area which is covered by sea ice with a concentration of at least 15% (i.e. this includes regions that are 85% open water), while sea ice area is taken to be the actual area of sea ice itself (so the sea ice area is less than the sea ice extent). Under general circumstances, the two measurements are highly correlated, and their trends are very similar. However, in the case of the Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm, the trends in Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent and sea ice area were largely different. This fact raised some flags of concern at the time. Zwally et al. (2002) noted that the Bootstrap sea ice extent trends were the odd man out of all datasets. The area trends were similar across retrieval algorithms (all were significantly positive, including Comiso’s Bootstrap) and the extent trends were similar to the area trends in all algorithms except Comiso’s Bootstrap algorithm. Zwally et al. (2002) took this to mean that something was likely wrong with the Bootstrap determinations of Southern Hemispheric sea ice extent (probably involving how data from two satellites was stitched together). Comiso and Steffen (2001) also noted the difference in the trend between sea ice area and extent produced by the Bootstrap algorithm, they attributed most of the difference to changes in how tightly the sea ice was packed together (a mechanism dismissed by Zwally et al.) but admitted that inter-satellite issues may also play a part in the trend differences.

Bottom line is that not only did the IPCC Chapter 4 authors have to carefully choose which sea ice retrieval algorithm to use, but they also had to be careful to use sea ice extent rather than sea ice area (somthing they quite possibly forgot that they needed to do in the First Order Draft of Chapter 4).

http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/yet-another-incorrect-ipcc-assessment-antarctic-sea-ice-increase

I wonder if this counts as another IPCC ‘lie’?

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 5:33 pm
A new tax on pokies to fund maternity leave. That’ll triangulate the fuck out of everyone. It will also mean we West Australians get free maternity leave!

Abbott will never get the maternity leave scheme through the party room. Minchin won’t allow it.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 5:34 pm
If this example is any guide he is fucked.

I’m not sure it will be unpopular with the punters, JohnH.

I would prefer they don’t go on a win at any costs thing and wait for this government to completely disintegrate which will be next term.

The problem with playing the left with these sorts of policies is that it escalates statist expectations from the electorate.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:36 pm
Ya think Dover Beach, let me introduce you to another area of “settled science” which has just been blown out of the water. It relates to mitochondrial DNA analyses to determine gene lines. Used extensively in tracking human evolution and genetic linkages. New research shows that even in the same person mtDNA from different organs can have differing genomes. Ha! This raises so many fascinating questions I could go mad thinking about it. It may very well bugger up a lot of genetic research underpinning the Out of AFrica hypothesis and a mountain of other studies relying on mtDNA analysis.

When ever is the science “settled”?

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 5:37 pm
FFS, the science on dieting chnanges every week, how settled can the science of global warming be?

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 5:39 pm
I still hope they’ll link it to tax paid by the individual in previous years… so they can’t get back more than what they personally paid in income tax.

So Fleeced, no maternity leave for 18-25 year olds – who’ve paid bugger all to the tax man?

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:41 pm
Indeed, JohnH. Indeed. Will that by any chance effect DNA evidence presented in courts?

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 5:42 pm
It’s high time the LDP considered cornering the business lobby market for votes – given Abbot has lost the plot with maternity leave.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 5:45 pm
CL… I’d be happy with that

Though I was actually assuming the minimum payment would apply in those cases, as it would with non-working mothers.

Fleeced

9 Mar 10 at 5:46 pm
Considering the various business lobbies behaviour during the GFC, any party that considers themselves a believer in the free market should be sending the corpulent spivs to Coventry.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 5:49 pm
Abbot has lost the plot with maternity leave

No, the plot is to win government; everything else is secondary.

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 5:50 pm
We want to encourage younger women to have children, though, Fleeced – at ages approximating those nature intended for peak reproduction. Safer for mother and child, less likely to end badly or in medically expensive melodrama etc etc.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 5:51 pm
DB,

No, that relies on nuclear DNA. mtDNA is odd, circular, single stranded, codes for 13 proteins and 24 RNAs. Structure is like bacteria. Recent research also highlights that targeting “mitochondrial health” is a fundamental anti aging strategy.

IT

Dieting, study last week showed that the 3 diets, med, high protein, low carb, all had equal benefits in reducing arterial plague formation. The implication? Don’t matter what diet you follow, just eat well. All those bloody diet books, all that bloody health advice, poking into the dark IT.

Just to add confusion to the picture, even the concept of a “balanced diet” is problematic. Even a moderate intake of vitamin A will inhibit Vitamin D function, minerals will fight for competition to cross the gut wall, hence should try and space out mineral intake, multiple studies find increased risk of mortality from some supplement taking, with Vit,. A, beta carotene(converted to vit A in the body) being risk factors. Does appear to be benefits for selenium intake and magnesium supplementation.

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 5:51 pm
“Considering the various business lobbies behaviour during the GFC”…

I don’t think Heather Ridout was behind that.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 5:52 pm
“Abbot has lost the plot with maternity leave

No, the plot is to win government; everything else is secondary.”

I hope is an excellent liar.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 5:53 pm
DB:

The problem is that the win-at-all-costs is very expensive associated with it too.

I don’t see why they have to compete with leftie causes which has the effect of ramping up dependency.

Let the fuckers implode by waiting a few years and the entire place would have caved in resulting in a landslide.

Even if they had any, never let go of your ideals.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:54 pm
OOps The problem is that the win-at-all-costs is it’s very expensive.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 5:55 pm
John H…more on nutrition competition. This is fascinating. I have a mate who has a copy of the “Optimum Nutrition Bible” and given what you said, he might be wasting a lot of money. More or less it says get everything from food but RDI basically needs to be at least doubled across the board.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Optimum-Nutrition-Bible-About-Health/dp/0749925523/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 5:56 pm
Even if they had any, never let go of your ideals.

Now that’s an old man’s ethic. Those days are gone JC. Hate to admit that but such is modern politics.

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
The problem is that the win-at-all-costs is very expensive associated with it too.

I don’t see why they have to compete with leftie causes which has the effect of ramping up dependency.

I don’t think Abbott is adopting a win-at-all-costs strategy and maternity leave is no longer a lefty issue. The trick is to make the right choices on what issues you need to stand firm on and which to adopt but in your own terms. The idea that we can avoid paid maternity leave indefinitely is not tenable.

dover_beach

9 Mar 10 at 6:00 pm
More or less it says get everything from food but RDI basically needs to be at least doubled across the board.

Yes, double RDI is not a bad idea. Remember, RDI’s were principally designed to ward off pathology not maintain optimum health. The issue is even more difficult when it comes to individuals. For example, variations in the vitamin D receptor can have x multiple implications for required vitamin D intake.
RDI values have been increasing over recent years.

I’ve pretty much given up on the nutrition bible type stuff SRL. Good for heuristic purposes but at the end of the day the only way to know is to have various tests done to assess physiological function. Expensive and you need a damn good doctor for that. Poor doctors, too much to know when too much of what is required to be known is changing all too quickly.

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 6:02 pm
I think there’s a bit too much catastrophising going on re Abbott’s plan. He has been up-front about it – isn’t that courageous and welcome in policy discourse? He didn’t put maternity leave out there as an issue. It is already mainstreamed, like it or not. Labor’s approach is, of course, the illusion of a “free” gubbermint scheme. So Abbott’s only alternative would be to argue that he’d institute some complex plan to allow women to finance their own leave or go back to having no statutory scheme at all. (Which would be fine by me). Neither of these is saleable and both would have ended in disaster. Respectfully, JC, it wasn’t Abbott who got the elctorate hooked on this “entitlement.” Rudd did that – with bells and whistles – back in 2007.

Tiger makes an excellent point about the major business organisations. These panhandling, rent-seeking loafers went along quietly and obediently during the ETS debacle just to safeguard their dole payments. Fuck them.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 6:05 pm
If there is a good side to Abbott’s “great big new tax” it is that this money will go to Australian families, the future of our nation, our children’s children, etc. Rudd’s “great big new tax” was just a gratuitous handout to Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And it’s ostensible purpose, reducing global temperatures, is unachievable. Abbott cannot stress this enough.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 6:17 pm
So Abbott is probably playing the political game well, getting Australian women voters on side. Would it kill him to stop responding to snarky questions about his views on homosexuals?

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 6:19 pm
“Tiger makes an excellent point about the major business organisations. These panhandling, rent-seeking loafers went along quietly and obediently during the ETS debacle just to safeguard their dole payments. Fuck them.”

I wouldn’t go that far but Abbot is just giving dole payments to others now.

On costs are 16% of the wage bill. If it is any higher, what do you think can happen to marginal workers or workers in marginal economic zones? If Labour engages in a race to the bottom, the marginal cost will be more.

Think about the less fortunate. The BCA are just making a good point for once.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 6:31 pm
I think there’s a bit too much catastrophising going on re Abbott’s plan. He has been up-front about it – isn’t that courageous and welcome in policy discourse?

There’s nothing particularly courageous about raising taxes, CL. In fact it’s the opposite.

If he was really interested in doing something he’d be lowering taxes for all of us and cutting spending levels.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 6:37 pm
How can this duplicitous turd make a statement like this?:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/rudd-attacks-abbotts-policy-on-the-run-over-paid-parental-plan/story-e6frgczf-1225838837024

You have to be a psychopath to be this brazen. What a fucktard of a man.

Infidel Tiger

9 Mar 10 at 6:38 pm
The industry groups were disgusting during the ETS debabcle.

Heather Rideout out of be ridden out on her behind for the grovelling she’s done.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 6:39 pm
I.T. – very calmly and readily, apparently.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 6:41 pm
Penberthy notes the party room today had a go at Abbott (the Threatened) over his one man policy show, and makes the point that this was the type of attitude that was supposed to be the problem with Turnbull. Ha ha.

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-first-mistake/

steve from brisbane

9 Mar 10 at 6:49 pm
JC, who is that sanctimonious bitch from the minerals council that they often have on Lateline or QT? She was particularly smug during the ETS debate.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 6:53 pm
Dunno Fisk. The place seems infested with these leftwing “industry groups” these days. There’s more than you could poke a stick at.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 6:56 pm
Sorry Q&A not QT

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 6:57 pm
Anyway, the “business lobbies” were in full leftist swarm mode. I thought those c***s had been cleaned out after the decline of the Accord, but it appears they’re back.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:01 pm
I’m always thinking they’re really astro-turf set ups by the unions

Give it an Industry sounding name and straight away you can self-declare as an industry group representative org.

It’s actually not as silly as it sounds at first blush, as firms at times gladly pay protection money to show even handedness, so some of these groups really can be quite left-wing.

If firms weren’t such political whores things could be a lot different.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:02 pm
Donning floaties and wading through the LP bedwetting, two things struck me:

1. The most maniacal shriekers over there – who post the actual threads – all strike me as childless. This strikes me as excellent, and an example of natural selection at work.

2. Probably partly a consequence of 1. They see “paternity pay” not as a child-raising or heaven forbid family issue. No, they see it a form of backdoor Socialism; an opportunity for the government to take money away from the “already privileged!”

Problem is, as my lefty lawyer woman friend so sagely notes, Rudd’s scheme changes all the incentives, but in a horrible anti-social way by greatly increasing the income precisely of those my friend insists we should pay NOT to have children: The NO Baby Bonus!

Peter Patton

9 Mar 10 at 7:03 pm
That entire site should be on a No baby bonus. Peter.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:04 pm
If firms weren’t such political whores things could be a lot different.

Hugh Morgan is probably getting a bit old for it. We need a new generation of business mavericks who are prepared to go mano-a-mano with the Labor Party and oppose everything that they stand for.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:11 pm
and the Liberal party too it seems.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:20 pm
IF there were a case for any kind of baby subsidy, it should be done according to parental IQ. But that’s an IF.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:22 pm
We need a new generation of business mavericks who are prepared to go mano-a-mano with the Labor Party and oppose everything that they stand for.

Yeah good point. We could probably do with a lot more people being prepared to challenge all sorts of governments. Maybe it is just in Australia but it seems to me that generally we let pollies get away with too much.

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 7:25 pm
ah yes Hugh Morgan who was found by courts in both Asutralia and Canada to be ‘ahem’ an unreliable witness.
no wonder Fisky likes him.
If he had had had any integrity he would have resigned after the first case let alone the second

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

9 Mar 10 at 7:26 pm
Good luck with that proposal, Fisk. Lol….

I can’t see why not just import who you want and offer tax holidays. It’s distortive but nowhere near as costly as this crap.

Offer tax free holidays to anyone that wants to set a up business and lives here. You would get high quality people and not have to worry about buying votes.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:26 pm
okay Homer hit us with this unreliable witness routine and while there compare and contrast that with the piggery and the Indonesian bailout coming from nowhere, you doofus.

Get up off your knees Debbie.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:28 pm
Remember that “miraculous” recovery from a long term coma? Bollocks …

Dangerous delusion of recovery: Rom Houben

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/dangerous-delusion-of-recovery-rom-houben/story-e6frg8y6-1225837144766

John H.

9 Mar 10 at 7:29 pm
Fisk:

Homer is angry with you because of your baby bonus IQ proposal. Just ignore him.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 7:30 pm
Credit Crunch Forrest,
Fisky is as clueless as you are.

Morgan is an appalling example to bring up.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

9 Mar 10 at 7:31 pm
Homer, there is not a single person on the internet who has borne false witness as frequently as you.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:36 pm
Homer is angry with you because of your baby bonus IQ proposal. Just ignore him.

Of course he is. My policies would have precluded his birth.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:36 pm
I also reject the IQ bonus. It is far better from a social point of view for a society to be composed of citizens born and bred in rational, responsible, self-sufficient families, not as the products of a state-funded battery-hen farm for the indigent, drug-addicted, thick, and ugly.

Peter Patton

9 Mar 10 at 7:45 pm
It is far better from a social point of view for a society to be composed of citizens born and bred in rational, responsible, self-sufficient families, not as the products of a state-funded battery-hen farm for the indigent, drug-addicted, thick, and ugly.

