Open Forum, May Day 2010 at Catallaxy Files

Open Forum, May Day 2010

850 comments

Written by Sinclair Davidson

May 1st, 2010 at 12:32 am

Posted in Uncategorized

850 Responses to 'Open Forum, May Day 2010'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Open Forum, May Day 2010'.

We should have a Rudd stunt prediction contest.

I predict Kev will this week do something populist vis-a-vis the WA situation.

Mine royalties = free dentistry for all!

To be rolled out by 2017.

Something like that.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 12:36 am
Funny you say that . I was thinking the same thing too and I thought he role out the dentist pretty soon now that he’s been caught out.

I reckon the dentist comes out by Tuesdays the latest.

JC

1 May 10 at 12:38 am
It’s the Mother of Populist Goodies.

Watch this space.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 12:56 am
“It’s a tough decision and I know it will be unpopular. But by 2023 my government will see that every Australian household has filtered water. Yes, we will have our detractors, but it’s our job to make the hard decisions.”

Infidel Tiger

1 May 10 at 12:56 am
“Mr Barnett and Big Denture don’t like it but I make no apologies for offering everyone the opportunity to have teeth like Eva Mendes by 2020.”

C.L.

1 May 10 at 1:05 am
The results of the Rudd Dental Plan:

http://www.98online.com/images/content/really_bad_teeth2.jpg

Infidel Tiger

1 May 10 at 1:08 am
Turnbull’s staying on and reversed his position. LOL.

I know some of you guys don’t like him but he really would make a pretty decent Treasurer.

In fact he’d make an excellent one and would have the stature to make some serious changes in the Treasury by firing most of the senior ranks and starting over. Just a pipe dream I know.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/malcolm-turnbull-does-a-backflip-on-going/story-e6frgczf-1225860839523

JC

1 May 10 at 1:23 am
It’s a tough decision and I know it will be unpopular. But by 2023 my government will see that every Australian household has filtered water. Yes, we will have our detractors, but it’s our job to make the hard decisions.”

You gotta start off with a question that you answer yourself.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:25 am
Will the next stunt be announced on a Friday?

Yes it will.

KEVIN Rudd is a Friday-biased leader in an election year, as his media mentions spike when Newspoll and other pollsters are in the field.

The pattern of activity this year is different to that in 2007, when Mr Rudd, as opposition leader, ran hardest on Mondays and Tuesdays then tailed off before rising again on Friday.

This year he doesn’t like Mondays – it is the Prime Minister’s weakest weekday for television and radio coverage.

But he still finishes strongly on Friday, when the weekend surveys of public opinion begin.

The data, compiled by Media Monitors for The Weekend Australian, will add to the suspicion in political and press gallery circles that Mr Rudd runs his public appearances by the Newspoll cycle. For instance, his weekly spot on the Seven Network’s Sunrise program is on a Friday.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 2:42 am
Turnbull’s staying on and reversed his position. LOL.
.
THe possibility of victory is in the air. It’s a bit unprincipled, but I guess I can’t blame him. Looking at the possibility of victory is very different to looking down the barrel of years in the opposition wilderness.

daddy dave

1 May 10 at 8:12 am
Book Title Madness: How book titles that grab our attention are driving us nuts.

Apparently, this is a list of genuine book titles:

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It
Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream
Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”
Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All
Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches
Big Lies : The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy
The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else
What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America
Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America
Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church
The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy
Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy
Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America
The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal
Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin
Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation
Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America
Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thelibertarianstandard/~3/ysTfB87g7VE/

Capitalist Piggy

1 May 10 at 8:22 am
Some droll humour from the usually positively depressing and positively suicide inducing Daily Reckoning:

Brain Deficit

O-bummer has launched his 18 member Debt Commission to examine the problem of the remarkable deficits that the US is racking up. He could just decide to spend less, but that sounds boring compared to a “Debt Commission”. Especially this Debt Commission. The two Co-Chairmen launched their media effort with the following on Fox News:

“This is a suicide mission. And I’m glad that my fellow Erskine Bowles and I are jumping without a parachute.”
Talk about inspiring confidence! The poor anchor tried to steer the conversation back on track:
“Do you worry, as you go after the deficits, about possibly pushing this fragile economy back into a recession?”

“Well, I don’t worry about anything.”
But that doesn’t mean the Deficit Commission Co-Chairmen haven’t been busy:

“I’m a stalking horse for my grandchildren.”
And they have big plans for the future of the Debt Commission too:

“This is a situation where I hope in my naive green pea way that we can get all 18 of these fine people to say, this is where we are. This is – this is where we are.”
As for where they’re going, they haven’t got a clue either:

“Somebody said, well, is the new health care bill off the table? I said, nothing is off the table, absolutely nothing.”
But seriously, if we created a fictional scenario where a Debt Commission was formed to tackle government debt, and we came up with the above interview, you would all just scoff at it. And yet, here it is on Fox News:

“Well, let’s see, you’re going to do taxes first or spending first? I haven’t the slightest idea.

“But I know one thing. If we can get the figures before the American people, then we’ll sit down and then all bleed and bitch from there.”

“Yes, Erskine and I are involved in a project, screw the American people, fool them, fake them out.”
Well, you can’t fault them for honesty, even in sarcasm…

But, bless Fox News, the anchor managed to get at least some sense into the interview:

“Over the course of the last two decades, there have been four separate commissions on some of these issues and none of their recommendations on tax reform, Medicare, Social Security, none of their recommendations have become law.”
Talk about bursting their bubble…

Semi Regular Libertarian

1 May 10 at 8:28 am
I tried posting this elsewhere without success, so I’ll try here. Attempt no.4:

Keynesians argue that “crowding-out” is impossible during a recession because the government is not competing for resources against the private sector. If this is true, then it implies that stagflation is impossible, i.e. you can’t have both high unemployment and rising prices. So how do the Keynesians explain what is going on in Europe?

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Annual inflation rose to 1.5 percent in April across the 16 countries that share the euro currency as the unemployment rate remained at a record high 10 percent in March.

Official figures Friday showed that inflation in the common currency area, up from 1.4 percent in March, was also at its highest since December 2008….

http://au.biz.yahoo.com/100430/33/2cmy2.html

Capitalist Piggy

1 May 10 at 8:31 am
dd – I don’t mind Turnbull staying on, but he must give credit where it is due. Abbott is responsible for the turn around. Turnbull should acknowledge this (at least in private to Abbott) and promise never to speak about the ETS again.

asf

1 May 10 at 9:03 am
Stunt watch. Yes, it was announced yesterday – a Friday.

Parental pay leave for Nana.

GRANDPARENTS will be paid to look after newborns if parents are unable to care for their children, the Rudd Government said yesterday.

The Government’s paid parental leave scheme, scheduled to come into effect from January next year, pays mums or dads the minimum wage – $543.78 a week – for 18 weeks.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin revealed the Government would also introduce provisions to ensure a person who became the primary carer of a child under one-year-old – or within a year of adoption – could receive paid parental leave.

And the Fred Nile agenda continues. Beer, cigs up:

The proposed [Henry Review] flat tax set at the packaged full-strength beer rate of 39 cents per standard drink would push up the price of a four-litre cask from $15 to $35… A middy of draft beer would climb 28 cents…

In recognition of the disruption the change would cause, it is likely to be phased in over a number of years.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 10:42 am
Good list CP.
A while back I promised myself I would not read a book with a colon in its title or a subtitle that begins with the word “How”.
Oh well, The Iliad and House at Pooh Corner are always worth a re-read.

ken n

1 May 10 at 11:07 am
In recognition of the disruption the change would cause, it is likely to be phased in over a number of years.

In recognition of the very real possibility of this government losing the election if the policy were to be introduced in full,….

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 11:10 am
Fuck the United Nations. They’ve now put Iran in charge of women’s rights

http://www.examiner.com/x-35976-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m4d29-UN-puts-Iran-in-charge-of-womens-rights-commission

Jason Soon

1 May 10 at 11:16 am
Oh no Jason, only right wing nutters despise the UN….

Semi Regular Libertarian

1 May 10 at 11:17 am
Everyone and every culture is equal. It’s heaven.

Infidel Tiger

1 May 10 at 11:18 am
This is beyond parody.

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 11:23 am
Colon titles are standard these days. It’s replaced title/subtitle.
.
Fuck the United Nations. They’ve now put Iran in charge of women’s rights
.
Who is defending this decision? I wanna know. Is there a single western journalist who thinks this is okay?

daddy dave

1 May 10 at 11:26 am
Colon’s in titles don’t worry me. My rule of thumb is to not buy books where the author has his qualifications on the front cover.

Sinclair Davidson

1 May 10 at 11:35 am
Yes sinc, and also anything that mentions zombies or catastrophe.

ken n

1 May 10 at 11:41 am
And anyway, I agree that colons are alright in their place but they should stay there.

ken n

1 May 10 at 11:42 am
Page 21: Why Coalition Deficits Are Always Bad and Labor Deficits Always Save The Day.

by Dr Homer Paxton, Grad. Cert. Ec. (Eastwood TAFE), Master of Puppetry (Macquarie), PhD (Pacific Western University)

C.L.

1 May 10 at 11:53 am
Endorsement:

“I’m a big fan of Malcolm Turnbull. I think he will continue to use his considerable talents for the good of the country.”

- Barry O’Farrell

C.L.

1 May 10 at 11:58 am
Gentlepeople – I have noticed both an increase and escalation in gratuitous insults. Now I think we all enjoy a good take-down, but constant repetition gets a bit much and a bit too nasty. Not to mention boring. As far as I’m aware no catallaxian went broke during the GFC, no catallaxian has had a sex-change, no catallaxian condones child-abuse, slave-labour or criminal violence. Smoking tobacco and consuming alcohol does not make people drug addicts or junkies. So lets keep things fresh and original and fun. We’re all here to enjoy ourselves.

Sinclair Davidson

1 May 10 at 12:02 pm
CL – gotcha. That’s a misquote.

Why Coalition Deficits Are Always Bad: How Labor Deficits Always Save The Day.

Sinclair Davidson

1 May 10 at 12:03 pm
Michael Kroger knocks Rudd flat:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2887625.htm

Spot on.

Infidel Tiger

1 May 10 at 12:12 pm
The massacre continues:

Backflip on Do Not Call expansion.

ANOTHER Rudd government policy is on the scrap heap after the government abandoned plans to expand the Do Not Call register to include business phone numbers.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had pushed for more than a year to expand the telemarketing-blocking list to include businesses – a move that had faced resistance from some in the corporate world as well as the federal opposition.

Senator Conroy said yesterday he had ditched the expansion plan, representing another government about-face after the delay to the emissions trading scheme, the axing of the insulation scheme and abandonment of its childcare commitment.

And you can now add the truly poor to those whose lives are at risk of incineration:

INSTALLERS may have ripped-off millions of taxpayer dollars fitting ceiling batts in public housing units, which were not covered by the axed $2.45 billion home insulation scheme.

The South Australian government has confirmed that about 400 housing commission homes were wrongly fitted with insulation under the Rudd government scheme axed last week after four deaths and more than 120 fires.

Fans gather:

Rudd lied to us, say insulation installers in Parliament House protest.

“Mr Rudd was in Hervey Bay in Queensland today visiting the hospital.”

C.L.

1 May 10 at 12:33 pm
IT, I particularly liked this bit:

MICHAEL KROGER: Well, what I think is that Kevin Rudd – the last thing the Australian public needs is Kevin Rudd being let loose on the tax system. I mean, he’s made a total hash of everything he’s touched. To let him loose now on the tax system, oh, God, please, stop him, someone stop him.