Peter, right now we are funding low-IQ pregancies through the baby bonus and family tax benefits. In other words, we already HAVE a state-funded battery-hen farm of thick and ugly parents. If it were at all justified to bribe people to breed, I would introduce a policy of eugencics, the opposite of the current fiasco.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:48 pm
sorry, “eugenics”. Why don’t we have an edit function?

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 7:49 pm
Michael, I have already stated tacit agreement with my left-wing lady lawyer friend’s solution to that misincentive structure.

Peter Patton

9 Mar 10 at 7:50 pm
“I would introduce a policy of eugencics…”

Well that ended well last time.

BirdLab

9 Mar 10 at 7:56 pm
I says:
“Homer is angry with you because of your baby bonus IQ proposal. Just ignore him.”

Fisk says:
“Of course he is. My policies would have precluded his birth.”

Ummm good point Fisk. On that alone I would support your proposal.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 8:00 pm
Hey Homer

Could you please expand a little on your slanderous comments against Morgan.

JC

9 Mar 10 at 8:04 pm
Birdlab, I would try to skip the invasion of Poland if that’s what you’re implying. It’s not an integral part of my Baby IQ Bonus.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 8:09 pm
Oh for god’s sake, we already have a state-sponsored eugenics policy. What do you think the NSW state selective-school system is!?

Peter Patton

9 Mar 10 at 8:12 pm
What do you think the NSW state selective-school system is!?
.
But that doesn’t lead to more babies or less babies. (as far as I know).
.
Look, baby incentives are a great idea. Even a bad baby bonus is better than no baby bonus. It’s insurance against becoming Japan, Greece, or Spain.
The challenge is to try to create incentives that aren’t skewed toward particular social subgroups.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 8:22 pm
Tiger’s link:

“Once again this was policy making on the run, ill-considered and without any costings attached to it,” Mr Rudd said.

He also argued Mr Abbott could not be trusted on paid parental leave because he had not held a consistent position on the issue.

“The Liberal Party historically was opposed to the very notion of paid parental leave and paid maternity leave,” Mr Rudd said.

“The Leader of the Opposition has said in the past there should be no such thing as paid maternity leave. I’m quoting from several years ago `I’m dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing’.”

This is from the budget-wrecking “fiscal conservative” who pulled a hospital takeover proposal out of his bottom last week to distract the media from his recently abandoned ad hoc scheme to kill insulation workers and burn people’s houses down.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 8:30 pm
Gerard Henderson compares Abbott and Rudd on people skills. Abbott is far and away superior.

This comes as no surprise to those of us who knew the Brisbane buzz about Rudd before he rose to prominence. He was widely hated by the Queensland ALP, the Queensland public service and Queensland business leaders.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 8:36 pm
Rudd is the guy who held an impromptu straw poll to decide whether to raise the drinking age.

Michael Fisk

9 Mar 10 at 8:41 pm
“It’s insurance against becoming Japan, Greece, or Spain. The challenge is to try to create incentives that aren’t skewed toward particular social subgroups.”

I would have thought not having a 230% debt to GDP ratio did that. If you want people to have kids, then don’t make it hard for successful people to do so. Now we have a system where if you earn a high income and get promoted continually, and have more kids, buy a bigger house etc, you get continually higher effective tax rates.

FMD it’s a stupid set up. On the other hand we subsidise anyone who can get it up or spread em to have kids.

Stupid. Fucking. Monkeys.

Semi Regular Libertarian

9 Mar 10 at 9:19 pm
If you want people to have kids, then don’t make it hard for successful people to do so.
.
That’s true too.

daddy dave

9 Mar 10 at 10:20 pm
The “government” that blew the budget on toilet blocks and uninhabitable school buildings before incinerating 90 houses, electrifying tens of thousands of others and killing four workers declares:

Abbott has ‘chaotic’ policy approach.

C.L.

9 Mar 10 at 11:47 pm
Stanley Fish on Bush in the New York Times:

Do You Miss Him Yet?

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 12:31 am
Rudd humiliated:

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cool on Kevin Rudd’s Asia plan.

PRESIDENT Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has told Kevin Rudd that Indonesia is unlikely to support his push for a new Asia-Pacific community as Jakarta sees the existing ASEAN bloc as its priority.
The Prime Minister discussed the community plan when he telephoned Dr Yudhoyono in Jakarta on Sunday night.

Dr Yudhoyono told Mr Rudd the community was an “intriguing idea to explore” but said Jakarta’s foreign policy priority lay instead in strengthening the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

SBY’s put-down – “intriguing idea to explore” – wins the award for most condescending slap on the head delivered this year.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 12:55 am
You gotta love Milt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A&feature=related

JC

10 Mar 10 at 1:36 am
A classic smack-down of poor old Phil Donohue.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 2:37 am
Professional grand-daughter Marieke Hardy:

“All hail the brilliant arseholes. The brilliant, brilliant arseholes. I will fight to the death for their right to remain insolent and vicious and sadistic. You should too.”

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 2:57 am
The Religion of Peace continues to pile up the bodies:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece

Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.

One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.

Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim fault line…

Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the chants of Allahu Akbar — God is Greatest.

Michael Fisk

10 Mar 10 at 3:35 am
CL says that Henderson proves that Abbott is superior.

Singlehandedly Abbott has raised the coalitions profile to that of John Howard, before he lost the election.

Henderson’s skills at picking election outcomes are inferior

rog

10 Mar 10 at 4:47 am
Credit Crunch Forrest Hugh Morgan was the CEO of which company.
Which company fell foul of both Canadian and Australian courts.
Hugh Morgan was found by both JUDGES to be a witness that was ( Euphemism) unreliable.

Anyone with integrity would have resigned after the first case let alone the second case.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

10 Mar 10 at 9:18 am
what sort of scum are being produced these days? Reading this sort of stuff makes me hanker for a Singaporean approach to crime

Teens punch and stomp on man in wheelchair

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 9:18 am
Henderson’s skills at picking election outcomes are inferior
.
Henderson doesn’t attempt to pick election outcomes.

daddy dave

10 Mar 10 at 9:36 am
Random twitter:

“How to win at financial investment. 1. Buy shares on your credit card and ‘short’, as the traders say. 2. TAB.”

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 10:28 am
actualy Henerson has attempted to on occasions as Mumbles has shown but been wrong.
He usually avoids making any attempt at saying who will win and then criticises people who did.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

10 Mar 10 at 10:53 am
Further proof that science is not always settled:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/taronga-zoos-dead-baby-elephant-born-alive/story-e6frg6n6-1225839029375

Further proof too, that I’d prefer an obstetrician to a vet when it’s baby delivery time.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 11:14 am
What an incredibly stupid thing to say.

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 11:20 am
This article is a bit like Lindsay Lohan calling Britney Spears and untalented airhead:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/greer-is-an-intellectual-paris-hilton/story-e6frg7bo-1225838986055

THR

10 Mar 10 at 11:32 am
Fake Bird tweet

Put on spit mask and abused owner of Blockbuster today. Video rental is a form of fractional reserve.

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 11:34 am
jtfsoon

That sounds like a story you’d read in the British newspapers. Horrible behavior. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Ice Freaks. Presumably, there is a thread on LP demanding all Pacific Islanders be deported, and that Canada declare war on Samoa?

Peter Patton

10 Mar 10 at 11:39 am
Another:

“Did bankers steal my pants?”

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 11:39 am
Is Bird in Darwin, Jason?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/darwin-bomber-wears-spit-mask-in-court/story-e6frg6nf-1225827113075

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 11:42 am
Homer telss people they ESL.
actualy Henerson has attempted to on occasions as Mumbles has shown but been wrong.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 11:57 am
Sometimes you think that all they say about conservatives is true.

Sinclair Davidson

10 Mar 10 at 12:31 pm
Rog’s last big call was that Malcolm Turnbull was headed to The Lodge on 14 percent.

Almost as funny as Homer backing Alan Ramsey’s call that Mark Latham would easily win the 2004 election.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 12:32 pm
I agreed with Ben on capital punishment but I don’t like his style of arguing. His logic is sometimes shoddy. I’m not that passionate about gay marriage though mildly for it but that article is the pits.

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 12:33 pm
Albrechtsen is right. Greer isn’t very bright. Even her seminal book is undergraduate garbage.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 12:34 pm
It’s funny that Greer thinks ‘Roman Holiday’ is trash TV despite having been a Big Brother contestant.

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 12:36 pm
LOL.

Tanner accuses Abbott of budget vandalism.

Yeah, it was Abbott who blew $42 billion on toilet blocks.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 12:38 pm
This is way cool. Streetfighter comes to life!:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/299177.php

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 1:08 pm
Outstanding!

That dude in the white shirt needs to retire from street fighting ASAP.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 1:35 pm
No, not yet.

No proof atom-smasher will end world.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 1:44 pm
The world ends in 2012 CL according to the Mayan calendar

tal

10 Mar 10 at 1:55 pm
New standards in transparency.

Speaking about Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi declares…

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

YouTube (with transcript).

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 1:59 pm
Ya gotta love the French attitude to scandal. Sarkosy and Carla both allegedly having affairs:

Suchablog.com has published posts saying that Carla Bruni fell in love with the French singer Benjamin Biolay, who just won the award for best male singer and best album of the year at the prestigious “Victoires de la musique.”

Bruni and Biolay have reportedly been friends for many years. And according to suchablog.com, Bruni and Biolay already live together. The same blog, which brands itself as a web magazine, also says that president Sarkozy has found “comfort in the arms” of right-wing politician Chantal Jouanno – a 40-year-old cabinet member in charge of the environment as well as a karate champion.

But the French establishment media is legendarily indifferent when it comes to covering the private affairs of their elected leaders. So there has been no questioning of the president about all this.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 2:05 pm
C.L.,

I envy the French with their mature, respectful attitude and pity their Americans with the attitude of voting for and encouraging legislation by lottery.

Semi Regular Libertarian

10 Mar 10 at 2:08 pm
Carla is a mighty looking woman. Wow.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/trouble-in-brunisarkozy-paradise-20100310-pxte.html

JC

10 Mar 10 at 2:13 pm
Why the congress has a 10% approval rating which I still consider way too high.

Pelosi:

“We have to pass the bill (healthcare) to find out what’s in it”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To

JC

10 Mar 10 at 2:26 pm
I’ve never really liked Tom Hanks and now I know why:

Tom Hanks on WWII: We wanted to annihilate the Japanese because they were “different”.

Making it worse and more stupid was the context:

Tom Hanks: America Wants to ‘Annihilate’ Terrorists Because ‘They’re Different’.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 3:06 pm
Man marries pillow.

Lovely wedding picture.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 3:08 pm
Since I’ve mentioned judicial caning as an appropriate punishment a few times, some details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore

Caning, as a form of legally sanctioned corporal punishment for convicted criminals, was first introduced to Singapore and Malaysia (both then part of British Malaya) during the British colonial period. It was formally codified under the Straits Settlements Penal Code Ordinance IV.[1]

Sections 227 to 233 of the Criminal Procedure Code[2] lay down the procedures governing caning, including:

A convicted male criminal who is between the ages of 18 and 50 and has been certified medically fit by a medical officer may be subjected to judicial caning.
He will receive a maximum of 24 strokes of the cane on any one occasion, irrespective of the total number of offences committed.
If the offender is under 18 he may receive up to 10 strokes of the cane, but a lighter rattan cane will be used in this case. Male juveniles under the age of 16 may be sentenced to caning only by the High Court and not by district courts.
He will not be caned if he has been sentenced to death.
The thickness of the rattan cane shall not exceed half an inch (1.27 cm) in diameter.

Singaporean law allows caning to be ordered for over 30 offences, including robbery, gang robbery with murder, drug use, vandalism, and rioting.[3] Caning is also a mandatory punishment for certain offences such as rape, drug trafficking and for visiting foreigners who overstay their visa by more than 90 days

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 3:18 pm
We can’t see the Henry review and now the government is refusing to release the NBN study.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 3:37 pm
Mark Steyn on the West’s health care and “entitlement” fetish:

It’s not about health care.

So there was President Obama, giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that “now is the hour when we must seize the moment,” the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let “health care reform” stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it’s worth it. Big time. I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect. (Let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative.”) The result is a kind of two-party-one-party state: Right-of-center parties once in a while will be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast leftist bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

I’m afraid if men like Harper, Cameron and Abbott will not fight to overthrow this situation, they’re virtually worthless as “conservative” leaders.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 4:10 pm
? CL. So you want Medicare wound back by Abbott?

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 4:17 pm
Medicare should be like HECS:

http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2008/04/04/medicare-should-be-like-hecs/

Semi Regular Libertarian

10 Mar 10 at 4:19 pm
And speaking of the entitlements disease (reaching an appropriately ironic civilisational tipping point in Greece), the EU and a desperate George Papandreou are now looking to make Goldman Sachs the fall guy for fiscal plofligacy and the imperious laziness of an entitled citizenry.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/10/2842075.htm?section=justin

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 4:19 pm
Heh:

NSW Liberal leader shrugs off Abbott ‘insult’.

The New South Wales opposition leader Barry O’Farrell has shrugged off reports of a back-handed insult from his party’s federal leader.

Tony Abbott is reported to have told a partyroom meeting yesterday that the federal opposition would not win the next election by adopting a ‘Barry O’Farrell-style small target strategy.’

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 4:23 pm
Yes Medicare should be like HECS or based on a means test however the policy is essentially the same.

Maybe even get rid of the PBS.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

10 Mar 10 at 4:39 pm
I suppose by Steyn’s logic, Thatcher wasn’t a conservative leader then? Much as I like much of Steyn’s work, this fear of universal health care (oh noes, it’s socialism) is one of the silliest features of the American right at the moment.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 4:43 pm
hahaha

Catherine De Vain gets her column pulled by the Age

http://www.vexnews.com/news/8501/ramadge-be-praised-the-age-finally-draws-the-line-at-devenys-anti-catholic-bull/

jtfsoon

10 Mar 10 at 4:49 pm
The Age ought to be sanctioned for enabling for someone that doesn’t seem to be the fully competent. I don’t blame the Dev as she seems unable to help it.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 5:22 pm
No Steve, Thatcher actually did do roll-back things combined with positive things. The Democrats’ health care “reform” is particularly stupid precisely because the true cost and consequences of “free” public health systems are now very well known. The bill is a dog’s breakfast opposed by 65 percent of Americans. That you think this is a “silly” concern of “the right” again demonstrates your tin ear for political realities.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 5:30 pm
I think it’s fair to say that Bolt was right when he argued Deveny was unwell and needed not encouragement but professional help.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 5:33 pm
As you can see I agree, CL. I don’t really think it’s right that people should stoop to a low level where they actually encourage or even in fact give mentally unwell people a difficult time.

This is not the time to be critical of Catherine.

My heart goes out to her and can only hope she makes a speedy recovery while getting all the medical help she needs.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 5:38 pm
“Sorry” Pete Beattie appears by video link at the corruption trial of former industrial relations minister Gordon Nuttall, Testifies that $60,000 paid to the Nutter by businessman Harold Shand would not have impacted on his portfolio decision-making.

Pete is appearing by video because his corrupt successor – “Botox” Anna Bligh – ginned up a gig for him in L.A. as Queensland’s Agent-General. Anna will also appear at the trial – as will a “who’s who of Queensland Labor, past and present.”

Pete added: “We actually set about trying to run an honest and decent government.”

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 5:38 pm
CL, the present Democrat proposal may be a mess, but Steyn and many Republicans paint a broad brush scare campaign against the very concept of new or improved universal health care on the grounds that it’s just, you know, too socialist.

And you haven’t answered my question as to why you brought Abbott into this, suggesting (so it seems) that unless he de-universalises health care here, he can’t be called a “conservative”.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 5:43 pm
CL, the present Democrat proposal may be a mess,….

May be a mess? May? Are you on crack? It’s 2,000 pages of government grabbing.

but Steyn and many Republicans paint a broad brush scare campaign against the very concept of new or improved universal health care on the grounds that it’s just, you know, too socialist.

Ummm the GOP has offered a decent outline of a proposal, you nimbus, Steve. It’s that you only read leftwing sites so you don’t know.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 5:47 pm
I’m afraid if men like Harper, Cameron and Abbott will not fight to overthrow this situation, they’re virtually worthless as “conservative” leaders.

CL, I agree. The question is how is this to be realistically achieved in the present circumstances. SRL suggests a HECS-style system but the vast majority of our health care expenses are incurred at the end of our lives not a the beginning as with uni education. I tend to favour the establishment of large friendly societies that people would voluntarily join as individual or as members of a household, to cover health, education, maternity leave, etc. The consequent reduction in taxes should compensate the contributions they have to make as a member.

dover_beach

10 Mar 10 at 5:49 pm
but Steyn and many Republicans paint a broad brush scare campaign against the very concept of new or improved universal health care on the grounds that it’s just, you know, too socialist.

No, Steyn makes the excellent point that these schemes “redefine the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.”

He is absolutely right.

dover_beach

10 Mar 10 at 5:52 pm
Universal health care is socialist.

What on earth are you talking about?

If leaders like Harper, Cameron and Abbott don’t do their level best to reverse the careening trajectory towards “entitlement” economies, then no, they don’t deserve to be called conservatives. What they can and can’t do politically is an open question. They have to do their best, have to do what’s do-able – that’s my point. Abbott should be modelling himself – in this respect anyway – on Peter Walsh and Bert Kelly and not on the tax ‘n churn incarnation of the later John Howard.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 5:54 pm
Actually the trendline for the healthcare plan is:

Oppose: 49.5%
Favour: 44.4%

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 5:55 pm
Supra 4 Steve.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 5:56 pm
Milt on socialized medicine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPADFNKDhGM

JC

10 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
Milt on rising cost of health care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F092cdUYec0&feature=related

Milt of 3rd party payer in health care.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Pey_tNXviLM/default.jpg

JC

10 Mar 10 at 6:01 pm
It’s getting worse by the day:

Oh my: 68% now oppose passing ObamaCare without Republican support.

Just 27 percent want the Democrat plan, as is.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 6:01 pm
I’m convinced that welfare is so readily acceptable because there is no longer any shame in receiving it. Who’s going to say no to direct debits into a bank account? If all the middle class welfare queens were made to drive down to Centrelink in their Volvo XC90′s after dropping Olivia and Tyson at St Plumouth’s, they may not be too keen on the sucking the government tit. We need a national shame campaign.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 6:01 pm
oops last link is here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pey_tNXviLM&feature=related

JC

10 Mar 10 at 6:03 pm
Well then, CL, I assume you agree that Abbott’s paid maternity plan sets a bad example as “entitlement policy”? More socialist than Labor’s plan by most people’s reckoning.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 6:03 pm
More from friedman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F092cdUYec0&feature=related

JC

10 Mar 10 at 6:06 pm
The surface temp datasets become even more unreliable:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/09/himalayan-hijinks/

dover_beach

10 Mar 10 at 6:09 pm
Yeah Steve, I’m not particularly crazy about Abbott’s proposal. This is important news to you?

I think he at least told people up front that he intends to tax somebody – which is virtually unheard of most of the time.

Rudd continues to quarantine the Henry review. Abbott looks honest (at least) while Kevvie looks increasingly sneaky and tricky.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 6:16 pm
Well, the point about the “socialist” nature of Abbott’s scheme is debatable, I’ll grant you, but “entitlement policy” still is a fair description.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 6:18 pm
It was disturbing how many poliies chose Mandela in their favourite reading lists and not one mention of Milton.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 6:19 pm
Why?

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 6:27 pm
Why, IT?

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 6:28 pm
It’s like people have forgotten what he said and have to go through the process all over again.

Milt’s right. There’s no real reason the government should have any involvement whatsoever in the heath care provision for anyone. The only area they should have involvement in is public health issues such as attempting to prevent epidemics etc.

Government involvement is has actually prevented efficiencies in the medical field and stifled the push down in costs.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 6:30 pm
Birdlab – Without getting into the nitty gritty about how it makes them wankers, Milton Friedman is a much better role model for truly liberating people.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 6:42 pm
Australian politicians probably prefer reading about Mandela because most of them fantasise about Doing Something to make the world a better place. (Although Mandela did so as a prisoner, not as a legislator). They don’t want to be told by Friedman that it would be better for all concerned if they curtailed their narcissistic desire to Do Something using the personally cost-free expansion of government into people’s lives.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 6:43 pm
“I’m afraid if men like Harper, Cameron and Abbott will not fight to overthrow this situation, they’re virtually worthless as “conservative” leaders.”

How old does a govt program have to be before the conservative approach is to defend it? Me thinks we might be past that point and can barely see it in the rear-view. It takes a radical small government approach to make a fundamental change to healthcare. anything else is just tinkering. Mind you, I’d be pretty pleased if someone could just tinker up something as simple as a copayment.

Pedro

10 Mar 10 at 6:45 pm
What CL said. I’m extremely nervous of politicians who “want to make a difference”. Yikes.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 6:45 pm
Shit my Dad says is going to be a TV show
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie935cc06a4035022666f553e0936ab6a

tal

10 Mar 10 at 6:47 pm
Mandela – in another important way – is the antithesis of the modern liberal. What he achieved he achieved at his own expense – understanding expense in the broadest sense. When “progressives” want to achieve something they really mean they’re going to spend other people’s money.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 6:48 pm
IT, it is libertarians that want to make the biggest difference these days. Everyone else is a share of dem-soc.

Pedro

10 Mar 10 at 6:52 pm
You may be right Pedro.

One of the hard things about being a free market/ libertarian type is that you admit to not having the answer to every damn problem, whereas your social democrat/big government/nanny state types believe they have a solution to everything. It’s the same solution – more money, less liberty, but it plays well with voters and the media.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 6:59 pm
I kind of see your point, IT. But I get the impression that nominating Mandela for the reading-list is just boilerplate Politician 101. It’s just what you do.

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 7:03 pm
I’d be more impressed if they nominated Macchiavelli.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 7:04 pm
I’m extremely nervous of politicians who “want to make a difference”. Yikes.

True, but there are those that make a difference in a good way.

The foremost political leader last Century, Magggie T made a huge difference. I’m sure she never talked about making a difference though. It’s those that do we have to worry about. Hopeychange is a good example of that.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 7:07 pm
You make a fair point, IT.

BirdLab

10 Mar 10 at 7:07 pm
Except that Macchiavelli is dead.

Friedman didnt argue against state supplied health care, he argued against the tax exemption of employer provided medical care, which is a US peculiarity.

rog

10 Mar 10 at 7:49 pm
Except that Macchiavelli is dead.

I simply cannot believe that someone with your IQ was able to run their own business for a significant period of time.

Michael Fisk

10 Mar 10 at 7:53 pm
According to this headline, Greg Combet is not only going to be seriously busy, but seriously in danger of electrocution.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/combet-to-remove-foil-insulation-track-down-dodgy-installers/story-e6frgczf-1225839289682

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 7:59 pm
Harking back to a previous Open Forum, I commented how the Abbott “bullshit” comment to Roxon last campaign was damaging.

To which I got Peter saying “What a bizarre over-interpretation.” And CL responding: “Wow. Holy Steve now opposes the truly shocking word, “bullshit.” ”

Today, Barrie Cassidy explains in detail how the incident was indeed a notable gaffe, and one that indicates to him that Abbott may be slow to learn:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/10/2842057.htm?site=thedrum

Go tell Cassidy he’s wrong, then.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 8:14 pm
Cassidy used to work for Bob Hawke – who once abused an elderly voter on the campaign trail as a “silly old bugger” before winning a third term.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:22 pm
Friedman didnt argue against state supplied health care, he argued against the tax exemption of employer provided medical care, which is a US peculiarity.

We know you’re venomous, but are you really this freaking dumb?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPADFNKDhGM

You’re really too stupid to be posting here.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 8:26 pm
Cassidy is wrong on this.

Sinclair Davidson

10 Mar 10 at 8:26 pm
The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment.

rog

10 Mar 10 at 8:29 pm
Further from Cassidy – who subtly plays the anti-Catholic bigotry card before going on to agree with me that Rudd is never asked the awkward questions and, when he is, he’s simply more adept at lying.

This goes to the core of another impediment to Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, though it’s a theory based not on polling, but anecdotal evidence.

I so often hear people say that they like Abbott, but they can’t abide his deeply held social attitudes. For example? His views on abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, gay marriages, that sort of thing.

Yet in every case, there is barely a cigarette paper of difference between Abbott and Rudd.

On abortion for example, Abbott adopts the Clinton approach. “Legal, safe and rare.” So does Rudd.

Why then is Abbott marked down by so many on these issues while Rudd is not? That is in part because Rudd (a) is rarely asked about these issues and (b) because when he is, he is politically more adept at deflecting them.

Abbott is gaining momentum. People are starting to take a much closer look at the man they thought they knew, but perhaps didn’t.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:32 pm
Steve

Indeed, Cassidy does no such thing. He explains nothing of the sort. You need to please explain. My comment stands. Cassidy is a decent bloke, but far from the brightest.

Peter Patton

10 Mar 10 at 8:39 pm
Bolt’s readers need to take a chill pill. Yes, he lays it on thick and pious on gay questions and yes, he’s being mischievous and a bit silly lionising liberal loon Gillard but, look, how about some loyalty and gratitude from Bolt’s ditto heads for someone who delivers major hits against the crazy left on a weekly basis?

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:48 pm
Good news for victims of Rudd’s insulation debacle:

Accredited fire bunkers to be unveiled.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:52 pm
John H, are you online?

What’s the story with with child allergy rates? Why, all of a sudden, is every school a no peanut zone?

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:55 pm
Bolt is a right-leaning liberal (and partisan hack) rather than a ‘conservative’, and it’s not surprising that his winged monkeys sense this from time to time.

THR

10 Mar 10 at 8:55 pm
So what Rog? You can be both against third party and Government provisioned health care, you nimrod.

There are for instance tons of pieces critical of the current system in Reason mag which doesn’t mean those guys would swing to government provided healthcare. STFU when you don’t understand shit.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 8:57 pm
Bolt is a right-leaning liberal…

I think that’s fair.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 8:59 pm
More cash from Rudd’s endless supply of MAGICAL CASH:

Rudd pledges more cash for hospitals.

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to stump up extra cash to hospitals that outperform national benchmarks as part of his health reform proposals.

And he has signalled the government is preparing to splash about the cash in a bid to get states to agree to the reform plan ahead of a Council of Australian Governments (CoAG) next month.

This is a drunken sailor with the DTs.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:02 pm
Has Rudd’s promises been tested by the Treasury? I’m expecting Ken Henry any minute to come out and criticize Rudd for making promises that weren’t tested by Henry’s department.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:06 pm
Dumped unckie Milt already JC? – that was a short romance

rog

10 Mar 10 at 9:12 pm
I’m not John H, but anyway…
.
Why, all of a sudden, is every school a no peanut zone?
.
Nobody knows.
However, it’s real, and it’s increased dramatically. The reason schools are now nut-free don’t want any more dead four-year olds.
Then, of course, there was the school camp where the tough-as-boots camp leaders didn’t believe one young boy, thinking that his parents had wussified him into believing he had a non-existent condition. They were wrong. After being convinced to eat a spoonful of peanut butter on stage, he died immediately.

daddy dave

10 Mar 10 at 9:13 pm
Come on, Sinclair, turn up 1/2 hour late to a major campaign engagement and end up on TV as the one who looks ill tempered? Of course it was damaging. Not the end of the world, but damaging.

CL, Rudd “deflecting” questions is not the same as “lying”. Everyone else here can see that’s Abbott’s problem: not knowing how not to answer gracefully. And it doesn’t help taking your line as he did with Oakes “how come you never ask Rudd this?” It again looks petulant.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:13 pm
Yeah, my local school has been nut free for at least 6 years; it’s not all that ‘all of a sudden’.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:17 pm
Bolt is a right-leaning liberal (and partisan hack) rather than a ‘conservative’
.
True, but he has some conservative tendencies. Although now you’re making me wonder if he plays up to his fan base a bit, and isn’t as much of a social conservative as he seems.
Blair, on the other hand, is more your straight-up-and-down conservative in the National Review sense; a blend of libertarianism and social conservatism.

daddy dave

10 Mar 10 at 9:18 pm
Dumped him? Are you insane or just pretending?

Look you idiot, I posted some old vids of Milt reminding people what he said…. where he in fact argued against ANY government involvement in the medical field.