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 12:34 pm
Could Rudd be gone by the middle to the end of May?

The ALP these days is pretty ruthless with anyone that presents as a loser.

Also:

The Libs should man-up and not run a candidate in the seat of Melbourne thereby knocking off Lindsay Tanner.

JC

1 May 10 at 12:49 pm
ouch

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:GS

Tillman

1 May 10 at 1:01 pm
That is very nasty.

Sinclair Davidson

1 May 10 at 1:03 pm
Tillman:

Don’t get off on bad news as it’s has a nasty habit of boomeranging back

Here’s my strategy.

I bought an amount of this stock that would allow me to buy as far down as 120-130 bucks a share. It could actually get down there and if it does then I’m actually happy for the long run as I think the stock is eventually going to make its way to 240 bucks where it would be properly valued.

The risk?

The risk is that I’ve misread this and that the government uncovers seem serious stuff. I have my doubts about this as I can’t believe the best run firm in the world would get involved in that sort of stuff also being aware that they have the best compliance department in the world. The other risk of course is that they let the stock go lower at which point they basically privatize the firm and leave the outside equity holders in the lurch.

Their earnings power can’t be doubted.

Blankfein is a dick, but he’s not dishonest as he never had any reason to be.

My feeling is that it’s being sold down by a bunch of ball-less kittens creating an opportunities. If I’m wrong I’m wrong.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:12 pm
One last thing, Tillers.

If you hate Goldman, you hate God if you know what I mean.

Gold owns that stock and the Goldman people do “God’s work”, as Lloyd once said.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:14 pm
Mark Bahnisch abandons the Dear Leader.

backflip
unimaginable
cynicism
fear
failure to lead
vacuous
failure of political imagination and courage
lack of a reform agenda
barren
obsession with a risk-free politics

Kevin Rudd should go

C.L.

1 May 10 at 1:28 pm
MarkB
May Day: What has happened to Australian Labor?

But 8 days and 3 1/2 hours ago he singing an opposite tune.

Now he’s focusing on the character flaws that were there all along? LOL

Funny what the possibility of defeat does to someone.

“Barren”? I never knew Rudd could potentially carry a kid.

Man these labor people have little loyalty. The moment they smell defeat they’re off.

I wonder if he’s still wearing that silly hat.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:38 pm
I reckon that’s the reason Turnbull stayed on too. He can smell a dead rotting carcass from miles away and he wants in.

I’m dying to see the next two polls.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:41 pm
Sinc, we have been rumbled by some bastard in Washington!

http://insidethemindoftim.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/greadermanship-the-strategic-art-of-google-reader-sharing/

Rafe

1 May 10 at 1:45 pm
NATIONAL ENQUIRER CLAIMS OBAMA CHEATING SCANDAL…

‘Hotel security video could topple Obama’s presidency’…

So Birdie’s Wrong (LOL). Obama isn’t gay after all.

That convergent paradigm just fell into the creek.

JC

1 May 10 at 1:48 pm
Indeed. On this May Day, the revolutionary comrades of The Guardian vanguard say “Vote Lib Dems.” You couldn’t make this stuff up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 2:34 pm
C.L.

Perhaps he has just woken up that the ALP abandoned him, like about, oh, a decade ago. Come in spinner.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 2:36 pm
Interestingly – tellingly – Mark didn’t dump Rudd over the insulation debacle that killed four workers. The final straw seems to have been the shelving of the ETS – the latte set’s yardstick of bourgeois morality.

What has happened to Australian Labor, Mark?

People like you, that’s what.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 3:27 pm
Liberal climate of hate claims another victim. Arizona sheriff’s deputy shot with an AK-47 by an illegal immigrant.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 3:30 pm
Good news from Belgium:

http://www.theage.com.au/world/belgium-bans-muslim-veil-in-public-20100430-tzcu.html

This will probably lead to a modest fall in future incidences of bank robbery and other violent crimes.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 3:37 pm
What rubbish, Fisk. How is the State dictating women’s dress a pro-liberty proposition?

THR

1 May 10 at 3:38 pm
C.L.

That’s is precisely what went wrong with the Labor Party.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 3:46 pm
Great analysis by Paul Kelly …

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/climate-goals-unviable-amid-policy-disarray/story-e6frg6zo-1225860804544

…

The position Rudd now adopts was comprehensively repudiated by one of his main advisers, the head of the Climate Change Department, Martin Parkinson, in his speech of March 31, just four weeks ago. It is compulsory reading. Doing his job, Parkinson was defending the then policy, but his words have a retrospective lethality. Parkinson began by saying Australia’s debate was marked by “a very poor understanding of numbers”. It’s an understatement.

…

In effect, this is now Rudd’s decision. The same white paper warned that Australians would pay for any delay. This was because “a wait-and-see approach leaves the economy exposed to far more serious future adjustment costs that could leave assets stranded, workers unemployed and households exposed to rising costs”. Rudd’s new policy is condemned by his old policy.

John H.

1 May 10 at 3:48 pm
As I have pointed out before, there is no such thing as a “right to wear whatever you want on public property”. If you don’t believe me, you should stand outside a bank wearing nothing but a g-string and a balaclava and see how far your “human rights” get you. The burqa is a garment that not only brings precisely no benefits dto public life, but also quite a few drawbacks, particularly on health and security grounds. Belgian MPs have wisely followed the lead of Muslim countries (such as Bangladesh and Turkey) and non-Muslim countries alike in placing certain restrictions, by no means identical, on the burqa. This is a win for public health and law and order. It is the just and Christian thing to do.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 3:51 pm
This is a win for public health and law and order. It is the just and Christian thing to do.

What an idiotic statement. You’ve managed to synthesise multiple idiocies into just a few words. Quite a talent. The Belgian state is meant to be secualr, not ‘Christian’. The law and order benefits are trivial to non-existent, and ‘public health’ had nothing to do with the decision. If the ALP government introduced restrictions on attire, you’d be the first to shriek about nanny-statism. As it is, you’ve lapsed into a kind of proto-fascist imbecility, applauding the criminalisation of outfits you don’t like.

THR

1 May 10 at 3:55 pm
THR

I think you are projecting your own Communist understanding of the “state.” In the case of Belgium, we are talking about the democratic debates and processes of parliamentary democracy. Somewhat different type of social arrangement, comrade. I think you’d probably quite like it, eventually.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 4:01 pm
Somewhat different type of social arrangement, comrade. I think you’d probably quite like it, eventually

You’re another knuckle-dragger, then. This bit of Belgian law makes the war on drugs look positively Einsteinian.

THR

1 May 10 at 4:02 pm
I was obviously being tongue-in-cheek in my last line. I don’t really care what Christians think about the burqa.

Your point about law and order has already been proven false by the repeated use of the burqa to carry out bank robberies and other criminal offences. Quite recently, a Bangladeshi public hospital was forced to ban this utterly useless, in fact pernicious, garment due to serious cases of theft occuring there.

Now, as regards any other hypothetical ban, it really depends what it is. Governments have every right to regulate the use of public property, such as streets. There is no argument about people having the “right” to wear motorbike helmets wherever they want (for example outside banks or in airports). Such behaviour should be banned. There is, for the same reason, a very good secular case for considering the burqa to be beyond the pale – on public property of course.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 4:03 pm
THR

Indeed. I have no doubt the Belgian taxpayer will be forking out quite the same amounts of money – perhaps even more – as the US “war on drugs!”

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 4:05 pm
Peter, it’s remarkably easy to police and might even yield net revenue to government. They should use the funds to support greater community awareness about child abuse, specifically genital mutilation and paedophilia.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 4:07 pm
It’s a political statement against Islam. The fact there were a few real, practical reasons for banning full-body coverings was just a convenient vehicle to make a larger statement against Islam. And good on them; we need more political statements against the destructive nature of Islam. There may be hope for the western way yet.

And before you jump on it, this has nothing to do with freedom of conscience/religion. You’re free to practice your backwards religion – it just belongs within your own private sphere.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 4:12 pm
MF

I was CLEARLY being facetious.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 4:12 pm
It’s a political statement against Islam.

I have to disagree with you there. The burqa is not mandated by the Koran, and only a smallish minority of people wear it. The Global Initiative to Ban the Burqa is a multi-ethnic, multi-faith alliance of Muslims and non-Muslims who are determined to stamp out bank robberies and vitamin deficiency wherever they may arise.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 4:19 pm
Governments ought not make political statements of this sort. It seems to me that this sort of policy stands or falls on the empirical question of whether the burqa is being used in order to conceal the identity of those engaged in the commission of a crime. If it is increasingly then that should be sufficient to justify the banning of its use in public spaces whether or not they occur on public property.

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 4:29 pm
The Global Initiative to Ban the Burqa is a multi-ethnic, multi-faith alliance of Muslims and non-Muslims who are determined to stamp out bank robberies and vitamin deficiency wherever they may arise.

Hey, if that’s the line we’re running with it works for me, and I’m sure hundreds of thousands of others. Now buy into some western values you backward c**ts.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 4:30 pm
Dover, I don’t know exactly why Belgian MPs have decided to ban the burqa, only that bans have been brought in elsewhere to curb particular kinds of crime where the criminals have been able to exploit their anonymity.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 4:35 pm
Fisk, I accept that, my point is just that no other justifications for such a ban are acceptable beyond public order and safety.

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 4:43 pm
my point is just that no other justifications for such a ban are acceptable beyond public order and safety

That’s why they’re the reasons being used.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 4:50 pm
Cynic.

dover_beach

1 May 10 at 4:58 pm
Yes, that’s right. The real reasons for this push are of course to demonise a visible minority, sew division among the working class and distract the workers from defending their true economic interests, drum up racist hysteria leading to greater war fever which could then be channelled against resource-rich Muslim countries, and boost ultimately the profits of Big Oil. All the stuff about “health and safety” is just window dressing for our hidden agenda, which is really about breathing another 10-20 years of life into the near corpse that is Late Capitalism.

I hope I didn’t miss anything, THR.

Michael Fisk

1 May 10 at 5:22 pm
MF

Indeed. Divide the working class of Bruges, before the nation goes to the dogs!

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 5:40 pm
Apparently Mrs Duffy might originally have been from Belgium!

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 5:42 pm
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which by many accounts is catastrophic, is obviously of small consequence to Catallaxians.

Instead they are furiously campaigning for drugs (nicotine) to be cheaper and more accessible, sex offenses by clergy to be tolerated and public schools and health to be underfunded – let the kids pay the price

rog

1 May 10 at 6:26 pm
Another piece of excellent input from rog. Tell me again why the bird is banned and he’s still here. At least the bird was entertaining.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 6:36 pm
Well rog, I certainly think that slick situation is diabolically horrifying. Imagine a 10 square mile blob of oil heading towards Sydney!!?? The last I read, they STILL had not worked out how to stop the gush of oil under the waves into the ocean!!

Now, as for your “public schools to be underfunded.” WTF could that possibly mean? When will this take place? By how much will they be “underfunded?” Do you also write for Crikey?

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 6:38 pm
Rog defends ExxonMobil against oil ‘catastrophe’ hysterics – Jennifer Moahasy’s, 18 May, 2006.

From the same article; “Exxon Mobil Corp. spokesman Mark Boudreaux said that more than 350 studies done by independent academics have not found significant, lingering impact on species as a result of the spill.

“We believe that the sound has recovered, is healthy and is thriving,” he said.”

350 scientists must be a consensus?

And when it comes to the booming harp seal population; “”This is interesting and weird,” said John Hocevar, a marine biologist with Greenpeace. “There has definitely been a healthy rebound in their numbers.”