If you bothered to watch that Vid, Milt is even arguing against medical licensing as he thinks it creates a certain level of moral hazard and that it doesn’t allow the market to impose its own superior form of accreditation …. such as the Mayo Clinic opening more clinics and branches around the country.

You then bring up one of Milt’s quotes which shows he’s against third party insurance as they have in the US as it breaks the nexus between the patient and the doctor relationship vis a vis cost, which as I said is perfectly comparable with being also against socialist medicine.

And now you’re suggesting I’m dumping Milt?

I’m truly speechless as to how dumb you really are, Rog.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:23 pm
Yeah, my local school has been nut free for at least 6 years; it’s not all that ‘all of a sudden’.
.
Yet 50 years ago, no schools were nut free. That’s pretty fast, considering the nature of the problem. It’s not like computers… allergies weren’t invented in living memory.

daddy dave

10 Mar 10 at 9:25 pm
Yeah, my local school has been nut free for at least 6 years

Someone better inform them that there’s one in close proximity.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 9:26 pm
Bolt is a right-leaning liberal (and partisan hack) rather than a ‘conservative’.

It's extremely hard to beat the Dutch out of those bloody clog wogs. He'll think it's a nice change from being called a neo-Nazi.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 9:27 pm
“deflecting” questions is not the same as “lying”.

In Abbott’s lingo, bullshit.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:29 pm
Oh hardy, ha ha, IT.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:31 pm
Everyone else here can see that’s Abbott’s problem: not knowing how not to answer gracefully.

I’ve never seen anyone else here suggest anything of the sort, Steve. As I’m so often compelled to ask: what on earth are you talking about?

Cassidy in fact says that Abbott answers and tricky Rudd evades answering. How this is a criticism of Abbott, I really don’t know.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:32 pm
LOL

Milt argues against licensing medicos

rog

10 Mar 10 at 9:33 pm
The whole notion of deregulating the medical world is as weird as Ayn Rand, who said that the anti tobacco movement was a commie plot and then contracted lung cancer.

rog

10 Mar 10 at 9:35 pm
You do live in your own little world of comprehension, don’t you CL. It’s a very special place, I’m sure.

Cassidy probably even agrees with me about Abbott’s eyes, but just hasn’t written about it yet.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:35 pm
lol:

Watch the fucking video and find out why, you appalling thick goon. he provides some pretty damn good reasons.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:36 pm
You know what’s weider, Rog? It’s allowing meat heads like you to post comments on the web.

That is truly weird.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:38 pm
Steve, you’ve spent the past month staring at Abbott’s Jap’s eye. It’d be a welcome relief if you concentrated on his peepers.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 9:38 pm
Steve – so he said ‘bullshit’. Most people would have said ‘fuck off, bitch’.

Sinclair Davidson

10 Mar 10 at 9:39 pm
Cassidy probably even agrees with me about Abbott’s eyes,…

First it was an obsession with his old fella and now steve is obsessed with his eyes again and suggests Cassidy is too.

Sometimes Bird actually sounds talking about Hopeychange’s sexual preference.

Lord almighty.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:40 pm
I realise that this is an irony free zone but Friedman arguing against the licensing of doctors is strange when compared with the recent hullabaloo for insulation installers to be more regulated

rog

10 Mar 10 at 9:41 pm
Steve – so he said ‘bullshit’. Most people would have said ‘fuck off, bitch’.

Or worse. I actually thought he was tame to what I would have said to porky.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:41 pm
Never heard that term before, IT. Also, kind of offensive on racial grounds, no? Grow up.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:42 pm
Now I remember, JC strongly argued that his opinions are not logical and therefore can change, and thats logical

rog

10 Mar 10 at 9:42 pm
rog – my mom also thinks the anti-smoking lobby are commies. She got cancer too. Must be a common problem.

Sinclair Davidson

10 Mar 10 at 9:42 pm
Nicola Roxon reminds me of Seinfeld’s girlfriend who was a “two face”. She needs better lighting. Poor Tony probably just got a fright.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 9:43 pm
Steve, you’re pretty obsessed with Tony, let’s be honest. Pretty sneaky of you to verbal Cassidy by leaving out the conclusion too:

“Abbott is gaining momentum. People are starting to take a much closer look at the man they thought they knew, but perhaps didn’t.”

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:44 pm
Hardly relevant to the point I was making, CL.

And for the last time, you comprehension-ally challenged lot: the point was never about the word “bullshit”; it was about being the one who ended up looking petulant, even if provoked.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 9:48 pm
I’m betting Nicola also has man hands.

Look, I hope Labor runs the clip in their advertising. Women will turn off better-than-you shrew Roxon in a second and men will cheer Abbott for not allowing a feminazi to dish it out and then hide behind her gender when she gets what she deserves for rudeness and flat-out lying.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:48 pm
Okay, Rog, Let me spend a little time in remedial free market class with you.

The insulation problem was caused by the fact that the big government elephant suddenly introduced an enlargement of around 20 times the size the market used to be. It would be impossible to think that the older service providers would be able to handle demand of that size without new entrants coming in to take up the slack. In other words Friedman would caution against that sort of government involvement for the very reasons we have evidenced. In other words accreditation was simply swamped not to mention the economics..

Friedman’s argument is that the state shouldn’t be involved in the licensing or accreditation of doctors. It doesn’t mean for a second that he was against accreditation per se, you moron. He thought the market would be better able to provide that sort of thing through his example of the Mayo clinic providing that service instead of a state bureaucrat.

He asked the audience whose accreditation would they trust more, the Mayo Clinic’s or one provided by a state schelp?

Which would you go for, Rog?

JC

10 Mar 10 at 9:53 pm
Actually, the Liberals could hire some actors to relive Kevvy verbally assaulting an RAAF flight attendant for not bringing him the meal he wanted. Or his staffers in Afghanistan for leaving the hair dryer at home. Perhaps they could then cut away to Kev shoving a fiver down the knickers of some pole dancing New York smack addict trying to earn enough money to feed her fatherless baby. Dietrich Bootyhoeffer.

Bring it on.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 9:54 pm
Yes, that would be hilarious, with breakaway shots of him talking in that strange bureaucrat lingo.

Fuck off bitch. I said I wanted the garden salad and multi-grain bread”.

Break away shot.

” I will be introducing other components of the hospital plan in due season”.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:01 pm
” Do I need to roll up my sleeves and work harder?”

“Yes I do”

Does the rest of the cabinet need to learn a few lessons on how to do things more intelligently and also roll up their sleeves?”

“Yes they need to as well?”

Perhaps they could do shot of Rudd interviewing himself with those stupid freaking questions he’s always asks himself.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:04 pm
Look, I accept that in the testosterone soaked world of CL (and Catallaxy generally) that a male politician in a face to face debate looking like he has lost his temper to an uppity woman isn’t a problem. You’re entitled to that view.

Just as me, Cassidy and umpteen other journalists are entitled to our view that it was a bad look.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 10:10 pm
I must say I have a renewed respect for Bolt after his recent streak of non-partisanship

Jason Soon

10 Mar 10 at 10:12 pm
Let’s not forget that Bolt just like Cassidy, O’brien et al, was a Labor hack.

Infidel Tiger

10 Mar 10 at 10:14 pm
Steve:

Testosterone soaked? Now you’re resorting to lifting other people’s terms by swinging around a word or two. That’s truly original.

Look Doofus, unlike you I wasn’t offended with Abbott’s comment and in fact I never really understood what the problem was. Whether it was a fella or porky Roxon herself the person attacking Abbott deserved a bollicking.

In fact Abbott was far too nice to the miserable fat bitch. Instead if it was me I would have said to her it would have been impossible for Roxon to get there even in Abbott’s late hour, as she was too fat to move quickly enough around the airport.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:17 pm
You’re in especially moronic form tonight, JC. Here’s the photo. Ooh yes, she’s a regular lard arse. What are you married to, a stick insect?

http://tinyurl.com/yf5ytfy

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 10:32 pm
More twitters at the Birdie Blog.

# So Lara Bingle probably reads my blog, right? If I email, will she send me a shower picture?

# The housing shortage fixed with the ol’ Bird two-step: 1. Ban fractional reserve banks from cash-pyramiding. 2. Build pyramids.

# I think my pic here looks pretty good. Like a Shanghai dumpling, but with a few tufts of hair.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:32 pm
Nicola has the dress sense of a Nazi Aufseherin.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 10:35 pm
She took at least a 150 lbs off in the past 2 years, you pedantic idiot.

Here’s a more appropriate pic for the time.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/roxon-to-blame-for-bungle-20081127-6k2h.html?page=-1

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:39 pm
Maybe Roxon was shocked, after all. I note from Wiki that she was educated at that bastion of hard luck stories involving the desperately down and out, Methodist Ladies’ College in Kew.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 10:45 pm
I’m sure she comes with a hard luck story, Cl.

All the labor senior figures need a hard luck story as a right of passage to the senior ranks. If you don’t have one just make one up like Rudd and Gillard did.

Gillard’s hard luck story was that the family had to move from the UK to Australia and he father was too smart to be doing the work he did.

No matter how feeble you need a hard luck story.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:50 pm
Number of ‘Abbott’ mentions currently on Larvatus Prodeo’s main page: 31.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 10:50 pm
Gillard also says she had asthma and Wales was pretty cold.

Truly, a Dickensian horror story.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 10:51 pm
And the NHS hadn’t got around to handing out Ventolin in those days?

What a liar, as Wales can be actually quite warm as it gets hit by the North Atlantic Gulfsteam.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 10:57 pm
Number of ‘Abbott’ mentions currently on Larvatus Prodeo’s main page: 31.

It’s 38 if you count the side bar.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 11:00 pm
Extinct elephant bird of Madagascar could live again.

What’s the story with these popular ‘live again’ reports on DNA extraction and extinct critters?

Is it just tabloid nonsense or what?

That’s two big science questions from me but John H isn’t around tonight, damn it.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 11:06 pm
So you’re interested in all science except climate science, CL? Pity.

steve from brisbane

10 Mar 10 at 11:08 pm
Used to be junk bonds and now……

Death bonds.

Who the hell is trawling around in terminal care wards?

In an unusual type of bond deal that might have had even Freud pondering its morbid implications, companies like the American International Group, Bank of America and GE Capital issue discounted bonds to buyers who have teamed up with someone who is about to die, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Journal explains:

In a little-known practice, investors can recruit a terminally ill person and together they can scoop up these bonds on the open market at a discount. When the ailing bondholder dies, the surviving co-owner can then redeem them at face value and potentially turn a quick profit.

These bonds, issued with a so-called survivors’ options, are intended to address fears among couples that one partner might not survive to see the bonds mature, The Journal said.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 11:19 pm
Steve, I’m very interested in climate science – especially (but not exclusively) in relation to its recent corruption at the hands of a railway worker.

The peanut thing has killed quite a large number of people. “Climate change” has only killed four people – via Kevin Rudd’s electrocution/insulation scheme. The former is a lot more important, scientifically, than the latter.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 11:23 pm
JC, isn’t it that kind of rubbish that has been destroying the commercial reputation of the United States? It would help the cause of deregulation tremendously if these companies would get back to solid business practices.

From the WSJ article:

One investor who scored big on the money-back guarantee is Joseph A. Caramadre, an estate-planning lawyer in Cranston, R.I. From 2006 to 2009, Mr. Caramadre recruited several dozen terminally ill people to serve as joint brokerage-account holders. He then bought survivor’s-option bonds trading below face value for each account, according to Mr. Caramadre’s lawyer and federal court records filed in Providence, R.I., over how to pay out proceeds from the investments.

Robert G. Flanders Jr., Mr. Caramadre’s lawyer, said that his client specializes in finding obscure but legal loopholes in financial products. Mr. Caramadre, his family and investors, he said, have put about $10 million into corporate bonds with a survivor’s option—successfully collecting on many of the guarantees. In one instance, Mr. Caramadre’s wife paid $421,000 for bonds with a face value of $605,000, including from two AIG units. She then asked for them to be redeemed for the full amount after her co-owner died less than a year later.

C.L.

10 Mar 10 at 11:29 pm
Hey CL I’m thinking of sending a boat load of rightous elephants to Nigera

tal

10 Mar 10 at 11:30 pm
Hard to say, CL. Personally I find this pretty distasteful and can’t imagine anyone wanting to play this game.

However the poor souls who end up with the money may actually need it before they die and could be in very desperate straights as they would have left their jobs etc and need cash to fund the remaining part of their lives.

It appears to me that it’s a discounted cash-out of assets into cash at a discount with the bond owner betting on the life expectancy.

You can say that they (terminally ill) are getting something of value in this situation.

However I don’t really understand the mindset of those investors, as it really does look like blood money.

Stay away and let others play, I think.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 11:42 pm
How’s the neck Joe?

tal

10 Mar 10 at 11:48 pm
A little better, Tal, Thanks. It was so painful (no kidding) I went to the Eye and Ear Emergency one night last week saw an ENT dude who felt around and found infection in the lymph nodes. She stuck me on two types of anti-biotic and it’s fine now. She thought it came from my regular sinus problems. Seems like I had two problems.

Fit as a freaking fiddle now.

JC

10 Mar 10 at 11:55 pm
Indeed, Tal. I want to send in our best Christian elephants for this one. I’m talking the commandos.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 2:43 am
CL, aye brother I’m thinking Sweden could use some as well

tal

11 Mar 10 at 3:03 am
Obama back to his lowest ever approval ratings at Rasmussen. Poor guy.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 3:26 am
http://www.news.com.au/national/bullying-victim-wins-290000-payout/story-e6frfkvr-1225839357108

This story is yet more evidence of the need to reintroduce the cane in schools.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 4:30 am
Would the cane help with such bullying, Michael? My memory of teachers is that they’re pretty horrible – many of them bullies themselves…

Fleeced

11 Mar 10 at 8:24 am
Schools should be able to just turf out the problem kids and tell them they’re not wanted.

daddy dave

11 Mar 10 at 9:44 am
You cannot be serious, Fisk.

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 10:24 am
“LOL

Milt argues against licensing medicos”

Who do you think should do this, the Government, as we’ve seen with Woolridge who aren’t saints, or the insurance companies that carry the risk of funding their procedures?

Before we get to the issue of people choosing to go to back alley surgeons…

…the Government also approves of and funds “alternative therapies” and teaching the dreamtime as science.

So you want a bunch of idiots to coerce everyone to protect another bunch of idiots?

Milt was right.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 10:31 am
Yes Milt was right. Privatized accreditation would begin and we would actually see the expansion of famous groups like the Mayo Clinic, Sloan Kettering etc. begin to expand services across the US and the world. Sure beats a government department.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 10:37 am
I’ve heard second hand that a well known doctor/practice accreditation scheme demands exclusive supply of equipment which sounds an awful lot like a restraint of trade and third line forcing.

Please correct me if this is incorrect and the comment is not made maliciously.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 10:42 am
To quote the winged menace.
“So when you say you’re a ‘mayo clinic’, do you ship mayo, or do patients have to buy it direct? ”

Do we really want the practice of people being treated with mayo to be expanded?

Steve Edney

11 Mar 10 at 10:43 am
The winged menace does have a point, Steve.

You can’t dole out mayo for every illness. Personally, ham, salad, mayo on rye works a treat at any time.

I’ve put that page on my morning list to see if he’s updated. I love the tufts of hair on ball-like head. It’s like a fat soccer ball with fair strands glued to it.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 10:50 am
JC, Twitter update:

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

Bird and Bingle!

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 10:53 am
Yes I saw that Lab. I posted the latest upthread.

Hey, Boeing hit 70 bucks on its way to my predicted 150 bucks, which calls for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqsT4xnKZPg

JC

11 Mar 10 at 10:57 am
Did you here what happened with the tanker air -refueling bid? Fucking American government really sucks.

Northrop Grumman had teamed up with Airbus to bid for the air-tanker replacement. Airbus was going to use the Airbus 350 platform with a retrofit which instead of holding passengers would carry a fuselage full of jet fuel.

Boeing was bidding with the 767 platform.

Anyway the bids went in and before the announcement as to who won the Dept. of Defense changed the bid specs which “accidentally” favored Boeing.

Airbus is taking the thing to court.

I’m torn on this one. As a happy Boeing Shareholder I’m happy they got the bid as it’s a freaking huge contract. As a libertarian the process sucks big time.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 11:05 am
Fantastic!

That’s a big call on the stock-price. What make you of this?

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2010/03/boeing-and-airbus-defy-the-odd.html

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:17 am
Interesting Birdlab.

My feeling is that Boeing is cutting narrowbody production to focus more resources on the Dreamliner and the updated 747 which will kick Airbus’s backside.

Narrow body is a very competitive market and will be increasingly so as the Canadians, Chinese, Russians and Brazilians are all into it. Whereas the widebody long range line up is pretty narrow which I think Boeing will increasingly dominate and offer them better pricing power.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 11:26 am
Yeah, JC, I’ve been following it. But same as it ever was. It’s all big-bucks and backroom deals. After the F35 debacle nothing comes as a surprise:

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2010/03/06/open-forum-march-6-2010/comment-page-16/#comment-22109

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:28 am
D’oh. Wrong link:

http://ericpalmer.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/more-from-the-empty-suits/

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:30 am
JC, I think you may be right on the narrowbody.

My feeling initially was that the A380 and the 767 would actually complement each other (longhaul and hub). But the updated 747 is one sexy beast.

Apologies to everyone for the geek-talk.

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:36 am
So on top of sabotaging Toyota, the Feds are now trying to bring down Airbus. Nice people running Washington.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 11:47 am
That’s OK, IT. They’re French.

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:50 am
Yeah, I’m a Boeing man myself. Those Airbus’s have a nasty habit of ploughing into mountains. And the Dreamliner gives me a nice stirring in the loins.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 11:54 am
Tiger:

That shit is so politicized on both sides. The Euros are always doing stuff the prevent international firms from competing on big contracts like that.

Are you shocked that Washington is a rat hole?

JC

11 Mar 10 at 11:54 am
“And the Dreamliner gives me a nice stirring in the loins.”

Now you’re starting to weird me out.

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 11:56 am
Shocked I tellz ya! The world’s a whorehouse, no point tiptoeing around like a virgin I suppose.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 11:57 am
And the Dreamliner gives me a nice stirring in the loins.

I once titled the plane the Claudia Schiffer of the sky, so I’m not surprised your loins stir.

—————–

Lab

When you think about the Airbus move of devoting more resources to the narrow body is actually a sign of weakness as it seems they’re sticking more resources in to that relatively crowded and lower margin sector.

Frankly this isn’t surprising as I’ve asked a couple of pilot friends of mine that only do domestic routes to find out what the gossip was on the Airbus 380. These two guys don’t know each other ant the same message came back. The pilots that fly the 380 hate it and the firms that own them can’t stand the planes.

I’ve also read the same sort of message on pilot blogs and the corresponding comments.

This is a further sign that Boeing will simply dominate this market and will only get into trouble in a generation or two when private jet travel becomes more affordable to the average schlep.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 12:01 pm
Did the stimulus actually do anything?

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0

Discuss.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 12:08 pm
The stimulus created employment, but only through a huge destruction of wealth, and with negative returns.

It created jobs in the same way that breaking windows would create jobs.

Fleeced

11 Mar 10 at 12:13 pm
SRL

I think it’s undeniable that it helped create employment in such areas as insulation install and building school toilets.

My argument though is that shit ought to be taken out of GDP and also income adjust GDP for those effects due to the fact that calling say the insulation program a add on to demand ought to be criminal libel offense against economics.

So, no the real effect was less than 1 as Barro suggests.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 12:15 pm
That’s some fine feedback you have going there, JC. Did they have any piloty-type reasons?

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 12:19 pm
A rough estimate is that 120 000 were put in pretend jobs (many of which no longer exist) at a cost of $358 000 per job whilst 23 000 exited the labour market as discouraged workers between Feb 09 and Feb 10.

…and lefties think I’m nuts saying that we should have cut Government imposed on costs of hiring labour.

The “investment” in toilet blocks and electrified roofs will surely have an extremely high depreciation rate.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 12:19 pm
State by state analysis and taking out the monetary and intertemporal factors would judge the stimulus fairly.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 12:20 pm
It’s gets a little technical here, Lab. There’s was something wrong with the stability at cruising levels and the way they have to handle the instruments. They also hated the layout of the cockpit and that it’s not very pilot friendly the way the Boeing is. There’s also stuff they find peculiar about the takeoff and the shit they need to perform.

The firms hate it because the economies of scale only work when the plane is full. Cheep to run when full, really freaking expensive when its not. In other words it’s not really very efficient.

There were also some serious issues with oil leaks.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 12:27 pm
actually as usual Barro got his sums wrong.

the social profit is at least $390b not $230b estimated by Barro because he gets his tax multipliers wrong AGAIN.

When nominal interest rates are zero bound multipliers can be much higher , Bob Hall has them at 1.7.

Stimulus had people spending more on retail trade than otherwise be the case,

Who in the hell are building school buildings now and previously.

oh and that terrible debt rising to 100% of GDP will probably be revised to 8% in the budget.

Ignorance is bliss

how can people be so wrong all the time and continue to bleat about things that do not exist.

They live in a fantasy land

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

11 Mar 10 at 12:30 pm
“he gets his tax multipliers wrong AGAIN.”

How?

“When nominal interest rates are zero bound multipliers can be much higher , Bob Hall has them at 1.7.”

Why is Barro different then? *Barro is WRONG again* isn’t instructive.

“Stimulus had people spending more on retail trade than otherwise be the case”

Yes…but so what?

“Who in the hell are building school buildings now and previously.”

Maybe you should ask…um, the buildings? You need to be a bit clearer here old bean.

“oh and that terrible debt rising to 100% of GDP will probably be revised to 8% in the budget.”

The EU used to say 3% was the limit, many academic economists 5% was sustainable…just. Why should we abandon rules because the US has joined Japan and Europe in a woeful situation?

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 12:36 pm
An apparently drunk Lindsey Tanner explains why tricky Rudd won’t release the Henry review:

Well, no, I don’t accept, Kerry and over that four months we’ve had the Copenhagen conference on climate change; we’ve had complete turmoil and mayhem in the Opposition side with Malcolm Turnbull being replaced by Tony Abbott; we’ve had the holiday season and Kevin Rudd, I think rightly, had a significant holiday. Even though everybody says he works too hard, well, he actually had a break and that was a good thing.

Kev needed a holiday.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 12:37 pm
Top work on the piloty stuff JC. Thanks.

Here’s something in return:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyy8tjTcsh1qzzefoo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1268357997&Signature=1uHIUTHLfBMWshB45LKqrjsl64k%3D

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 12:41 pm
Obama “administration” apologises to Gaddafi for criticising his declaration of war on Switzerland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8558764.stm

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 12:45 pm
This government should be fucking fired over this alone. We ought to claw back Rudd and Lurch’s salary.

A FOOTBALL team was granted 17 new hot water systems and knocked back an offer of even more, sparking debate about reckless federal spending.

Tiny Koondrook Barham Football Club on the Murray River, Victoria, now has almost one hot water system for every player in the team.

President Rod Barrington said the club knocked even back more units.

“They wanted us to take more,” he said. Other clubs were given so many hot water units they couldn’t pay the power bills.

As the Rudd Government struggles with the roof insulation scandal, the Herald Sun can reveal shocking waste of taxpayer money on unwanted hot water units.

This is fucking shameful. It’s our freaking money down the drain.

And there are clowns that suggest the stimulus worked? Homer should be thrown in solitary confinement.

http://www.news.com.au/national/prime-minister-kevin-rudd-in-more-hot-water-over-waste/story-e6frfkvr-1225839370701

It’s an absolute disgrace.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 1:00 pm
Marky the EU had a limit of a budget deficit of 3% of GDP.
good to see those treasured research skills at work again.

Umm people, in the private sector , put buildings up.

I wonder why the OECD, IMF or the World Bank said the stimulus worked. well we can say they do not live in fantasy land like Catallaxian crackpots.

Oh why would anyone think examining a time of 3% unemployment has any relevance for a period almost 10%

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

11 Mar 10 at 1:09 pm
One hot water system per player.

Heckuva job, Kevvy!

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 1:26 pm
Cleanest players in the league!

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 1:29 pm
Predictions from “science”!

———————————-

“Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich in an interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.

“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Life magazine, January 1970.

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.

The world will be “…eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.

———————————-

40 Years Later: Air Quality Has Never Been Better.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 1:41 pm
The worst fiscal bum in American history:

Monthly deficit hits $220 billion, highest in U.S. history.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 1:52 pm
The Leftist police state is planning to crack down on “haters” on the internet, while protecting the civil liberties of terrorist organisations.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4336

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 2:00 pm
The problem with these so-called ‘scientists’, and it is probably true of some economists as well, is that they make these outrageous predictions and are not in the least shamed when they are shown to have gone awry.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 2:09 pm
…not in the least shamed when they are shown to have gone awry.

So true but Julian L. Simon certainly did better than most in shaming nutball Ehrlich.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 2:22 pm
Four Corners next Monday:

The Authentic Mr Abbott by Liz Jackson.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 2:24 pm
The Authentic Mr Abbott by Liz Jackson.
.
Yeah, right. I’m guessing she means the title ironically.

daddy dave

11 Mar 10 at 2:28 pm
“Reporter Liz Jackson talks to the people who knew him at school, at university and key Liberal powerbrokers who championed him in his rise to power…. Liz then goes under cover with Opus Dei and exposes Tone’s plans to turn Australia into a theocratic state.”

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 2:30 pm
Hey Tal, here’s one of my best Christian elephant commandos making short work of a van he suspected of carrying Muslim terrorists. Ideal for the Nigerian campaign, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ0CXLu1to

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 2:37 pm
Sign him up CL

tal

11 Mar 10 at 2:48 pm
Homer – you assertions are rubbish. You are confusing yourself as to what I said. Look at the sectoral and regional data. That is where the truth lies about the effectiveness of the stimulus. NSW got the most stimulus handout but is very poorly performing. Resource rich States benefitted from a monetary expansion vis a vis the trade channel.

Also ask yourself the wisdom in “creating” 120 000 jobs at the cost of $358 000 each, unamortised, whilst increasing discouraged workers by 23 000.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 3:11 pm
This is a pretty big Homer infestation, people. Almost every thread has a homer comment. To the barricades.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 3:22 pm
You can imagine what the “authentic Mr. Abbott is going to be about.

Let former media watch announcer tell us.

The question is, can this man with a reputation for divisiveness translate the electorate’s newfound interest in his leadership and policies into an election victory?

His long history in Australian public life has delivered his party a leader who is unafraid of the spotlight or the need to make bold decisions. It’s also true his strong views on a range of subjects including climate change, abortion, maternity leave and health care reform could provide ammunition for his political rivals. Whatever happens his supporters believe he’s a politician who cannot be ignored.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 3:25 pm
FMD Menzies House has tanked. The content consists now of denial of the 2007 election result, calls to ban gay marriage and discussion of Ann Coulter calling libertarians closet fascists.

Fuck. Heads.

The ALS Blog is better, even if it is run on $2.50 per annum.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 3:32 pm
This is a pretty big Homer infestation, people. Almost every thread has a homer comment. To the barricades.

I’m already there, JC. Glad you could join me, brother.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 3:32 pm
Keane at Crikey.com, noting how Abbott’s parental leave scheme will affect many people, but especially his ‘core’ constituents:

“The unforeseen impact on public finances of Abbott’s half-baked effort demonstrate what can happen when a bloke who finds economics a bore fails to ask anyone with a clue, either in his own ranks or in business, what might happen if he bumps company tax up significantly. But this proposal goes even further. Abbott surely cannot have thought it was a good idea to launch a rocket at the retirement incomes of his party base. That’s exactly what he wants to do.”

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/11/abbotts-parental-leave-scheme-takes-aim-at-his-own-party-base/

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 3:40 pm
“when a bloke who finds economics a bore fails to ask anyone with a clue”

Are you a new Australian? Have you heard of our PM Kevin Rudd?