..Gordon Waring, a biologist in Woods Hole, Mass., with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the hunting ban has led to a population boom that is pushing the species farther south.

“The population is growing, with an estimated 5.5 million today,” Waring told The (Baltimore) Sun.

And now we have an excess of whales causing all sorts of marine havoc;

“Greg Kaufman says his whale-watching boat was doing everything by the book: cruising below 13 knots and staying 100 yards from any visible humpback as a crew member scanned the ocean atop a lookout.

Still, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Pacific Whale Foundation vessel from running over a calf that surged from underneath March 9.

It was one of seven confirmed encounters in the current breeding season, which is drawing to a close but already has set a record for such accidents. Between 1975 and 2005, there were 33 reported strikes involving whales and boats among the islands, with no more than three in one single season.

Environmental groups call the trend alarming, but researchers hope it has more to do with a rebound in the endangered species’ population than with negligent boaters.”

C.L.

1 May 10 at 6:38 pm
Rog the oil-loving sailor:

… if there is oil just go for it, think of the increase in fish stocks and the good to the environment.

I have sailed past the Bass Strait oil rigs, they are a haven for seals, birds whatever – quite a sight.

Meanwhile greenie madness is hell bent on locking up the coast into so called marine parks, nobody but nobody is allowed to enjoy themselves, commercial fishermen wonder why imported product is being given preference over local stock…

- Jennifer Morahasy, 18 May, 2006.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 6:41 pm
C.L.

I make no comment on ecological consequences, I merely note – which you MUST also share – the horror with which the people of Louisiana must regard this encroaching blob!

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 6:43 pm
Oh No – The Blob!

C.L.

1 May 10 at 6:47 pm
As CL has previously pointed out, Teh Lefties are having a mutiny.

When the opportunities arise, get over there and bait them up a bit! All for shits and giggles, y’know!

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 6:57 pm
They just look so tragic. As if any of them are fricking working class! Bums, perhaps.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 6:58 pm
MS

If I were you, expect a post soon advising “Don’t feed the trolls.”

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 6:59 pm
Even more amusingly, Possum – the man who produced a ‘graph’ to show that Rudd’s home incineration scheme was actually masterstroke for fire prevention – is lashing out at those criticising The Kevin for dumping the ETS. They’re all “jokers and misfits,” says the Laborite Kool Aid addict.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 7:05 pm
Yeah, CL, this type of stuff is an education in the lefty mindset, the motivations of which I’ve never fully understood. Ole’ Mate here demonstrates that bizarre lefty trait of ‘I know this will make us worse off overall and lower standards, but it’s still the best thing to do because we’ll be equally worse off. Also, it’s better to live in ignorance than know how shit your condition really might be.’

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 7:34 pm
It’s a cycle. Labor gets in and the far left, initially euphoric, becomes disenfranchised with mainstream politics and moans about the sameness of the major parties. (despite the fact that everyone else understands the differences). Then they retreat into their cave of extremism, muttering about how western democracy is flawed.

daddy dave

1 May 10 at 7:40 pm
dd the issue then becomes, if the far left is marginal to the ALP, and it seems now that the even the cultural left is ignored, then in whose interests exactly is the ALP being run?

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 7:44 pm
That’s alright, DD. I’m doing that on the right! If it wasn’t to oppose the ETS I’d probably not vote at all. The Libs fail to inspire me on too many counts. And democracy,….. social democracy at least, certainly leads to mediocrity.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 7:45 pm
then in whose interests exactly is the ALP being run?

Both the major parties are based around capturing the attention, usually through handouts, of the swinging voter in the middle. They’ve both got their entrenched middle-of-the-road cadre who’ll always support them, and they’ve both got their fringe elements who support them generally but complain a lot about them being crap, like us. And they’ve positioned themselves so the size of these groups is roughly equal. Then, to win, they compete for the middle ground.

This would work fine, and it’s perfectly appropriate, for those issues that need to be dealt with through pure democracy. But without the protection of necessary rights for civil society it leads to really mediocre outcomes.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 7:52 pm
That is my point. Surely a large point of representative democracy is that sectional groups either get direct representation, or use party influence, or lobby to get laws introduced or changed, and/or chunks of the tax-dollar spent in their favor. So, in 2010, just which of these sectional interests are getting anywhere with Rudd Labor?

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 8:04 pm
Dodgy pink-batts installers?

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 8:06 pm
Yea I agree Michael S, Bird was far entertaining than the sleazoid.

jc

1 May 10 at 8:07 pm
It might be simplistic but I’m thinking Rudd captured the imagination of what Latham called the ‘aspirationals’, after they tired of Howard. New handouts, better conditions and a sense of pseudo-sophisticated superiority (via indigenous gestures and environmentalism) for the middle class suburbanites. Now it’s proven that he can’t really deliver anything vaguely resembling substance, he’s in trouble.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 8:24 pm
Liberal climate of hate claims another victim. Arizona sheriff’s deputy shot with an AK-47 by an illegal immigrant

Do you have any idea how completely clownish that sounds?

You’re blaming LIBERALS for drug smugglers carrying assault rifles? Like I said, clownish.

Tillman

1 May 10 at 8:25 pm
The ‘aspirationals’ being willing to bat for either team so long as they feel they’re elevating themselves up the wealth and social ladders.

Michael Sutcliffe

1 May 10 at 8:25 pm
You have to admit, when the Libs are suddenly getting excited about the reinflated Turnbull you know that they are just a flock of dead parrots, norwegian blues included

rog

1 May 10 at 8:27 pm
CL has time to kill, try googling catholic sex crimes -7.17M hits

rog

1 May 10 at 8:33 pm
Sorry, Rog. We’ve already dispensed with that.

Now tell us more about The Louisiana Blob and why this is more worrying than the Exxon Valdez ‘catasrophe’ that you mocked at Jennifer Morahasy’s blog – before you sustained a head injury and married Dr Edelsten.

C.L.

1 May 10 at 8:43 pm
rog

Up until 2 weeks ago, I still intended to vote Labor as I did in 2007, because I thought Abbott – while colorfully provocative – was all over the shop. As of a few days, I shall be voting either Liberal or Greens first and second preferencing the other, with Labor at the very bottom. These guys should be in jail!

So, I really think you’re not up with the latest trends by focusing of Turnbull’s decision.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 8:57 pm
Peter that makes no sense. As expressed over time at this site, your values are, at a rough estimate, about 62,257,586,288,779,345 miles from where the Greens are.

daddy dave

1 May 10 at 9:28 pm
Peter,

What took you so long to see through Labor’s utter incompetence. Hawke was an aberration, not the norm. ALP members are great at politicking, but useless at government.

The Howard government gave us years in which we could be prosperous and in which every economic indicator improved.Why did we replace such level-headed, pragmnatic governance with the shambles that is Rudd and his crew of utter tossers.

Rococo Liberal

1 May 10 at 9:29 pm
DD

It is a strategic “up-yours” to Labor, and NO you cannot count on getting my preference anyway.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 9:29 pm
I have very strong views on the government’s building industry Stasi.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 9:30 pm
RL

Because it was still early in their first term, and I just expected that early “teething problems” would ‘iron themselves out.’ But it is now beyond contradiction. Rudd is the vampire lestat.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 9:32 pm
DD: Shorter PP: In my electorate, voting Greens 1, Libs 2 is far more likely actually to end being a vote for the Libs.

Peter Patton

1 May 10 at 9:34 pm
See the bombers fly up.

Sinclair Davidson

1 May 10 at 9:43 pm
I think that Turnbull will destabilise the Libs – there are now two ‘ideological’ camps in the outfield.

Greens are starting to look consistent

rog

1 May 10 at 10:18 pm
Greens are starting to look consistent

Frankly I/we’re shocked. lol

jc

1 May 10 at 10:49 pm
You rang, a tang?

rog

1 May 10 at 11:15 pm
Did Essendon win? Bullies, Dees. Looks like my tipping is shit again this week.

sdfc

1 May 10 at 11:35 pm
Phillip Adamas turns to Catholicism.

C.L.

2 May 10 at 12:49 am
Rog was Turnbull’s biggest backer a couple of months ago.

Now he hates him.

Poor Rog. He can’t keep track of his own bullshit.

Maybe that’s how things started to go wrong. Contracted to build a council dunny, one morning he woke up and couldn’t remember where it was located.

C.L.

2 May 10 at 12:52 am
Once we had compulsory union membership in many industries.
It seems that the trade association for fitness instructors want to bring it back, for them anyway.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/instructors-snub-fitness-watchdog-20100501-u0ae.html

ken n

2 May 10 at 6:09 am
ken, it isnt a trade union it is an industry group that is trying to gain control – they all try it on and all fail – you cant have an industry group controlling regulation

rog

2 May 10 at 10:38 am
CL is now in charge of bullshit – it is his field and he is outstanding in it

rog

2 May 10 at 10:40 am
rog, it is behaving like a union – wanting power and money – so I’ll treat it the same way.
If the government supports them, they might succeed. Quite a few do – the lawyers’ groups have been given power in some states.

ken n

2 May 10 at 11:32 am
CL – Adams will end up a believer. He writes about religion so much you can see he is struggling.

ken n

2 May 10 at 11:34 am
CL/ Ken – the interesting point about Adams attendance of a Catholic hospital is that it indicates he has private health insurance and that he is unprepared to suffer waiting in a queue.

dover_beach

2 May 10 at 11:38 am
There’s lots of outrage against Goldman Sachs for betting against a product they were selling. Tim Worstall makes the simple point:

The very act of selling something to someone is a bet against that product.
If I were convinced that BP shares were worth more than £5 then I wouldn’t sell them to you at £5 would I? That I am willing to sell them to you at £5 means that I think £5 is worth more than a BP share.
I am, by the very fact that I’m undertaking a transaction with you, showing that I think you’ve over valued the item. This is as true of apples, houses, bales of hay and stocks, bonds and collateralised debt obligations as it is of anything else.

daddy dave

2 May 10 at 11:49 am
Nothing to say about the football, DB?

Sinclair Davidson

2 May 10 at 12:14 pm
You couldn’t help yourself could you, Sinc? I get the feeling the Hawks are going to get the same treatment you guys got last week and we deserve it.

dover_beach

2 May 10 at 12:38 pm
The Bolt piece on hospitals is pure spite, which is just his style. The fact that catholic hospitals rely on funds from taxpayers was not acknowledged.

rog

2 May 10 at 12:40 pm
ken, wanting power and money is not restricted to unions

rog

2 May 10 at 12:41 pm
Indeed, Dover. The communist olive rancher doesn’t want to line up with the great unwashed for medical service. Even more hilarious is the fact that the official atheist line is that Australia’s Catholic hospitals adhere to outrageously Catholic bio-ethics. Today, the talking point in defence of Adams is that those hospitals are not really too Catholic at all – thus being appropriate places for frightened atheists to go for quality treatment.

That link is to a site called ‘The Rise of Atheism: 2010 Global Atheist Convention.’ Note who one of the presenters is at the sidebar.

Incidentally, Adams’ topic at the atheism cult convention is: “Atheistic Fundamentalism: The dangers of missionary zeal. Why we mustn’t be like them.” Except when we’re sick. Then we can take advantage of their missionary zeal as much as our bourgeois private health fund allows. LOL.

C.L.

2 May 10 at 1:54 pm
Well I’m an atheist, and in a medical situation requiring hospitalization, I’m off to St. Vinnies in a flash. Mind you, I have not spent much more than a few hours, let alone my entire life, bashing the Catholics and their Church as evil beyond repair.