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 3:42 pm
By the way, what is the possible logical justification for the Coalition not passing Labor’s plan in the Senate?

“The Coalition is demanding amendments to the scheme to make it look more like its own – six months on full pay – otherwise Opposition senators will be voting against it…
The Opposition is offering six months at full pay, although it is capped at $75,000.”

It can’t be a desire for fiscal responsibility. Why the hell not just let it pass and go to the election saying “see what a weak scheme Labor gave you, now look at ours?”

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 3:46 pm
Link for the quotes in that last comment:

http://tinyurl.com/yhzrzjv

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 3:47 pm
Maybe you should be a Government backbencher, given you’re asking such asanine dorothy dixers.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 3:48 pm
Gee Steve thanks. Bernie has now found economic “rationalism”. Lol.

The only people with the credentials to criticize Abbott are not letftards like Bernie, as they have no moral standing to do so. The only people are genuine free market types. Lefties and knee padders like Bernie have no truck in this argument.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 3:48 pm
Ah, Steve is now being tutored by Crikey’s Keane. It is amazing what sort of bedfellows a mutual hatred of Abbott makes.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 3:49 pm
Maybe you should be a Government backbencher, given you’re asking such asanine dorothy dixers.

Hear! Hear!

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 3:51 pm
hahahahhahaha

Dover, Steve is linking Bernie-the-berry-squasher as the authority on critiquing Abbott’s policy.

What next Guy Rundle as the authentic voice of true liberalism. Rundle, the conscience of a free market liberal.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 3:57 pm
All this from people who whine about “ad hom” all the time when it comes to climate change debate. How about just answering a legitimate question, boys.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 3:59 pm
Who’s whining about Ad Homs, Steve?

Dude, your linking of Bernie-the-berry-squasher deserves a certain amount of criticism and nothing else.

The-berry-squasher and Crikey have no place in political discussion salons such as this.

Go away.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:05 pm
Well Steve, if you’d like to play dumb, we’ll oblige you. I hope it doesn’t become habitual.

They are opposing it for the simple fact that they can claim they tried to pass amendments when they spruik their own version, and it appears they can smell fear. Abbot’s been fairly successful and Rudd looks a lot worse than he did a while ago. If they get a DD and a highly polarised election (which they may still be far off from winning), they also have a chance of wiping out the Greens. Also if they don’t oppose it and oppose it during the election, a voter merely has to get an open mic and say “Why didn’t you vote against it?”. If the answer is “we were electioneering to try and stooge you”, do you really think that would go down too well?

A double majority? I doubt they’ll do anything useful with it.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 4:05 pm
Marky the increase in employment was not in the resource states as Barry Hughes has shown previously.

The trade channel was late to the party.

gosh NSW got more stimulus. well where are most first home buyers and schools?

Snoopy now equating criticsm of Abbott as hatred but of course.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

11 Mar 10 at 4:10 pm
Bolt is reporting that the self described evidence based PM is a lying creep and that there was no freaking evidence the insulation would save on green house gases. These trogs just straight out lied.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/even_rudds_selling_of_his_insulation_was_a_fraud/

They don’t deserve to be in government on this alone and their salaries clawed back.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:12 pm
Yes Debbie. We know the pink Batts raised “employment” if that’s what you call it.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:14 pm
“the increase in employment was not in the resource states as Barry Hughes has shown previously”

What about NSW GSP? Pitiful. We got the most stimulus but the worst macroeconomic performance.

(Yes Homer, NSW is the largest State. But you do realise what agglomeration scale mean, don’t you?)

Here is Barry Hughes being quoted:

“Hidden unemployment is expected to rise appreciably, too, as discouraged workers drop out of the labour force.”

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 4:14 pm
I haven’t engaged in ad hom, Steve. The answer, BTW, is pure politics. Abbott wants to make this an election issue. One way of doing that is opposing Labor’s plan in the Parliament. Opposing it only works if the Greens or Independents don’t support it.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 4:14 pm
My point, d_b, is that I can’t really see how you it can be sold as “logical” politics. Opposition amendments will make it more expensive, and without any new tax (or levy) to pay for it. It plays right into Labor’s line that it is Abbott who is preventing government getting the budget back in control.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 4:22 pm
Snoopy now equating criticsm of Abbott as hatred but of course.

No, I’m not equating criticism with hatred you old clown. Steve from B has himself confessed:

But deriding Abbott is my current enjoyment in life.

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2010/03/06/open-forum-march-6-2010/comment-page-17/#comment-21383

If what Steve from B were engaging in was criticism he wouldn’t be “deriding” Abbott nor “enjoying” it; that usually requires you hating the subject of criticism.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 4:24 pm
Steve:

Are you just pretending to be retarded or impersonating Homer?

Let me say for the 20 th time that I despise Abbott’s policy for countless reasons.

However, having said this he is at least matching the spending with a tax increases and not adding to the never never.

At the very least he has announced a spending plan and matched it against a tax.

That is how things ought to be if you’re going to spend money.

It plays right into Labor’s line that it is Abbott who is preventing government getting the budget back in control.

Really? Let labor cut spending unilaterally, they don’t even have to go to parliament for that. All they need to do is pull the plug on the stimulus.

Why should the Libs help these miserable fucks. They got us into the pink batts and toilet mess so let them climb out of the swamp. As a voter that’s all I care about.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:28 pm
My point, d_b, is that I can’t really see how you it can be sold as “logical” politics.

Politics isn’t a syllogism, Steve.

Opposition amendments will make it more expensive, and without any new tax (or levy) to pay for it.

The counter to that is twofold: the amendments are worth the added expense, or avoiding amendments now only to add them later when in government will only add to the expense of the scheme.

It plays right into Labor’s line that it is Abbott who is preventing government getting the budget back in control.

Apart from the government and their boosters, no one believes them. Even the cross-benchers admit that the government are over-egging their claims.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 4:30 pm
Two mothers attack the man accused of molesting their children outside a Melbourne court.

Security pepper spray them.

A blind man with a cane also pepper sprayed. “Court security” officers say he was swinging his cane and “hindering” them.

The man was taken to hospital after complaining of chest pains.

A witness says the man did not do anything wrong.

“He wasn’t angry at all, he was just standing there,” he said.

“He was blind – you could see he had a cane.

“He was having a cigarette apparently and next thing, the protective officers are saying ‘move, move’ and then they started spraying him.”

In Western Australia, cops taser a 49 year-old drug addict who subsquently dies:

Counsel assisting the Deputy Coroner Evelyn Vicker, Dominic Mulligan, raised the issue of the Taser being used as a compliance tool today while questioning one of the officers involved in Mr Conway’s arrest, then probationary constable Andrew Giftakis.

Mr Mulligan asked Constable Giftakis if he was suggesting that he and two other officers were not able to grab Mr Conway’s left hand so it could be handcuffed without having to use a Taser.

“I can’t answer that,” Constable Giftakis said.

At the time the Taser was used Mr Conway was lying on a median strip on a busy road in Fremantle. He was on his stomach and already had his left arm handcuffed.

Is being a physical coward now a requirement for being in the police services?

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 4:30 pm
“Hatred” is too strong a word for my feelings of Abbott. I don’t know about say, CL or JC’s feelings towards Rudd, though.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 4:31 pm
Steve, dude, you’re pretty obsessed with Abbott.

Here’s my call: you’re in love with him.

We’ve all seen this kind of thing before.

Admit it.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 4:32 pm
I don’t hate Rudd. I really never hated anyone. I think Rudd is a former public service little punk way over head in everything and an incompetent who will go close to ruining the is country if he’s allowed to go on.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:36 pm
“My point, d_b, is that I can’t really see how you it can be sold as “logical” politics.”

The “median voter” often isn’t and may not be representative of any actual voters.

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 4:38 pm
Hmm, politician who previously virtually no one had ever regarded as having potential to be PM (and who CL himself has “thrown under the bus” for the next election) gets the leadership by switching positions in the space of a couple of months on a major policy issue due to a sniff in the wind that he could benefit from a completely ill-informed populist campaign right wing columnist/radio jocks led campaign swaying the aging membership of the party, and who having achieved the position, decides that CO2 is not “absolute crap” after all.

Yes, I can see that’s why I would love him.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 4:43 pm
“Hatred” is too strong a word for my feelings of Abbott.

What would you prefer: deeply unsatisfying? acutely displeasing? and so on.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 4:44 pm
And Steve:

I also don’t think he gives a shit about the country and is trying to use the position the voters have given him to somehow springboard to some big posting like the UN.

FFS the prick took 135 people to the Copenhagen Haj? Aren’t you embarrassed.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:46 pm
(and who CL himself has “thrown under the bus” for the next election)

To Steve CL, is the god king. You really get obssessed about fellow humans, hey?

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:48 pm
oops:

To Steve, CL…….

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:48 pm
The left now bans salt.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_york_state/chefs-call-proposed-new-york-salt-ban-absurd-20100310-akd

JC

11 Mar 10 at 4:50 pm
Fark.

The Yankees obviously don’t like Fish & Chips!

Semi Regular Libertarian

11 Mar 10 at 4:51 pm
Ah, Steve is still angry that Abbott destroyed the ETS hoax.

LOL.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 4:56 pm
By the way, today I heard Michael Smith, a fairly popular Brisbane right wing radio host on 4BC, ripping into Abbott about his “great big tax”. I assume Alan Jones has done the same? I am curious as to how Abbott is going to play the opposition from his own side of the commentary fence. I suspect he’ll wind down its generosity, but can it retreat far enough to keep them happy?

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 4:57 pm
It’s interesting that when a spending program gets matched against a specific tax it’s not as popular. Perhaps every single spending program ought to done that way.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 5:00 pm
Hmm, politician who previously virtually no one had ever regarded as having potential to be PM

Sounds like Rudd, but I digress.

gets the leadership by switching positions in the space of a couple of months on a major policy issue due to a sniff in the wind that he could benefit from a completely ill-informed populist campaign right wing columnist/radio jocks led campaign swaying the aging membership of the party,

Firstly, its called political judgment, something Turnbull completely lacked. Secondly, whenever someone comes up against a policy that is popular except with themselves they sneer about it being ‘populist’, when the policy is also popular with themselves it immediately becomes ‘democratic’; an amazing transformation, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Thirdly, the campaign is as well informed as any other political campaign I’ve seen.

and who having achieved the position, decides that CO2 is not “absolute crap” after all.

Look, he is wrong here, I admit it. It would have been more accurate to say that it is, relatively speaking, crap.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 5:02 pm
US Chief Justice Roberts has criticised failing socialist Barack Obama’s chilling and thuggish attack on the Supreme Court. Yes, it was “very troubling.”

“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”

Moronic White House spokesman and Obama zombie Robert Gibbs hits back at the Chief Justice.

What a bunch of Chavez-like thugs and goons. A PR flack holding a public brawl with the Chief Justice of the United States.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 5:04 pm
I accept that most politicians come to leadership through politic-ing within their own ranks, often of the most grubby, backstabbing kind. But Abbott’s case struck me as morally significantly worse for the way he was opportunistically playing with important policy; not just the factions in his own party. He does not deserve the leadership, in my books, and he has failed to bring up any worthwhile policy since acquiring it. I predict I’ll be noting his policy and personal faults for a long time yet.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 5:06 pm
Shorter Steve:

Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 5:06 pm
Shorter Steve:

Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott, Abbott.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 5:08 pm
Steve, he slay in one fell stroke a ridiculous and ineffective policy that was being allowed to slip through the legislative process without reasonable debate. That you invested so much moral capital in the ETS suggests a serious lack of judgment on your part.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 5:12 pm
A policy Howard took to the last election, and of which Turnbull gave an extremely convincing defence in Parliament earlier this year.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 5:19 pm
Ah, look how much warmer the Roman Warm Period may have been compared to what is experienced now:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100308/full/news.2010.110/box/1.html

Full article here:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100308/full/news.2010.110.html?s=news_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fnews_s7+%28NatureNews+-+Earth+and+Environment%29&utm_content=Netvibes

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 5:20 pm
And which we don’t have because Andrew Bolt gets his science from Watts up With That, run by a TV/radio weather man whose hopes of showing the temperature record is significantly crook keep falling flat.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 5:22 pm
A policy Howard took to the last election, and of which Turnbull gave an extremely convincing defence in Parliament earlier this year.

Howard was acting politically, Turnbull was in thrall to his own pride. He said that we had to wait to see what would happen at Copenhagen; following the failure there he appears to have believed that we should nevertheless follow the government into the night because he gave his word. Abbott was right to abandon the ETS.

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 5:23 pm
Jeez Louise;

IF this is true Toyota owes this poor guy and the families everything and more.

US prisoner says Toyota Camry caused fatal car crash, seeks new trial

A MAN jailed for a crash of his 1996 Toyota Camry that killed three people is seeking a new trial in light of Toyota’s recent recalls.

Kuoa Fong Lee, 32, was convicted of vehicular manslaughter in the 2006 crash. Lee, an immigrant who came to the US in 2004 from Thailand, was exiting a highway on his way home from church. He says that when he tried to slow down, the car accelerated.

Police estimate he was going between 116km/ph and 148km/ph when he struck an Oldsmobile carrying five people. Two people in the car died at the scene – a father and his nine-year-old son. A six-year-old relative’s neck was broken, and she died a year and a half later.

Lee, who had been driving for just one year when the accident occurred, said he tried to step on the brakes but nothing happened. An expert found nothing wrong with the brakes, so prosecutors argued he must have been pressing on the accelerator instead.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
oops ” before US prisoner….

JC

11 Mar 10 at 5:59 pm
As historians know, people in the Roman Warm Period were too fond of their air conditioners and 4WDs.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 6:27 pm
Pretty funny JC:

http://passfail.squarespace.com/

BirdLab

11 Mar 10 at 6:29 pm
JC, don’t believe those bullshit ghost car stories. Ghosts in the machine almost brought down Audi in the 80′s and they were found to be categorically BULLSHIT. Just like that bloke who’s Jeep was out of control on Melburne’s freeways recently – police examiners found nothing at all wrong with the car.

For a while you used to able to get off speeding fines by claiming you’d sneezed and accidentally stabbed the accelerator. Humans are unreliable tools.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 6:30 pm
CL – tasers should only be used in circumstances when the police have to avoid serious bodily harm to themselves, but don’t want to actually kill the assailant. An example would be a junkie threatening them with a syringe, or some guy attacking them with a baseball bat. This should be made clear in the regs.

Tasering people just because you don’t want to get your hands dirty, scruff your uniform or mess your hair up a little is absolutely immoral.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 6:30 pm
Julia Gillard accidentally gives the game away on the “gender divide” baloney du jour.

“If we don’t have fair arrangements for these workers we know the cost of that is a continual churn in the workforce. People don’t stay because they can get better paid jobs and easier jobs in other parts of the economy.”

So there is no gender pay discrimination at all.

Oops.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 6:38 pm
The Toyota recalls are bullshit.
They know that every single claim is an instance of human error, but once the snowball starts rolling it’s hard to stop. ANyone who’s in a collision and they’re driving a Toyota now claims that the car just accelerated on it’s own, man…
“like it was haunted, or somethin.”
Just another example of raiding corporate coffers because they’re big.

daddy dave

11 Mar 10 at 6:45 pm
That’s some deduction you’ve come up with there, d_b, from a chart that ends in 1800 and at study that relates to water temperature in one part of the world.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 6:51 pm
The blackmailing of Toyota is being aided and abetted by Obama Motors Inc.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 6:58 pm
Fellas:

I know what you mean and there is obvious hysteria in all this but I wouldn’t let Toyota completely off the hook here. There were issues with their cars and the recent filmed Toyota Pirus showed in california recently.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 6:59 pm
Frankly the lack of brakes is the only thing that makes Toyotas interesting. Very bland to drive otherwise.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 7:01 pm
Just add the instrumental record to the end if you like Steve, I’m happy to give you 2 C. Do you think the temp variation at this location is likely to be unusual?

dover_beach

11 Mar 10 at 7:06 pm
Lab:

Yes that is funny. I sometimes couldn’t get over the stupidity of large corporations in the US. They just made everything hard for the consumer. It was always an antagonistic relationship with some them- airlines in particular. You hated them and they despised you back.

On the other hand some were brilliant.

Get this

I was using a pen once that wasn’t working so I shook the shit out of it and got all this ink on a first rate Hermes tie which I loved and a decent shirt. So I called the customer relations dudette at the pen company yelled at her about their shocking product. Told her they ruined my shirt and tie. She said they would replace it with an receipt of purchase. Not having one I sent the spoiled shirt and tie with an angry letter and a week later they sent me a cheque. There was a lot of stuff I did like that and some of the firms were brilliant.My motto is never except shoddy service.

US airlines freaking hopeless though.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 7:07 pm
The Jimmy Carter of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Fraser: hey, lay off human rights ‘n shit in China and – anyway – Australia is a human rights abuser just like China because of Cornelia Rau.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 7:15 pm
Stalin Posters, these people are insane
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/312135,moscow-goes-ahead-with-plan-for-stalin-posters.html

tal

11 Mar 10 at 7:22 pm
“So I called the customer relations dudette at the pen company yelled at her about their shocking product.”

Setting an example for K Rudd were we?

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 7:23 pm
no no , not yelled at her. Whined about the firm’s product. Not personal.

But in any event it’s now okay to yell and scream at women after lefties and feminists gave Rudd a pass as a result of his behavior on Jet 1.

like its now okay to say:

“hey, Hoeny, I’m homer. Where’s f..king dinner!”

JC

11 Mar 10 at 7:31 pm
I dunno, JC, your comments here frequently have a “yell-y” quality about them.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 7:35 pm
Fraser’s argument basically goes like this:

1) China should not be criticised because it violates human rights

AND

2) Australia violates human rights too

But Fraser spent the entire Howard years criticising the Australian government over its “human rights abuses”. So I guess he has less of a moral problem with sending people to gulags and harvesting their organs after they are shot than he does with cracking down on people smugglers and preventing unnecessary drownings.

You have to wonder if the silly old bugger is on the take.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 7:37 pm
I can kind of imagine you on one of those airport reality TV shows, having a fit about a late flight or something-or-other.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 7:38 pm
Steve:

I dunno either, yours have obsessive compulsive “quality” about them.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 7:38 pm
And while Fraser is right that there is much more openness in China now than in 1976, it’s not clear that it is more open now than in 1989. After a solid 80s decade of increased liberties, more property rights and so on, they have since gone very cool on freedom.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 7:40 pm
I don’t know what was in the Mickey Finn they slipped Trousers Fraser in Memphis, but it’s rooted the old bastards gourd. He’s a full blown leftist nutbag.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 7:40 pm
Oh, it’s just what you get when I raise an issue about Tony Abbott or his policy, and the response is school boy wankery about how it must be sublimated homoerotic attraction motivating me.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 7:42 pm
I have to wonder if the KGB put something in his drink and replicated that Blackadder frame-up with the Bishop of Bath-on-Wells lying naked next to a rent boy. Fraser has become a full-blown commie ever since then.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 7:44 pm
It’s not sublimated, steve. It’s out, proud n’ loud.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 7:44 pm
Meanwhile, another boat has arrived, making it 22 for the year. This is roughly one every three days. Well done Rudd.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 7:47 pm
Steve, the top posting over at your blog today (http://www.opiniondominion.blogspot.com/)
mentions Catallaxy, Tony Abbott and gay sex. The second posting is about Catallaxy (again) and gay sex (again). I felt no urge to scroll down after that because I think you have made your intentions clear enough.

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 8:00 pm
How do ya like that JC, dopey beach is now yr bro

Wicked

rog

11 Mar 10 at 8:02 pm
Dopey Beach! That’s very clever rog. But rather than spending half your day thinking up brilliant collocations like “dopey beach”, shouldn’t you be out there crusading against secular democracy and Islam?

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 8:07 pm
Rog:

Great work. You managed to get that sentience up to 12 words and abbreviations.

keep it up and I think we’re be able to get you to 14 in about 8 months.

I’d happy to be associated with DB, unlike you to Homer.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 8:09 pm
I see you on that customs show, Steve.

Step this way, sir.

Who, me?

Yes, step this way please.

But, but…

You’re aware, sir, that it’s an offence to distribute Tony Abbott pornography outside of Australia?

No, no, no, you don’t understand… it’s for a research project that I’m conducting…

Research?

Yes, I’m researching Tony Abbott so that I can…

Are these up-trouser shots of Mr Abbott?

Which? Those? Well, yes but you don’t understand…

And these five hundred images of his eyes?

Let me explain. His eyes show a man who is totally untrustworthy and denies climate change…

Climate change?

Look, I’m telling you that TONY ABBOTT HAS TO BE STOPPED – HE’S INCREDIBLY SEXY BUT I HAVE TO TELL THE WHOLE WORLD…

Lower your voice please sir.

NO, NO, GIVE THEM BACK TO ME – THE SPEEDO SHOTS ST LEAST – THEY’RE MINE, FUCKING GIVE THEM TO ME!

Security, security over here please.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 9:14 pm
Come on, if you don’t give an “aww” for this you’re a monster:

Mr Shuffles has keepers wrapped around his little trunk.

But this…

“The zoo is calling on the public to submit suggestions for an official name, which it says should reflect the elephant’s Thai background.”

… is annoying. Enough with the Thai names already.

It’s mothers name is Porntip, ffs.

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 9:21 pm
Steve has he speedo shot of Abbott as his screen-saver is my bet.

JC

11 Mar 10 at 9:22 pm
Joe Hockey reminds us that the Liberal Party really does still believe in liberty, capitalism and a lean state……………just in case you were getting confused for some reason…..

http://australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1459:in-defence-of-liberty-joe-hockey-speech-to-grattan-institute&catid=101:australian-news&Itemid=167

Carn’ Joe, so you can talk the talk, let’s see the walk……

Michael Sutcliffe

11 Mar 10 at 9:39 pm
I believe that individual liberty must be the foundation of our society, even when it clashes head on with the perceived communal good. That belief rests on John Locke’s positive view about human nature – that there is an essential good, rationality and an innate desire to co-operate in all men and women. I share his conviction that happiness is achieved when individuals are permitted to flourish in ways of their own choosing, according to their own conscience and beliefs.

Jeez, it’d be nice to just be able to a have a smoke and a cold beer without some health-Nazi haranguing you.

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 9:59 pm
So Mr Fisk: a passing reference in a review of an enormously popular true crime book was written by a famously gay author means I have spoken about gay sex? This is what passes for reality at Catallaxy World. Ha.

steve from brisbane

11 Mar 10 at 10:23 pm
CL sign up Mr Shuffles for the cause,God help the person that called his Mum Porntip I reckon the little bloke will stomp the shit out of them

tal

11 Mar 10 at 10:29 pm
What’s wrong with plain old Shuffles?

Are kangaroos in Asian zoos called Bluey and Wozza?

C.L.

11 Mar 10 at 10:52 pm
I think it’s high time Abbott took some preventative measures, barbed wire, guard dogs, etc, to stop the obsessives climbing over the back fence and nicking his speedos off the line. There are some real sick people out there…

Michael Fisk

11 Mar 10 at 10:55 pm
Nah Cl they call ‘em steak and chops

tal

11 Mar 10 at 10:57 pm
A good Thai name eh? How about Ping Pong?

Infidel Tiger

11 Mar 10 at 11:07 pm
Money quote about Catherine Deveny “Da Vain” getting taken down a peg:

“She really is Rodney Rude without the class and only slightly less beard.”

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 12:03 am
Rudd’s gift to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: a custom Maton guitar bearing the letters “SBY.” This acknowledged the Indonesian president’s talent for producing music.

SBY’s gift to Rudd: coffee made from luwak turds. This acknowledged the Australian prime minister’s talent for producing…

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 12:53 am
Rudd rolled in Cabinet on releasing the Henry review. The authority of this goose is now in tatters.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 1:35 am
Centrebet have the Coalition at $3.40. I’m getting tempted.

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 1:46 am
Scratch that. Sportsbet have them at $4.70. Now I’m definitely tempted.

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 1:47 am
Worth a lazy hundred, Tiger, at $4.70 – just to keep it interesting.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 1:49 am
Gallop: belief in “global warming” going down the toilet.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 1:51 am
The PM will be chucking a mental

tal

12 Mar 10 at 1:54 am
No one better screw his lunch order up.

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 2:02 am
Say goodbye to your ever dwindling property rights New South Welshmen:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/private-land-to-be-seized-for-housing-20100311-q1l0.html

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 2:05 am
Welshmen Infidel? That’s a bit sexist

tal

12 Mar 10 at 2:12 am
New South Welsherpersons… Waratahs.

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 2:17 am
Infidel maybe it’s time for another Rum Rebelion? Could be interesting no?

tal

12 Mar 10 at 2:22 am
Yet more evidence of the growing terrorist threat from the Far Left. It’s Kristallnacht all over again:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/03/447275.html

At 2 am this morning, Tesco Metro on Lodge Causeway was attacked with bricks and spray, with broken windows and “no more Tesco” sprayed on both sides of the store.

This action is not to pressure not to build more Tesco stores, but as a total rejection of all they represent. We see Tesco as extreme form of the capitalist domination that entraps and enslaves us all.

Our message is simple: if you build up, we smash down.

For a world free of capitalist exploitation and authoritarian rule (A)

Believe it or not, that last sentence was NOT intended to be irony!

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 5:10 am
JC will be happy with this; he thinks that Barry Brook is wunderkid and Barry reports that he had the pleasure of taking James Hansen out to dinner

Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us

rog

12 Mar 10 at 6:22 am
My mistake, I keep thinking that JC is logical.

rog

12 Mar 10 at 6:24 am
So, Tony Abbott agrees with me that blocking the government’s parental leave plan would make no sense. Yet only yesterday, it was of Catallaxians taking me to task for saying that. What a bunch of maroons, as Bugs would say.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/abbott-wont-block-rival-maternity-leave-plan-20100311-q1lf.html

steve from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 8:08 am
Dopey Beach! That’s very clever rog.

Fisk, I very much doubt that rog came up with that one all by his lonesome. I do recall, the munificent melaleuca referring to me as “Dopey Bitch” on one occasion many moons ago before rog’s conversion on the road to Wentworth.

dover_beach

12 Mar 10 at 9:20 am
Fisk,
I posted a response to that article under the moniker “Munroe”. This is what I wrote:

The difference between authoritarianism and capitalism
Authoritarian rule and true capitalism are completely different.
Capitalism means the freedom to
a) buy what you want
b) sell what you want
c) buy and sell to anybody, you choose
d) make or import what you want to buy and sell
e) prices are set by buyers and sellers, not by the government.
Look at Soviet Russia, for example. none of these things were true.
In this particular instance, Tesco’s is relevant. Some bloke decided to build that Tesco’s so he went and bought a franchise licence. He didn’t have to do it. The government didn’t order him to. And nobody has to set foot inside the shop if they don’t want to. He’s just doing what he wants, which is to sell stuff to willing buyers.
That sounds a lot like….
freedom.

daddy dave

12 Mar 10 at 9:24 am
So, Tony Abbott agrees with me that blocking the government’s parental leave plan would make no sense. Yet only yesterday, it was of Catallaxians taking me to task for saying that. What a bunch of maroons, as Bugs would say.

Did I take you to task, Steve? I simply argued that there were reasons available for him not to support it.

And what is it with people who regularly comment here, who simply, because they are criticised, start referring to others as ‘Catallaxians’ when one could refer to them as Catallaxians themselves?

dover_beach

12 Mar 10 at 9:30 am
uh oh… The Greek citizenry are blaming “the rich” for their predicament. Not the bloated welfare state, or excessive business regulation.

“The measures are unfair … we cannot make it, we have children, families. We need to find the money to support them,” said 60-year old health sector worker Odysseas Panagopoulos. “Banks and rich people should pay for this crisis.”

and

Strikers and protesters banged drums and chanted slogans such as ‘no sacrifice for plutocracy,‘ and ‘real jobs, higher pay.’