Peter Patton

2 May 10 at 1:57 pm
CL,

I’m an atheist too, but not of the Richard Dawkins’ all-religionists-are-evil kind, perhaps because I am an ex-Catholic. As long as they don’t try to cram their supestitious rubbish down my throat, I really couldn’t care less. So please don’t try to lump all atheists into the same category.

Capitalist Piggy

2 May 10 at 4:32 pm
Ironically, Adams’ speech to the atheist cult convention was precisely about the dangers of atheists cramming their supestitious rubbish down other people’s throats.

As for the Catholic philosophy of service, Adams seems to prefer it to the atheist alternative.

Good for him.

C.L.

2 May 10 at 6:02 pm
Mr Integrity backs Goldman.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575218071029226354.html?mod=wsj_india_main

JC

2 May 10 at 6:16 pm
As does Bill Clinton.

C.L.

2 May 10 at 6:40 pm
Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Hasn’t Ken Henry’s so called reform to tax mining companies an extra slug essentially following Argentina’s where they began taxing their most efficient exporters and became food importers?

I know that Ken Henry and his ma trolled far and wide to find the best tax policy mix for their subjects but I would have thought a stop over in Argentina was a bit over the top.. surely.

Next time the Wombat whisper and his mother prepare another report he ought avoid that short stop over in Buenos Aires.

JC

2 May 10 at 6:55 pm
pro-lifers in America have an ingenious plan to cut down on abortions. keep it legal; but the woman must, by law, have an ultrasound first.
That’s it.
Get the ultrasound, then away you go, girl. Knock yourself out. Of course, coming face to face, literally, with that “blob of cells” is often a big reality check. Increased information is always a good thing – including information about what the inside of your body looks like, prior to a medical procedure. An informed choice is a better choice.
Let the sun shine in.

daddy dave

2 May 10 at 8:02 pm
C.L.

“Ironically, Adams’ speech to the atheist cult convention was precisely about the dangers of atheists cramming their supestitious rubbish down other people’s throats.”

That’s right, most of us prefer to mind our own business. So where is the irony?

Capitalist Piggy

2 May 10 at 9:03 pm
An informed choice is a better choice.
Let the sun shine in.

By the same reasoning, we should get Coalition voters to spend a few days working in health, manufacturing, welfare or retail prior to casting a vote each Federal election.

THR

2 May 10 at 9:16 pm
THR, your hastily cobbled together counter-example isn’t practical, but I get your sentiment. But you won’t catch me out on this one; I’m all for information and sunlight. I wasn’t championing them merely out of convenience. Besides that, I’m not the anti-union anti-welfare crusader you seem to think.

daddy dave

2 May 10 at 9:28 pm
Fair enough. I wasn’t really wanting to have a go at you, or your example. This thing that people call ‘empathy’ is actually pretty lacking on this site. The poor are sometimes blamed for their poverty, and so forth.

Actually, I think some US states do mandate that an ultrasound occurs prior to any abortion, and also insist that abortions are preceded by ‘counselling’.

THR

2 May 10 at 9:32 pm
I like the ultrasound idea, I really do. It’s really the solution for everyone. So simple and unambiguous, and you don’t have to do anything with the results, or even look at the picture. And it’s much better than counselling, which has all kinds of Orwellian overtones.

daddy dave

2 May 10 at 9:37 pm
This thing that people call ‘empathy’ is actually pretty lacking on this site. The poor are sometimes blamed for their poverty, and so forth.

That’s because empathy is crap in terms of forming values – it’s a useful tool for understanding the world but no more! Also I come from a poor family and a lot of it was their fault even though they were hard workers who didn’t drink or gamble etc! There, hows that!

Michael Sutcliffe

2 May 10 at 9:37 pm
And it’s much better than counselling, which has all kinds of Orwellian overtones.

Yet when we had the great Foucault debate some time ago, this idea was largely ridiculed (though not necessarily by you).

That’s because empathy is crap in terms of forming values

I agree that empathy is hardly a sure footing for establishing values. I’m thinking of the rather silly libertarian arguments of the sort “Well the lazy factory worker could just choose to be Richard Branson if they don’t like working minimum wage for Darrell Lea”.

THR

2 May 10 at 9:41 pm
Everybody pay attention – this is how you construct a bulletproof logical argument (from you know who, of course):

NO NO YOU ARE LYING. YOUR HYPOTHESIS IS UNFALSIFIABLE AND YOU REFUSE POINT BLANK TO BRING EVIDENCE FOR IT. THEREFORE YOU ARE BEING A COMPLETE CUNT.

Tillman

3 May 10 at 10:33 am
That’s some huge steaming pile of ridiculous Birdian idiocy you got yourself involved in there, Tillman.

Is it a mental illness, or just plain stupidity do you think?

BirdLab

3 May 10 at 11:09 am
Oh no Graeme is back on reverse speech theory

jtfsoon

3 May 10 at 11:10 am
Bird’s lab assistant Philomena chimes in:

The simulation by individuals of psychic powers undoubtedly occurs but does not in itself negate their objective existence. From medicine to anthropology and other disciplines we know there are paranormal ways of action as well as paranormal ways of being aware.

Nor are such things either new or rare. In fact the opposite is true. They are as old as human experience and thus reflected in our stories, history and literature. Prophets, oracles, ghosts, apparitions, second sight, thought reading, premonition are found and have been reported at every period of history among all cultures and classes of being. Up until a couple of centuries ago most people accepted the existence of such phenomena though they attributed their manifestations to supernatural or religious forces.

This century’s equivalent of the The Curies?

jtfsoon

3 May 10 at 11:12 am
.si eh seY. seY

BirdLab

3 May 10 at 11:12 am
Unfuckingbelievable:

“It was Gabriel, 34, who allegedly decided to call time on his five-year relationship with 43-year-old Halle…”

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/halle-berry-splits-with-gabriel-aubry-20100503-u283.html

BirdLab

3 May 10 at 11:26 am
He must be using Queensland Lawyers.

The relationship ended a couple of months ago and Halle has been using the services of Judy Bogen, a family law attorney from Beverly Hills law firm Hersch Mannis and Bogen, to sort out custody conditions for Nahla and various financial matters.

jc

3 May 10 at 11:31 am
“I agree that empathy is hardly a sure footing for establishing values. I’m thinking of the rather silly libertarian arguments of the sort “Well the lazy factory worker could just choose to be Richard Branson if they don’t like working minimum wage for Darrell Lea”.”

That’s not the argument usually made. You realise the guy who started Eagle Boys left school at 15 for a bakey apprenticeship?

A more useful discussion is why we make it hard for people to be business owners and force them to keep on being someone else’s employee.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 12:02 pm
A note on our macroeconomic situation:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/6220.0Main%20Features3Sep%202009?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=6220.0&issue=Sep%202009&num=&view=

“DISCOURAGED JOB SEEKERS

In September 2009, there were 111,800 discouraged job seekers aged 15 years and over. This has increased from 73,900 in 2008.”

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 2:17 pm
I feel it my duty to advise you Jason, that Professor Bird (self-declared “world expert” on “smooth economic transitions”), has stated that you are a “dumb bugger” who “just doesn’t understand economics.”

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/the-11th-commandment-thou-shalt-not-tax-profits/#comment-29860

BirdLab

3 May 10 at 2:34 pm
you have to be kidding me, they’re turning children into ectomorphic vegan girlymen

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

A toddler at a playgroup near Manchester had the cheese sandwich from his lunchbox confiscated by deranged teachers because it did not accord with their “healthy eating guidelines”. The child, Jack Ormisher, was offered fruit, nuts, seeds etc by the teachers as compensation.

If he was older he might have had the wherewithal to shout back at them: “Do I look like a bloody chaffinch, you self-important, doctrinaire, Stalinist harridans?” But he didn’t, because he was only two years old, so he just cried his eyes out instead. What can we do about these people?

jtfsoon

3 May 10 at 3:04 pm
Mass sackings. A 40% supra normal profit tax on the likes of Eddie Groves.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:13 pm
I see Bolta still has the rabid right following:

Tracey Conlan replied to Robber Baron
Mon 03 May 10 (02:00pm)

Actually its worse – Kevin Rudd wants to lock up all our good Australian children, and fill our schools with illegal queue jumping refugee children who will take our jobs, invade our shopping centres and knife our elderly.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:14 pm
Also in England, a Christian preacher has been arrested and jailed for saying homosexuality is sinful.

Meanwhile, Damien Thompson reminds his fellow Britons of the address given to 60,000 Muslims in London Docklands by then president of the Liberal Democrats, Simon Hughes, in 2008.

“Thanks be to Allah! [Allah] will assemble you on the Day of Resurrection… Friends, it is our job to teach those who do not have faith of the deep truths of the faith of God’s justice and God’s presence. To Allah belongs the kingdoms of the heaven and the earth, and you will see each other humbled to their knees.”

C.L.

3 May 10 at 3:14 pm
What can we do about these people?
.
Britain has become PC hell. Which is kind of ironic, for a nation of alcoholic, anti-authority hoodlums.
.
But in answer to your question the best thing to do is open our doors to them, with a simple test for PC values as a filter. They have to eat a french fry (they can call it a chip if they like); take one puff from a cigarette, and tell a sexist joke. having passed the test, they’re allowed in.

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 3:16 pm
…….when he told a passer-by and a gay police community support officer that,……..

It’s great the UK has the ‘gay police’. I wonder if they’ve still got old fashioned police like detectives who investigate crimes and patrolman who catch criminals.

Michael Sutcliffe

3 May 10 at 3:23 pm
I’m sure they have plenty of gay police who do just that and find being pigeon holed by their preferences as entirely patronising.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:25 pm
SRL:

I bet that’s a plant, SRL. The poisoners at the Pure Poison blog used to often brag about planting out of the ordinary comments over at Bolts.

It’s a little too “cute” to be real.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Tobius Ziegler (Tubby Nutcracker)planted that comment….. the little low self-esteemed critter.

jc

3 May 10 at 3:25 pm
“I bet that’s a plant, SRL. The poisoners at the Pure Poison blog used to often brag about planting out of the ordinary comments over at Bolts.”

???

That equates to: “I’m a bigot with a shitty belief set who needs to deceive people on emotional grounds to get them onside”

Muppets.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:28 pm
I wonder if they’ve still got old fashioned police like detectives who investigate crimes
.
Blaming criminals for crimes is so neanderthal, Michael, and so very last century. Enlightened people understand that society is ultimately to blame. And evil corporations. And Christians. And America.
“Watchdogs” are the new police.

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 3:29 pm
Perhaps this is really just a cunning plan by the British authorities to increase church attendance.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 3:30 pm
Some of the people who post and comment at the Pure Poison blog used to frequently boast that they had trolled Bolt’s blog and left comments there as a parody.

I haven’t gone to that site for a while now and don’t bother reading them as it seems to be a meeting ground of the disaffected and angry left.

jc

3 May 10 at 3:36 pm
Dad:

I really don’t understand what the hell has happened to Britain. It seems as though they think they can police private morality issue now.

jc

3 May 10 at 3:37 pm
I can’t stand the pure poison blog.
On the other hand (and this hurts as I hate defending them), occasionally they have a point as Bolt’s blog is sometimes in poor taste. For example this week Bolt’s again mocking Turnbull’s son for posting on his facebook status – his Facebook, FFS – that after his dad got the boot from the leadership he didn’t want to vote Liberal. Aren’t kids off-limits in the political cut and thrust? They should be. And Bolt’s also mocking Philip Adams for attending a Catholic hospital. I mean, Jesus. Keep it classy.