I have a feeling that this is going to end very, very badly in Greece. Like, bad bad.

daddy dave

12 Mar 10 at 9:41 am
all the Greeks that actually understand capitalism have moved here and to the US

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 9:43 am
d_b, I’ll soon have to have a break (for work reasons) from coming here for the pleasure of being rubbished for both making common sense suggestions and arguing that Abbott is a bad opposition leader. Because dislike of Rudd here trumps everything else.

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 9:51 am
whoever this twitterer is, he’s brilliant

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

So Lara Bingle probably reads my blog, right? If I email, will she send me a shower picture?
1:58 AM Mar 10th via web

The housing shortage fixed with the ol’ Bird two-step: 1. Ban fractional reserve banks from cash-pyramiding

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 10:22 am
rog,

Policy can use incentives and disincentives. Or the creation/abolition/addition/decrease of one or the other.

A carbon tax may not be necessary at all.

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 10:34 am
Speaking of the housing shortage, I see that our state governmnet wants to use compulsory acquistion powers to take private land to sell to developers. No chance of corruption there.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/private-land-to-be-seized-for-housing-20100311-q1l0.html

Steve Edney

12 Mar 10 at 10:36 am
We’re having a repeat of the Kelo case here? Fucking incredible.

The LDP get a lot of shit but deserve credit for wanting States to be bound to just compensation constitutionally – whereas by ordinary legislation they can simply override this.

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 10:46 am
Here is a good policy in response:

http://www.ldp.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1145:democracy&catid=101:policies&Itemid=290

Private property rights

More than any other political party in Australia, the LDP supports private property rights.

Under the Constitution the federal government may compulsorily acquire private property, but only on just terms. State and Territory governments are not bound by the Constitution and can, in certain circumstances, compulsorily acquire property without paying any compensation.

Both State and Federal governments are free to pass regulations that damage the value of property without paying any compensation at all.

This needs to change. All levels of governments should be responsible for the consequences of any compulsory acquisitions as well as regulations that impact on the value of private property. The payment of compensation on just terms should apply in every case that government legislation impacts on property value.

This change would mean that the government only introduced regulations that provided more benefit to society than the costs they imposed. This would introduce another important discipline on government, promoting good policy and protecting private property rights.

The LDP proposes that these changes be made permanent through constitutional amendments.

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 10:54 am
Labor: ‘if we’re not burning down your house, we’re stealing it for developers.’

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 11:49 am
Bird for Sydney’s new Urban Planner!

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/monetary-methodone/#comment-27693

Just having straight pyramids everywhere would be frightully boring. Like those rectangular boxes they have now even if a little bit more sane.

Creativity must be part of this. But the general pyramidal structure is more robust. And has more chance of ending housing shortages sure thing. Plus we have to get used to building ROAD-STRADDLING buildings of a squashed-cone or pyramidal nature.

My geometry is not that good so I may not be expressing myself clearly. The cone-shaped building is as sound as the pyramid one would think.

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 1:06 pm
Why stop there? I suggest he build a giant replica of his face looking skywards in the desert, like the (alleged) face on Mars. (Maybe we can carve Ayers Rock into it)

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 1:17 pm
Does the moron realize that every large multi-storey structure is actually a pyramid? The base of every large building has a larger base with every level or so getting smaller.

I told him this years ago and he still doesn’t get it.

Bird needs to be sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban (or more likely with the Taliban).

JC

12 Mar 10 at 1:24 pm
Larvatory Pronto is well and truly falling over into 9/11 Truther territory. Their commenters are now suggesting the ABC has been captured by the CIS.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/11/editorial-interference-by-the-abcs-chairman/#comment-864139

Facts are
1) Maurice Newman was involved with the CIS ages ago now
2) The only thing CIS has produced on this officially have been Humphreys’ papers for a carbon tax

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 1:37 pm
These people have become truly certifiably deranged. it’s distubing

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 1:40 pm
Larvatory Pronto is well and truly falling over into 9/11 Truther territory.

What exactly do you mean they are?

They always were for the most part.

I bet if you ran a poll there you’d get a 50/50 troofer split and that it was a Bush/Cheney/halliburton triad military industrial complex conspiracy thingi that enacted 911.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 1:43 pm
These people have become truly certifiably deranged. it’s distubing

Birdie will no doubt be posting there soon.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 1:44 pm
Their candidate is PM and yet they want to level the ABC for not pushing AGW hard enough!

jtfsoon

12 Mar 10 at 1:45 pm
The scandal spreads.

Climategate Stunner: NASA Heads Knew NASA Data Was Poor, Then Used Data from CRU.

“New emails from James Hansen and Reto Ruedy (download PDF here) show that NASA’s temperature data was doubted within NASA itself, and was not independent of CRU’s embattled data, as has been claimed.”

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 1:45 pm
Their candidate is PM and yet they want to level the ABC for not pushing AGW hard enough!

Jase, I sorry to tell you, but if they want to level the ABC I’m on their side

JC

12 Mar 10 at 1:47 pm
CL:

This is where I bet things will head eventually in terms of climate science.

You can agree or disagree, as I don’t really care seeing I’m not an emotional bedwetter.

I think we do have a serious long term issue with emissions and long term is the operating word.

This essentially means that with some decent planning and no betwetting we could end up with an emissions free world and abundant energy that ends up being cheaper than coal.

Cars will be either electric or hydrogen based with next to no emissions the worry about.

The upshot will be a cleaner atmosphere and more than enough energy to poke a stick at (wooden).

I’d bet the NASA thing is that they were hiding the fact that the steepness of the warming is actually far more benign then they made out and that it doesn’t suggest it’s not happening.

This is a good thing as it gives us plenty of time to make the switch to fabulous new generation nuclear stations, which will make this whole thing a non issue.

People will eventually look back and laugh at the anti-science bedwetting while the very same bedwetters for the most part were ignoring or avoiding nuclear power because they were frightened little lambs.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 1:58 pm
Listen to Carlos as I think he’s right for the most part.

Carlos Slim: You Fools Are Missing Out Big Time, Latin America Is Just About To Break The Development Barrier

http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-man-you-fools-are-missing-out-big-time-latin-america-is-just-about-to-break-the-development-barrier-2010-3?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterstock+%28ClusterStock%29

I’m long a Mexican home builder as I think there’s a generational switch to much better housing over there.

Brazil could end up being an economic superpower this s=century and people tend to forget about it focusing just on Asia.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 2:03 pm
Slim is bullish on his region, hypothesizing that the great influx in wealth will elevate Latin America, pulling more people out of poverty.

Slim’s bold prediction for the decade: “Latin America is close to breaking the underdevelopment barrier, of around $12,000 of income per capita. It seems to me that this should happen in the next 10 years.”

He continues: “The developing countries in Latin America have available both internal and external financial resources, better terms of trade on their exports of primary goods and competitive advantages thanks to the availability and production of commodities, tourism and a modern industrial sector.”

JC

12 Mar 10 at 2:05 pm
Libertarian internet sleuths doing the jobs the FBI can’t:

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Technology/internet-monitors-tracked-jihad-jane-years/story?id=10069484

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 2:06 pm
It seems that CL and Fisk have been mentioned in dispatches:

“Of course Philomena, I’m scandalised by CL and Fisk being too nasty to you. I would have thought that they would even just humour me on that matter. Its a double injury, since by being nasty to you, bad for its own sakes, they are telling me they are not willing to cut me some slack.”

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/monetary-methodone/#comment-27693

BirdLab

12 Mar 10 at 2:06 pm
I normally like Jack Marx, and was glad to see him recently return, but this article is the most misguided idiocy I’ve seen in a long time: http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/own_a_few_houses_youre_a/

Fleeced

12 Mar 10 at 2:14 pm
What a dickhead. Obviously, he can’t afford a house.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 2:23 pm
His rent obviously got put up today.

Infidel Tiger

12 Mar 10 at 2:34 pm
I just can’t fathom how anyone would think investing in property causes homelessness. Does he think new properties would still be built?

Fleeced

12 Mar 10 at 2:34 pm
Good news! Looks like we have another $500 million of “stimulus” in the pipeline thanks to the insulation repair programme.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/australians-paying-for-the-federal-governments-roof-insulation-bungle/story-e6frf7l6-1225839791240

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 2:51 pm
You can always tell a very poor article, the writer gets hammered by regulars.

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 3:03 pm
Well that may be all well and good, but:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danpea/2800175095/

BirdLab

12 Mar 10 at 3:39 pm
More of the, erm, wit of Prince Philip:

The 88-year-old Duke of Edinburgh was talking to cadets at a barracks when he asked Navy cadet Elizabeth Rendle what she did for a living.

“I told him that I worked in a club and then he asked ‘What, a strip club?’,” nightclub barmaid Elizabeth, 24, said.

“I said ‘no’ and then he said, ‘It’s a bit too cold today anyway’.”

http://tinyurl.com/ylbvulx

I still say it must have killed him not to say something silly to the multi-wived President Zuma recently.

steve from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 3:46 pm
Perhaps the next debate with Monckers we could have Shiny coming out of a cake too.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 3:59 pm
Snap.

BirdLab

12 Mar 10 at 4:04 pm
HAHAHAHA! I love the Duke. Last man in England who says whatever the f— he likes without being arrested by the police.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 5:05 pm
On the topic of the Duke, CL, did you see the documentary about him that showed on ABC on 29 Dec? It’s described here: http://tinyurl.com/ycpu267

I didn’t realise ’til I saw it that he was seen as annoying moderniser when he first married Liz. (Complaining, for example, about having to use footmen in the palace to pass written messages, instead of being able to just pick up a phone.)

I also thought the fight between him and the Queen Mum over who would take the official coronation photos was funny: her favourite photographer was a famously rampaging homosexual; his a famously rampaging heterosexual. (Sorry, it’s in my contract to mention gay sex here at least once a day.)

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 5:34 pm
just come out already, steve. God hates the sin, not the sinner.

Jason Soon

12 Mar 10 at 6:33 pm
If Tony stops talking about it, I will.

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 6:37 pm
jeez’s Steve, more references to gay sex. Dude, ask the site owner to allow you a coming-out thread. No one will be interested but it would take a load off your chest.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 6:50 pm
>Yawn<

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 7:17 pm
Steve, are you drinking enough water as yawning can be a sign of severe dehydration.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 7:19 pm
I wonder if this Tony Abbott is getting puzzling hate e-mails from Australia:

http://www.tonyabbottbooks.com/

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 7:22 pm
I’m sure he would as they both look so similar, Steve. NOT!

JC

12 Mar 10 at 7:46 pm
Steve. This isn’t healthy. Stop it, please.

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 7:48 pm
Poetry by Tony, that would be interesting:

http://scottowensmusings.blogspot.com/2010/03/review-of-tony-abbotts-new-and-selected.html

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 8:00 pm
And to you Michael, I say “gay sex”. Goodnight!

steven from brisbane

12 Mar 10 at 8:01 pm
Steve, I actually spent 10 minutes inspecting your posts on this thread because it’s important and I’m trying to do the right thing by you.

You have written about 64 posts on this thread at last count (excluding a few non-post posts apologising for your misuse of italics). 33 of those, by my counting, directly concerned Tony Abbott. About four posts were dedicated to the apparently related topic of Christopher Pyne’s alleged homosexuality.

That comes to no less than 37 comments, written by you, about your favourite Coalition pin-up boys, from a total of 64 posts, or about 58%.

It is unhealthy for your emotional well-being and your development as a person to continue in a state denial.

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 8:12 pm
Now that comes to 38 comments out of 65. You are increasing your Abbott to noise ratio with every comment, Steve.

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 8:14 pm
Sorry that should be “state of denial”

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 8:15 pm
Terrorist captured:

Japanese authorities arrest Sea Shepherd anti-whaling protester Peter Bethune.

Local protesters welcome him to Japan.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 8:30 pm
“An inquiry has heard that a predatory culture existed on the Navy ship HMAS Success, with junior female sailors being bullied or coerced into having sex.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/12/2844644.htm

Here’s an idea out of left field: leave the women on shore – as was customary for centuries for obvious reasons.

C.L.

12 Mar 10 at 8:33 pm
Here’s an idea out of left field: leave the women on shore – as was customary for centuries for obvious reasons.

a truly shocking idea. LOl

Actually it’s not entirely true that they didn’t have women on board in the old days. They did, but not for the reasons they do today.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 8:39 pm
Wonderful to see the Japanese actually captured a real live terrorist. Let’s now hope the legal system there deals with him very severely.

JC

12 Mar 10 at 8:40 pm
LOL! I love the sign at the anti-terrorist demonstration in Japan. “GET OUT OF THE EARTH!”

Hear hear!

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 8:41 pm
Hah! now that funny

Dead Beat now cites two examples of alliteration and wears them as a badge of pride.

That makes him a total loser x 2

Kick me where? oh, here please

And JC is proud of his association with this beta –

That makes a whole tub full of wankers

yech!

rog

12 Mar 10 at 8:42 pm
A “tub” of wankers? That’s a revealing choice of classifier, rog. Which website did you just click over from again?

Michael Fisk

12 Mar 10 at 8:54 pm
I’ve thought for a while that rog’s switch might have been triggered by a switch in another kind of preference. I’ve known conservative gays, but the core gay community tends to be very left wing. It would be difficult to maintain right wing values in that atmosphere.

daddy dave

12 Mar 10 at 9:08 pm
It’s all very well for Malcolm Fraser to lecture 21st century governments on boat people and ‘human rights’ as he does not have to govern an electorate pissed off and cynical at the consequences of those policies a generation later. In the 1970s, it was all so very new.

But the realities of Keating’s manipulation of Fraser’s “high-minded” immigration/refugee policy do not afford leaders like Howard/Rudd the same space for moral chest-beating.

Peter Patton

12 Mar 10 at 9:50 pm
I seek qualified opinions as to the usefulness of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Transactional-Analysis/dp/0345410033/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Semi Regular Libertarian

12 Mar 10 at 11:31 pm
Excellent news. Another aboriginal gets a high level job at Our ABC.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/perhaps_im_aboriginal_too/

JC

12 Mar 10 at 11:37 pm

Catallaxy Files

Open Forum March 6, 2010

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