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 3:47 pm
According to a commenter at Bolt’s site, the Greeks aren’t European:

Why on earth did they let Greece into the EU ?

There are four main European races – Slavs, Germans, Celts and Romance (Latins). Greece is not one of these. Nor is Turkey.

!

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 3:47 pm
Swan has and has never had any idea:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/treasured-position/2007/08/31/1188067371983.html?page=fullpage

“Swan says it is a “tragedy” that Australia has a current account deficit of 6 per cent in the midst of a once-in-a-century commodities boom.”

Yes well, it’s a tragedy that receive foreign investment?

That explains the new RRT.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:49 pm
well wasn’t Troy located in Turkey?

In a way I’ve always thought of the Turks as just Greeks who ended up Muslim (with a little Mongolian infusion)

jtfsoon

3 May 10 at 3:50 pm
Oh dear God. I will never pay a fee to an association who employs this woman:

*”He has been assiduous and I don’t think there are any concerns about Wayne Swan’s capabilities.”

The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, has been impressed by his efforts to build relationships with business community.*

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:51 pm
The Turks were just the name of the invading nomadic Muslim conquerers – and a former USSR republic is named after them – Turkmenistan – right?

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:52 pm
In a way I’ve always thought of the Turks as just Greeks who ended up Muslim (with a little Mongolian infusion)

I did read a genetic study that claimed the “Central Asian” influx only made up about 20% of the Anatolian gene pool.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 3:53 pm
yep SRL. They invaded what is now Iraq too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_people

The name Turk (Chinese: ??, pinyin: tu jue; jyutping: duk kyut) was first applied to a clan of tribal chieftains (known as Ashina) who overthrew the ruling Rouran confederency, and founded the nomadic Göktürk Empire (Tu-kiu,Türük) (“Celestial Turks”)[64] These nomads roamed in the Altai Mountains (and thus are known as Altaic peoples) in northern Mongolia and on the steppes of Central Asia.[65] The Göktürks were ruled by Khans whose influences extended during the sixth to eighth centuries from the Aral Sea to the Hindu Kush in the land bridge known as Transoxania. In the eighth century, some Turkic tribes, among them the Oghuz Turks, moved south of the Oxus River, while others migrated west to the northern shore of the Black Sea.[66]

jtfsoon

3 May 10 at 3:55 pm
Racial jibes of his commenters aside, I think Bolt has some good points. Nice country, but corrupt as hell. Even with the bailout, the Greeks will still go bankrupt in a couple of years. Germans are only going to cop so much tax-eating before their patience wears out.

I think there will be a serious risk of a Communist takeover in Greece the way things are going.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 3:57 pm
I wonder where Bolt’s seneschal thinks of Hungarian admission to the EU?

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 3:57 pm
Oh dear God. I will never pay a fee to an association who employs this woman:

*”He has been assiduous and I don’t think there are any concerns about Wayne Swan’s capabilities.”

The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, has been impressed by his efforts to build relationships with business community.*

Are there any sane contributors in that association that would pressure the board to fire this idiot.

jc

3 May 10 at 4:00 pm
Adams is fair game on the Catholic hospital thing, Dave. He’s been attacking Catholicism for decades and there are plenty of good statist hospitals around. The olive rancher is a hypocrite.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 4:06 pm
JC, that AIG group is yet another victim of corporate Stockholm Syndrome. Part of the business community no doubt wants to fight the ALP, but the majority think it’s safer to run up the white flag. So you often see these Left-wing “business lobby” organisations whose essential function is to fellate the Labor Party. After their sickening behaviour over the ETS you’d think a few subscribers would be asking for their money back.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 4:10 pm
The Greek bailout is a jaw-dropper. The mound of cash needed to bail them out just kept getting bigger and bigger.

The laughable thing is that it’s really nothing more than a French and German Bank bailout; as between them they have around $300 billion outstanding in Greece and the surrounding country side.

The Euro used to be thought of as a hybrid between the French Franc and the Deutschemark.

It should now be thought of as a hybrid between the old Italian Lira, Spanish Peseta and the Greek Drachma.

The bailout will succeed, as the amount of loot they’re now talking about is around $150 billion.

How to make a dollar?

Buy the German and French stockmarket index funds, which I have been layering into for the past week by just dipping my toes (small ones).

There’s no way the ECB can hike rates or even make noises about hiking rates for years as they attempt to put the PIIGS back on the EU rail.

Such easy monetary policy will be totally inappropriate for the better- run economies of the EU and ought to make their stock markets take off over the next few months as people begin to realize the import of these actions and what easy money policy means for core Europe.

Seriously, macro-wise I’ve never seen better markets to speculate in as these governments are making it so, so easy to earn a couple of dollars to keep the wolves at bay. No need to trade market or stock fundamentals anymore. Just keep an eye on what these bozo governments are doing.

jc

3 May 10 at 4:13 pm
That’s right. They’re essentially ACOSS for the corporate world. Dole-bludging panhandlers.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 4:14 pm
Some of the goodies secured by the Greek left over the years:

Tens of thousands of unmarried or divorced daughters of civil servants collect their dead parents’ pensions, weighing on a social security system experts say will collapse in 15 years unless it is overhauled….

While the law protects civil servants from dismissal, it allows them to retire with a pension in their 40s.

Greek pension spending is expected to rise by 12 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, according to EU Commission data. That compares with an EU average of less than 3 percent of GDP…

Labour unions foiled government attempts to sell debt-ridden Olympic Airways for decades, costing Greek taxpayers millions while employees enjoyed generous benefits—their family members could fly around the world for free… Olympic was sold in 2008, but only after the state lavishly compensated or re-hired about 4,600 employees…

The state owns 74 companies, mainly utilities and transport firms, many of which are overstaffed and loss-making, the OECD says…

Hundreds of state-appointed committees employ staff though it is not clear what they all do. Greece has a committee to manage Lake Kopais, which dried out in the 1930s…

But nearly 80 percent of Defence Ministry spending goes on administrative costs and payments of army staff.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE63R0QZ20100428

C.L.

3 May 10 at 4:16 pm
What’s interesting to me is behind the scenes.

Do German or French (primarily public service) pension funds own a lot of these banks?

Did the other PIIS squeal when they found out their economies wouldn’t receive the fillip of a much lower Euro FX rate?

What ARE the Greeks going to do? Privatise? Auction off assets?

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 4:16 pm
Yea Fisk, it’s the Stockholm syndrome with these idiots.

But I really don’t understand why these schelps continue finding an organization that has Heather Rides-out as the CEO. Just walk away.

I mean how the fuck do they live with themselves being represented by her.

jc

3 May 10 at 4:16 pm
The bailout will succeed, as the amount of loot they’re now talking about is around $150 billion.

You mean it will succeed at saving the banks’ asses or it will succeed in making Greece solvent?

I can’t possibly see how the second will be achieved. In three years public debt will be up to 150% of GDP. At the rates they’ll be paying their bondholders, they’re fucked.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 4:18 pm
*”He has been assiduous and I don’t think there are any concerns about Wayne Swan’s capabilities.”

The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, has been impressed by his efforts to build relationships with business community.*

She’s certainly outing herself as a Labor hack after making a terrific effort to keep her bias in check for quite some time. I certainly wasn’t convinced until recently that the rumours were true. So now we know the Australian Industry Group doesn’t really represent industry as such.

Michael Sutcliffe

3 May 10 at 4:19 pm
SRL – there’s no political will to pay back the interest on the debt. None. Just to stand still they will have to CONTINUALLY cut social programmes while making ever higher interest repayments. It’s just not going to happen. They want to keep their perks.

I’m predicting they’ll go hard Left and try to defy the laws of economics. Look out for a Communist-style party coming to office in the next couple of years.

Michael Fisk

3 May 10 at 4:21 pm
“After their sickening behaviour over the ETS you’d think a few subscribers would be asking for their money back.”

Que?

The ETS was gutted so that existing businesses (crucially, other than low-emissions or alternative energy businesses) were required to do nothing at all. This completely gutted ETS then had no appeal to anyone but big business, and was duly rejected. Can you explain why business should be twisting their knickers over the performance of their completely successful lobbyists?

FDB

3 May 10 at 4:23 pm
there’s no political will to pay back the interest on the debt. None.
.
Indeed. So I’m wondering what JC means when he says the bailout will “succeed.” Is a Greek implosion now off the table?

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 4:25 pm
Just got my iPad 3G fedexed from the USA.

This is without any doubt the future of computing. Unfriggingbelievable.

Tillman

3 May 10 at 4:26 pm
Do German or French (primarily public service) pension funds own a lot of these banks?

Yep… in truck loads. Greek bonds were trading over the Bund benchmark by around 30 basis points before the hurricane hit. Seeing they were investment grade and any EU/Euro member’s bonds were accepted by teh ECB as collateral holding this junk became a no brainer… or so they thought.

The entire European pension system is loaded with this shit funnily enough except the pensions systems of the rest of the PIIGS as they were buying their own national sovereign junk. Ironically enough the nations most affected by the Greek clusterfuck as I see it are the stronger members of the EU such as the French, Germany and the smaller places like Holland.

Did the other PIIS squeal when they found out their economies wouldn’t receive the fillip of a much lower Euro FX rate?

Dunno…. I think they quietly would like to see the Euro make its way down to 1.1 with the Buck. Funnily enough the weaker Euro helps the US as the perception of Dollar strength helps their own funding requirements as investors will buy Dollars. The EU is basically self financed anyway.

What ARE the Greeks going to do? Privatise? Auction off assets?

Our Greek Friends are going to privatize shit, as they have nothing to offer except a couple of freaking Islands where Germans and English turn pink under the hot sun.

Basically, when you think about it, they’re not the ones who a re fucked. The rest of the gaggle are that are stupid enough to support them.

———

It’s bailout heaven, SRL. The Dow (and the EU 200 index in equivalent terms) will go to 30,000 but a tomato will also cost 100 bucks.

Join the rush.

jc

3 May 10 at 4:26 pm
A large call option/warrant contract on a TIPS bond a few years back would have been marvellous.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 4:30 pm
FDB,

Here’s my alternative:

A 30 year tax 100% exemption for the extent that you or your business is carbon neutral.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 4:32 pm
Indeed. So I’m wondering what JC means when he says the bailout will “succeed.”

Success these days has different connotation to what the word used to mean, Dad.

They’ll stop the Greeks from busting out and cover it up buy stop-gapping them.

Is a Greek implosion now off the table

Yep, in a way. It just means the Greeks are sharing the love with the rest of the EU.

Seriously people should just buy German and French index funds on leverage as monetary policy will be now directed to the weaker members meaning it will be totally inappropriate for the stronger guys causing their equity markets to zoom.

It just buys more uncontrolled inflation down the road.

The idea is to not hold any cash balances at all in either the Euro the Dollar or the Yen.

jc

3 May 10 at 4:32 pm
…”100% tax exemption”…obviously.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 4:32 pm
Tillman

Why didn’t you wait until they get them here as there’s always a hurdle if you don’t play by Apple rules.

Dude, I told that shot would change the world. Now do you believe the guy that told me?

jc

3 May 10 at 4:35 pm
“A large call option/warrant contract on a TIPS bond a few years back would have been marvellous.”

My God why didn’t we buy them as an ADR after the 2006 US mid terms?

Without looking at the chart, this inspires self defenestration.

Semi Regular Libertarian

3 May 10 at 4:50 pm
JC, it works perfectly. went to the Telstra store and got a pre-paid sim, trimmed it with a pair of scissors so it would work in the microsim slot and it’s off to the races. Surfing like a mofo.

Paid $829 plus about $130 to get it fedexed – so a bit over $1000 aussie to have it in my sweaty little palms right now. I guarantee if i waited a month I’d be able to get one – probably for about $1200/1300.

Tillman

3 May 10 at 5:29 pm
I’d be able to get one – probably for about $1200/1300.

You reckon that’s what it will retail here for?

jc

3 May 10 at 5:50 pm
christ you apple tragics

Jason Soon

3 May 10 at 6:08 pm
Adams is fair game on the Catholic hospital thing, Dave. He’s been attacking Catholicism for decades
.
Maybe, but it still came off as pretty tacky. A person’s personal medical issues and medical treatment should be off the table, no matter how much of a hypocrite you think they are.

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 6:10 pm
Jase:

I’ve never seen anything like it. We visited 3 families in the US. Every single member had an Apple Mac of some sort and an Iphone.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

I went to Apple store in the Old GM building on 5thAve and 58th street. It was around 11 pm on a week night and there was long line wanting to get in.

jc

3 May 10 at 6:11 pm
What’s wrong with him, Dads? Is it a fat related illness?

jc

3 May 10 at 6:12 pm
I went to Apple store in the Old GM building on 5thAve and 58th street. It was around 11 pm on a week night and there was long line wanting to get in.

I’ve seen queues in front of crack and whore houses.

Infidel Tiger

3 May 10 at 6:35 pm
There are four main European races – Slavs, Germans, Celts and Romance (Latins). Greece is not one of these. Nor is Turkey.
.
France isn’t one of those either. And I’d wager that people from Denmark’d have a bit of trouble accepting the tag ‘German’. Jay-sus! Good to see that the Boltaburbanites are fighting hard to maintian their virtuous ignorance.

Adrien

3 May 10 at 6:45 pm
Birdie loves da man.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Ambassador Keyes is truly a Righteous Man.

jc

3 May 10 at 6:54 pm
A person’s personal medical issues and medical treatment should be off the table, no matter how much of a hypocrite you think they are.

Why? Adams published several joke books whose didactic cultural purpose was to insist that anything and everything was fair game. A month after addressing an atheism conference on how his fellow cultists should avoid the missionary modus operandi of Christians, he checks himself into an institution of the kind whose missionary raison d’etre has been a pillar of Christendom since (at least) late antquiity.

That’s funny.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 6:56 pm
The French are latin. But this usually refers to language not race. I’m pretty sure that comment on Bolt’s site is a bait.

Michael Sutcliffe

3 May 10 at 7:03 pm
I’m pretty sure that comment on Bolt’s site is a bait.

The ‘bait’ comments usually have something to give them away (like a link that would ordinarily never be approved by the moderators). I’d say that almost all of the imbecilic comments on Bolt’s site are genuine.

THR

3 May 10 at 7:12 pm
Reminds me of Noel Pearson being called a “coconut” and an “Uncle Tom” at Larvatus Prodeo.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 7:18 pm
Whereas such stories as the Kennedy Hit, Reverse Speech, and the potential for alien visitation …… None of these subjects are to do with paranormal powers. None of them deal with religious belief. None of them are irrational or unscientific. And whats more there is great evidence in their favour. So I can see why a skeptic who had seen all these poor magicians who have been unmasked just get all weary when the next fellow shows up. But its their anti-intellectual approach to anything non-mainstream is what sickens me. Its a rebellion against logic, reason, and the scientific method that gives me the shits.

Jason Soon is terrible for this anti-reason obsession. I constantly think I can cure him of stupidity but its a losing battle. Like I’ve brought up reverse speech again, because its an important issue. And what is his argument: “Birds brought up reverse speech again. Oh dear.” Or words to that effect. Thats an argument in stupidtown. Jason Soon really feels like thats an argument. Its a terrible mental handicap these Sheeple are getting around with.

The Avian one has degenerated into raving psychosis.
‘Reverse speech’ is irrational as there’s no evidence that anybody processes (or produces) phonemes backwards. It’s complete lunacy in other words. And Bird is also a liar – in addition to banning jc and Mr Lab, he’s also banned all of my comments. ‘Mental handicap’ indeed.

THR

3 May 10 at 7:19 pm
And Bird is also a liar – in addition to banning jc and Mr Lab, he’s also banned all of my comments. ‘Mental handicap’ indeed.

Yes but I sometimes get through to remind him he’s an idiot. My recommendation is to keep trying and never let him dissuade you from telling the feathered creature what you think of him.

He’s particularly protective towards Phil and he banned me when Phil complained that I was calling her a fat porker which incidentally Bird told us she was.

jc

3 May 10 at 7:36 pm
I do admire the way Bird has turned Philomena into his personal gimp. I thought she/he was taking the piss out of Bird, but he has completely reversed the situation and made that Rubenesque tart his bitch. Well played.

Infidel Tiger

3 May 10 at 7:42 pm
24hours at a Walmart.

Do people ever stop buying crap even at 4 in the morning if they can? No it seems.

http://www.businessinsider.com/24-hours-at-wal-mart-2010-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterstock+%28ClusterStock%29

It’s the anti Hives Hamilton store.

jc

3 May 10 at 8:37 pm
Who are they?

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9804&paged=41

jc

3 May 10 at 8:45 pm
http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

So, in the Logies, I voted for the reverse speech guy on you tube. Why didn’t TV Week give more space to him?

It’s only on Friday (sexy) night that SBS is justified. The rest of the time it’s all gook news or poojabbers playing wopball.

Jason Soon

3 May 10 at 8:51 pm
JC

The appropriate term is ‘Rubinesque’.

Jason Soon

3 May 10 at 8:56 pm
For all those still-bleeding Fitzroy fans.

He said Fitzroy had a “shrinking, if not vanishing, supporter base”, leading Associate Justice Neemer Mukhtar to reply: “You will upset some people, talking like that. There might still be some bleeding.”

Sinclair Davidson

3 May 10 at 9:32 pm
Well well well. The ECB has decided to accept Greek bonds as collateral satisfaction.

The onward march to zero by the western world currencies continues unabated.

Good work fellas . Never walk away from a junk bond and pretend it’s triple A.

What’s he effect?

Every bank with Greek bonds will be dumping them to the ECB. I know I would so why would I expect less from anyone else.

The European Central Bank ended uncertainty about how it would deal with further downgrades of Greek debt, saying Monday it will accept the country’s bonds as collateral for loans regardless of how they are rated by credit agencies.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/e-c-b-suspends-credit-threshold-for-greek-bonds/

jc

3 May 10 at 9:32 pm
Every bank with Greek bonds will be dumping them to the ECB.
.
What will be the real-world effect for Greeks? Inflation? Unemployment?

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 9:45 pm
What will be the real-world effect for Greeks? Inflation? Unemployment?

More drinking coffee and wishing they’d emigrated with the smart Greeks in the 50′s.

Infidel Tiger

3 May 10 at 9:54 pm
and plenty of Aussie tourists to Europe.

Sinclair Davidson

3 May 10 at 9:59 pm
Newspoll: Coalition takes the lead.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 10:55 pm
Dad:

I think it gets Greece out of the hole, won’t change their behavior and will basically lead to higher inflation in Europe. The beginning of the inflation period is when equity prices are healthy as everyone is mis-pricing stuff.

Europe has just created the biggest moral hazard we’ve seen. This is the biggest bailout in sovereign history.

In reality the US is funding a big slab under the table. The IMF is financing a huge portion and the US is the biggest contributor member to the IMF.

jc

3 May 10 at 10:55 pm
Wow. The coalition is in front.

This is a dangerous time for Abbott. This is for him to win or lose. Rudd’s out of the picture in a sense as the public has beginning to give up on the turd. The focus is now on the public to look at Abbott and see him as the PM and feel comfortable. He may be able to do it, but he needs to really work at it in fact more so than he has in the past.

jc

3 May 10 at 11:03 pm
Essential Research poll in the SMH: Abbott up, Rudd tanking.

SMH spin: voters are angry they didn’t get their ETS.

LOL.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 11:05 pm
Eric Abetz – great-nephew of SS-Brigadeführer Otto Abetz, Nazi German ambassador to Vichy France – has been elected Liberal Senate Leader.

C.L.

3 May 10 at 11:19 pm
This is a dangerous time for Abbott.
.
Whatever Abbott’s doing seems to be working. Rudd has lost his nerve and is paralysed.

daddy dave

3 May 10 at 11:25 pm
SMH spin: voters are angry they didn’t get their ETS.

LOL.

They’re takin’ to the streets in their anger

Michael Sutcliffe

3 May 10 at 11:25 pm
Kev and Wayne announce their plan to balance the budget:

Prepare for 100-year-old workers: expert

Michael Sutcliffe

3 May 10 at 11:27 pm
yes, Abbott has done quite bit. However the big hurdle is when people this poll and they ask themselves if they would like to see Abbott as their PM.

He has to convince them that he would be a safe pair of hands and wouldn’t go off into the never never.

Also the ALP is pretty ruthless with likely losers and Abbott could well see Gillard as the PM in the next election.

A disciplined Turnbull in the ministry at some stage soon wouldn’t be a bad idea…. only if the fucker can keep his eye on the road. Love or hate hate he really is the best qualified for the Treasury role.

jc

3 May 10 at 11:31 pm
FARK. Rudd must be packing his dacks.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 12:19 am
Hey FDB. I’ve got a present for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHosYuf-HfA&feature=player_embedded

Starts at 1:10

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 12:24 am
Fisk:

I’m wondering if they can change the leadership now or are they locked in with Rudd.

One side tells me that they could very well change the leadership as the ALP hates losers and particularly despicable losers like Charlie Rudd.

The other side tell me that they’re pretty well locked in with the Charlie, as a change in leaders would also mean a change across the cabinet along with commensurate polices which could be seen as a panic. That was pretty much how it ended up for Howard/Libs. It was too late to change.

I really can’t bet which way it goes, however I would be really pissed if they change now as my bet for the libs at 4:1 could be in some danger with they went with Gillard,

No wonder Turnbull’s back. He can smell a rotting carcass a mile off.

jc

4 May 10 at 12:34 am
could be in some danger if they went with Gillard,

jc

4 May 10 at 12:36 am
Yeah, I think they’re locked in.

Rudd will probably win anyway – even really awful Prime Ministers usually get a second term. But Abbott sure has them spooked.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 12:39 am
A really smart guy I I speak to at times made a really interesting point. What policies are the ALP going to run with at the next election?

Dentistry perhaps?

And if by some bolt of lightening they do come up with a policy who is going to believe that Rudd can carry them through effectively?

I know that governments here usually get a second term however none have really been as bad as this lot.

jc

4 May 10 at 12:46 am
No idea. I was, as you know, skeptical of this “Rudd is worse than Whitlam” stuff. Not any more. He’s by far the worst ever. Even (or especially) if I were a Leftist, I’d hold an identical opinion.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 12:50 am
After today, Rudd’s hollowmen will be working on a new stunt – which I’m guessing we’ll see by Friday.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 1:04 am
Lucky for him, he did this in ‘racist’ Australia.

Car arsonist aimed to tap racist tensions.

IN the middle of last summer, as tensions simmered between Melbourne’s Australian and Indian communities, Jaspreet Singh decided he had a perfect plan to finance a holiday back home to India.

Less than a week after 21-year-old Indian accounting graduate Nitin Garg was fatally stabbed in a West Footscray park, Singh purchased a 15-litre can of petrol, poured it over his car, and set the vehicle alight.

The goal was to claim an $11,000 insurance payout from AAMI, but in the process Singh sustained burns to 30 per cent of his body, requiring skin grafts and a one-month stay in The Alfred hospital.

When he was interviewed by police, Singh told them he had been randomly attacked by four racist Australian men — a story that would capture headlines and tap into community anxieties about racially motivated attacks on Indian nationals living and studying in Melbourne.

Yesterday Singh, 28, of Essendon in Melbourne’s north, pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court to setting his Ford sedan alight for financial gain and to making a false report to police.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Escaping prison for his plea of guilty, Singh was sentenced to an eight-month jail term wholly suspended for two years.

He should have received a lengthy prison sentence.

If he’d been white, he probably would have got one.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 1:13 am
CL – whatever distraction they come up with, you can bet that Homer will defend it to the hilt.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 1:17 am
After Reading Michael Stutchbury’s (Economics editor) article in the Oz the Henry tax review it really doesn’t appear as bad as thought. It seems like a comprehensive document meant to be introduced over a steady 10 year period and to be honest it has some decent points to make.

The resources tax is meant to replace the inefficient state royalties tax.

The income free threshold was meant to be raised with people paying two rates.

The problem seems to be that the two bozos, Rudd and DC SwanDive, took two elements out of the package that would help them plug the deficit hole and ran with it leaving Henry in the lurch and looking like an idiot.

That should teach Henry a lesson in not making public statements critical of the government (Howard’s) and trying to usher in a bunch of trogs.

Jason was right earlier to suggest that the present state royalty system if replaced solely by the RRT would be more efficient. The only problem as I see it is that there is no motivation by the two bozos to have the states replaces their own system with this. All they wanted was an excuse to hit the most efficient side of the economy and milk them for more tax.

The document appears to be quite good. The idea of having a luxury car tax is silly when the cars defined as a luxury also tend to be the most efficient emissions wise.

No wonder Henry looked really pissed off with those two bozos last night. The deliberately mangled his proposal for political expediency. They are just contemptible.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/how-to-take-a-grand-vision-and-smother-it/story-e6frg6zo-1225861758352

jc

4 May 10 at 1:40 am
henry’s tax review is almost the ldps 30/30.

Henry would partly deal with the problem by exempting individuals from paying taxes until they earn $25,000 as part of a much flatter tax rate system based on a 35 per cent marginal tax rate for 97 per cent of taxpayers.

drscroogemcduck

4 May 10 at 3:20 am
jc – I agree. It has a lot of good ideas but has been scuppered out of political expediency. I love the description of the two as “immature”.

Ev630

4 May 10 at 4:37 am
Postman marries his cat

http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/postman-marries-his-cat-20100504-u42o.html

jtfsoon

4 May 10 at 9:13 am
I’ve got no doubt most of Henry’s recommendations are good. I may not see eye to eye with him on everything but he’s still a Ph D with Treasury and the submissions behind him.

Everyone already knows Rudd ignored at least 134/138 of them.

If you thought Menzies House had some bad articles, try dealing with the leftist reversal of some of their commentators:

http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2010/04/time-to-think-flat-no-im-not-talking-about-the-earth.html#comment-6a012876778d82970c0133ed29b40a970b

Semi Regular Libertarian

4 May 10 at 9:29 am
I see Phil seems to be on the same elephant pills as Lardiculous:

“I think what happens with some who are suffused with fears of biological cum personal expediency is that they believe non-rational or scientifically explicable physical/mental powers would not be an advantage, but a handicap. And so they elevate mental privacy and impenetrability and emotional frigidity because they fear without such defence mechanisms which they cling to at all costs, they would cease to exist as individuals.”

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/the-brain-splatter-consistent-only-with-an-exploding-bullet-from-the-storm-drain-to-jacks-right/#comment-29867

BirdLab

4 May 10 at 10:33 am
“Mark Hill. The morons moron.”

No Graeme. Actually that would be you.

And learn how to spell, FFS.

BirdLab

4 May 10 at 10:50 am
oh dear Graeme is suffering from PhD envy

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/the-11th-commandment-thou-shalt-not-tax-profits/#comment-29872

Mark Hill is a dummy. He was an ignorant dummy when he first got on the PHD stream. He’s an ignorant dummy now.

For fucksakes. A PHD is just a research project on a specific matter. You get on the dot.mom, you jump through a few hurdles, you pay the money, you get the PHD.

jtfsoon

4 May 10 at 10:56 am
Where does anything I said gainsay what Graeme said about taxing profits? I advocate a move to flat consumption taxes.

Ah right, I think Ken Henry has the intelligence above that of a croissant, although somewhat biased to the ALP.

For that, I should be burned at the stake.

Semi Regular Libertarian

4 May 10 at 10:59 am
“oh dear Graeme is suffering from PhD envy”

I think he’s just bitter about the fact that he works in a pie shop.

Well that and having the intelligence of a geranium.

BirdLab

4 May 10 at 11:02 am
Graeme’s down on me about market concentration when I was merely pointing out how vaccuous it is to complain about it if you drive away competition by usurious taxation. Market openness (the threat of competition) and capital accumulation deliver low prices. Low market concentration is just a consequence during growth phases.

Graeme’s gone gaga. He’ll even get stuck into you when you agree with him.

Semi Regular Libertarian

4 May 10 at 11:02 am
Did anyone here catch Q&A last night? Minchin was brilliant.

dover_beach

4 May 10 at 11:45 am
Isn’t it amazing how good politicians can be when they are about to retire? He was outstanding without the shackles.

Infidel Tiger

4 May 10 at 11:47 am
IT, it was a hoot; the jeers emboldened him even further.

dover_beach

4 May 10 at 12:05 pm
#

BOB,
no sensible person would ever use the IRR criteria for making an investment decision.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

4 May 10 at 1:59 pm

I’m shocked. Totally and utterly shocked. Well, not really.

Semi Regular Libertarian

4 May 10 at 2:28 pm
The ‘Celts’ are not a ‘race’ like the French and Germans, they are not even an ethnicity.

Peter Patton

4 May 10 at 2:50 pm
Now that climate change is a dead issue, at least in this country, I’ve been wandering around to see how the pro-AGW blogs are doing.
Almost none refer to the politics – most are still ranting about the heretics – “liars”, “lunatics” are common terms used. Do you know the American fairground game Whack a Mole? It’s just like that. Except they keep pounding after the mole has descended.
The other interesting thing is that, so far as I can see, none of the Australian bloggers have any qualifications to talk about climate science. Well, no more than I have and I don’t try. Those that do know something about the science keep their mouths shut.
All very strange…
I wonder what next will grab their attention? Food, diet? It needs to be something with the potential to cause a bit of coercion of the populace. It can’t just be a theological issue.
Answers please, on a postcard.

ken n

4 May 10 at 4:54 pm
answers:

Some of them are still going after poor old Plimer. Still!

It could be fat people although i still think climate change and the “fragile eco-system” is going to continue on in oz for a long time. It seems embedded into the national psyche. I see it in same way as I do Christian Science, which is something to watch very carefully in case the entire world congregation does a Jim Jones one day.

Come to think of it, I’ve even forgotten about good old shiny bullshitting away in block quotes, dishonestly attacking some poor victim. Must pay a visit there soon and see what the over-girthed runt has been lying about. Thanks for reminding me, Ken as I too had forgotten about “climate change”.

JC

4 May 10 at 5:03 pm
Saw The Road today. Very good; haunting, in fact.

dover_beach

4 May 10 at 5:13 pm
Turns out Mario Kart is ‘socialist’:

http://theamericanscene.com/2010/05/01/mario-kart-socialism

THR

4 May 10 at 5:24 pm
No. It just cheats, Yoshi is like Nixon.

Semi Regular Libertarian

4 May 10 at 5:25 pm
DB

I recently started reading All the pretty horses, believe it or not because Bird has been raving on about Cormac McCarthy a bit and despite his insanity on other issues he has great taste in fiction and music. Turns out yes he does have great taste.

jtfsoon

4 May 10 at 5:34 pm
Graeme Bird – The Culture Vulture.

Infidel Tiger

4 May 10 at 5:36 pm
Bird is into ponies? Sounds a bit gay.

BirdLab

4 May 10 at 5:42 pm
To your eternal credit credit Jase, you’ve always tried your best advising Bird to leave economics and science well enough alone as he understands nothing whatsoever about it.. if fact it’s worse than that, as he has negative understanding in these subjects… and focus his “abilities” in fiction etc.

No doubt he could write a (not great) passable novel if only he stopped being the chief economist/ chief scientist where he just makes an idiot of himself to embarrassing levels.

But of course… he won’t listen , will he?

JC

4 May 10 at 5:42 pm
Jason, I haven’t read any of his work but I’ve now seen two movies based on his novels, the other being No Country for Old Men, and they’ve been a rather rich experience. I should imagine the novels are even richer.

dover_beach

4 May 10 at 5:44 pm
I enjoyed reading The Road, but I felt the book was a little over-hyped. I’m surprised to hear that the movie is good, to be honest, as I half-expected it to be two hours of turgid dreariness. It never struck me as a book that lent itself to the screen.

THR

4 May 10 at 5:48 pm
The correlation between quality of the book and quality of the film based on the book is small and unreliable. Many ordinary books have made great films and vice versa.

daddy dave

4 May 10 at 6:02 pm
The ‘Celts’ are not a ‘race’ like the French and Germans, they are not even an ethnicity.

Peter, my boy, an ancestors would have drunk mead out of your skull for such heresy.

Sinclair Davidson

4 May 10 at 6:18 pm
JC The other question about these non-scientists spending so much time chasing down climate science heretics is whether they would get promotion quicker if they spent more time doing the job they are paid to do.

ken n

4 May 10 at 6:22 pm
ken – the climate blogs are now talking about the stupidity of the right, making lists of Rudd achievements, and some moaning about the death of the CPRS while advocating a green vote. nevermind that the greem voted against the CPRS.

Sinclair Davidson

4 May 10 at 6:33 pm
Ken:

Yes but your assuming that these scientist non-scientists haven’t reached the zenith of incompetence in their present jobs and so have lots and lots of free time to devote to “the planet”

Sinc:

The Rudd achievement lists are amusing.

If they had waited until Friday I’m sure they could include a Rudd dentistry or a podiatry plan on Medicare.

I can’t really think what he can do after podiatry the Friday after that. Perhaps it could be the right time to revisit the concocted whale-war with Japan and threaten action again in the world court but even that may be laced with risk, as whales are Lurch’s portfolio which could bring him out in public again and then the insulation issue rears its ugly head another time with Lurch reminding people of that clusterfuck.

Harry’s another one… He’s angry with Rudd, angry with Abbot but fine with the Greens who turned down Rudd’s overtures. Figure that one as I scratched a hole in my skull trying to twirl around the logic of that thinking process.

JC

4 May 10 at 6:55 pm
Is it too late to point out that today is ‘Star Wars Day’?

May the fourth be with you.

Capitalist Piggy

4 May 10 at 7:02 pm
Graeme, what the far right types you read on one minor if not negligible Oz blog miss is that there is an indelible strain in the national Australian psyche of antagonism towards big business and private profit.

I recall most of the dudes on ‘Catallepsy’ routinely championing the interests of big business against the people were either not born in Australia and/or spent most of their lives in/around bourgeois, banking or corporate circles in the US, England, Singapore and the like.

Deracinated Boers, Sicilians, Malaysians, Chinese and Pom and Yankee mutts – whoever – transplanted here mid-life are simply not going to have much of a clue about all this Oz history and sensibility unless they’ve studied and understood our historical and literary heritage. And that’s a huge problem for them and their politics.

Phil… s/he’s so catty it’s really cute. I love how the nails come out.

JC

4 May 10 at 7:07 pm
To Bird’s credit he’ll read that comment, tighten Phil’s gag ball, give her/him a kick in the Jatz Crackers and then chuck her a bucket of fish so there aren’t too many hard feelings. Philomena is the Bird’s gimp.

Infidel Tiger

4 May 10 at 7:13 pm
Who the hell and the “Pom and Yankee mutts”. There aren’t.

JC

4 May 10 at 7:17 pm
Ken n wrote: Now that climate change is a dead issue, at least in this country, I’ve been wandering around to see how the pro-AGW blogs are doing.

Ken, I would have thought that polling that shows that, after Rudd puts off the ETS, Labor loses 8 points on n “who is best to handle climate change” to “other” (ie, the Greens) shows that this is not a dead issue at all. (Not to mention Labor also losing 8 points on primary vote too.)

steve from brisbane

4 May 10 at 7:25 pm
Steve from Mt. Kosciusko says:

Labor loses 8 points on n “who is best to handle climate change” to “other” (ie, the Greens) shows that this is not a dead issue at all. (Not to mention Labor also losing 8 points on primary vote too.)

http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2010/05/Newspoll1.jpg

Only thing is that the Greens Primary vote didn’t go up, Stevo. It stayed flat.
see here:

http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2010/05/Newspoll1.jpg

JC

4 May 10 at 7:34 pm
JC, I noted that myself when I was second to comment on the Newspoll thread. So, mate-o, you’re telling me nothing new. It’s a peculiar polling result, but my point remains valid.

steve from brisbane

4 May 10 at 7:37 pm
Steve hides the decline.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 7:38 pm
Tasers should be banned #367830.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 7:48 pm
From CL, for whom an abrupt change in polling is just numbers which have no meaning, as if they were just a random throw of the dice.

steve from brisbane

4 May 10 at 7:49 pm
Steve:

I agree, i think if the next poll shows the same thing from the same firm Charlie has a problem on his hands.

The real issue is that he’s now running with 12% negatives which is not a good place to be as your steering towards an election.

JC

4 May 10 at 7:55 pm
I don’t really understand your last comment, Steve. It has an Homeric quality to it. The poll has no “meaning”. It just relates certain facts, expressed numerically. Namely: Labor and Rudd are down, the Coalition and Abbott are up and ahead.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 8:15 pm
Re Cormac McCarthy – what I like about his work (admittedly based on one novel I’ve read so far and having a general idea of the setting of the rest of his work with the exception of The Road which is more like post-apocalyptic) is its promising use of the Western genre.

The Western genre has such rich potential for exploring fundamental issues of human morality and existence you wonder why it hasn’t been used more by modern literary novelists. Instead the sorts of novels which get arts grants or prizes tend to be boring novels about middle class wankers waxing pseudo-profundities, just high brow soap.

Jason Soon

4 May 10 at 8:16 pm
NRL to change jersey numbers? What a wank.

C.L.

4 May 10 at 9:13 pm
Hey Tillman.

What did I tell you last that the polticians/ government would go after Apple?

Go on, say I told you so.

The federal government is reportedly poking around Apple’s requirement that software developers only use its–or neutral–programming tools.

The New York Post reports that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are pondering an antitrust inquiry into Section 3.3.1 in Apple’s iPhone 4.0 software developer kit license agreement.

Here’s the section, which is largely viewed as the no-Adobe-Flash-allowed part:

JC

4 May 10 at 9:29 pm
From LP:

In the M’aidez! March in Brisbane, a bespectacled gent chanted:

“The Workers
United
Must get me
Re-elected!”

And you know something? He really meant it. Yes indeedy.

This isn’t good times for this government.

Michael Sutcliffe

4 May 10 at 9:58 pm
Labour candidate: Brown Worst Prime Minister in History.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7676360/General-Election-2010-Gordon-Brown-worst-ever-Prime-Minister-Labour-candidate-says.html

Brown bread.

Infidel Tiger

4 May 10 at 10:48 pm
Ha ha ha! I bet there’ll be a couple of Labor candidates over here slagging off their leader too.

It’s quite a considerable trifecta when you think about it: Obama, Brown, Rudd. All of them are the worst leaders in their respective country’s history.

But I still hope Brown wins re-election.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 10:54 pm
Sorry about the shit grammar. I’m too buggered to bother editing.

Michael Fisk

4 May 10 at 10:55 pm
On what critieria do you decide who was best or worst PM? I have no idea. How about fiscal conservatism? Check out the link below, particularly the last column on the right and see which govts ran budget surpluses/deficits.

http://www.budget.gov.au/2009-10/content/bp1/html/bp1_bst10-05.htm

Capitalist Piggy

4 May 10 at 11:32 pm
Oops, wrong link. From the MYEFO 2009-10:

http://www.budget.gov.au/2009-10/content/myefo/html/appendix_d_gdp_tables.htm

Capitalist Piggy

4 May 10 at 11:38 pm
One reason we ought to oppose Abbott is the idiotic fear-mongering:

MILLIONS of would-be asylum seekers could be tempted to throw in their lot with people smugglers and sail for our shores if global conditions worsen, according to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott…

The only way to stop the boats was to deny unauthorised arrivals permanent residency and he reiterated the Coalition’s policy to impose temporary visas for those people.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/millions-could-head-for-our-shores-abbott-says-20100504-u79d.html

There are at least three reasons why this is sheer scumbaggery, of a level that would make even Rudd ashamed.

First, Abbott goes on to make the typical xenophobic conflation of asylum seekers and refugees (late in the article).

Second, Abbott seriously raises the prospect of ‘millions’ of boat people invading Australia.

Finally, Abbott proposes the highly punitive and, as far as deterrents go, utterly useless temporary visa scheme.

It’s as if this hypocritical idiot is determined to intercept the voters fleeing Rudd, and send them back to the left from whence they came.

THR

5 May 10 at 12:49 am
Except by his good friend, Bill Ayers.

America will not be terrorised – Obama.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 2:19 am
Battlers sick of Rudd.

Army of let-down voters set to desert ALP.

IN Kevin Grove, Caboolture, they’re not happy, Prime Minister.

Take Alan Abbott. The 52-year-old ute-driving handyman enjoys his beer and cigarettes and is deeply unimpressed the cost of both have gone up since he changed his vote in 2007 and helped elect the Rudd government.

The list doesn’t end there. Mr Abbott and his wife, Sandra, who works in a petrol station, are uneasy about Labor’s handling of border protection. They think Australia is already big enough and yesterday’s 0.25 percentage point interest rate hike added to their concern about being priced out of Queensland’s southeast.

Next time round, they will both be voting for the Liberals and their namesake, Tony Abbott.

“You know, before the last election I thought Rudd was a fair dinkum sort of bloke,” Alan Abbott said yesterday. “But there’s something about him now that I don’t really trust.”

C.L.

5 May 10 at 2:33 am
THR – I partly agree with you about Abbott on this issue. I don’t think it’s enough to disqualify him, but isn’t not good.
“First, Abbott goes on to make the typical xenophobic conflation of asylum seekers and refugees (late in the article).”
What is the difference between asylum seekers and refugees for this purpose?

ken n

5 May 10 at 5:42 am
That was my error, Ken. I meant asylum seekers and general immigrants. Abbott was muddying the so-called population debate by implying that hordes of boat people were causing a population influx.

THR

5 May 10 at 9:46 am
Several beaver families got together in Canada and built the world’s longest dam. True story.
Beaver dam
I guess they didn’t do an environmental impact study before commencing construction. Did they think of the local wildlife?

daddy dave

5 May 10 at 10:21 am
My respect for beavers has gone up 1000 fold.

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 10:27 am
Incredible creatures; I tip my hat to them.

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 10:29 am
Damn Beavers. Sorry Homer pun

tal

5 May 10 at 10:34 am
Leave it to beaver

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 10:36 am
Leave it to Homer

tal

5 May 10 at 10:38 am
A dam constructed entirely by vaginas? I’m impressed.

BirdLab

5 May 10 at 11:03 am
I see that even at LP, the Kim post on the government response to Gruen’s “Gov.2″ report can’t attract a comment.

But as far as “making a career out of writing/speaking words that count for little” stakes are concerned, though, I always get the feeling that Gareth Evans’ blathering on about nuclear disarmament or world crises takes the cake. I mean, he can talk at incredible boring length about such topics on Lateline, without ever seemingly saying anything new or important. I always just wonder how people with jobs like that really feel their work is worth going to every day.

steve from brisbane

5 May 10 at 11:05 am
You just cunt help yourself can you Birdlab?

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 11:05 am
*polite golf claps Jason*

BirdLab

5 May 10 at 11:07 am
Can anyone here give a brief summary of what Gruen’s Gov2 report is all about?

Anyone?

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 11:08 am
You lefties are mad. Evans was one of the strong Ministers from the Hawke/Keating Ministry.

Weapons of mass destruction are still an important issue, even if they aren’t as interesting as the Climate Empress.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:08 am
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/summary.htm

What a load of piffle. Even the Web 2.0 thing is a concept that is bit of joke within the IT industry.

wikis are at least almost a decade old.

I think we need a nerd style takeover ala Lisa Simpson. “Gov-ern-ance! Gov-ern-ance!”

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:14 am
Steve
In case you can’t get enough of Gov 2 the govt even set up a blog for Nick to spruik it some more

http://gov2.net.au/

Here’s a sample post

http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/12/24/christmas-2-0/

one of my treats for this morning was reading Rose Holley’s new piece on “Crowdsourcing and Social Engagement: Potential, Power and Freedom for Libraries and Users”. Actually I’ve not yet read her paper, but have been through the slides which offer a great sampling of the crowdsourcing libraries and other institutions in the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector have been up to. (Actually there are other similar institutions, like botanical gardens of which Australia has at least two of the world’s greatest in Melbourne and Sydney, but where would you stick a ‘BG’ into GLAM?. . . . but I digress).

Anyway, I recommend it to you dear Gentle Readers 2.0 and wanted to put this thought in your head. This Christmas if our own experience and statistics regarding the past are a reasonable source for generalising about the future you will have some spare time on your hands. You may even be a bit bored. So you could go to any of the sites mentioned by Rose in her presentation, and you could pass a little time at the same time as bringing a tad more joy to the world – you could make the world a touch better by the application of your time and intelligence.

And that post got this comment:

Be warned the crowdsourcing sites are all very addictive – especially Galaxy Zoo. I got sucked in even when I was just going in to get some screenshots for the powerpoint.

We have noticed a peak in text correction in Australian Newspapers over the christmas and New Year break as presumably many Australians seek a respite from the unrelenting 40 degree heat and sit inside in air-con doing things on their pc’s. Yesterday 54,000 corrections were made in the database by the public.

party on!

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 11:15 am
I think we should buy some sunscreen and still go to the beach. Gov 2.0 is un-Australian.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:20 am
So let me get this straight:

Gov 2.0 = a bunch of geeks going onto govt websites and correcting spelling mistakes in their spare time?

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 11:22 am
What a load of piffle. Even the Web 2.0 thing is a concept that is bit of joke within the IT industry.
.
Yep. Web 2.0 is really just shorthand for the emergence of online communities, and the technologies that support such online social interaction.
The government should play no role in that. The government doesn’t have to nose-dive into every new social movement or cool technology.

daddy dave

5 May 10 at 11:23 am
“Gov 2.0 = a bunch of geeks going onto govt websites and correcting spelling mistakes in their spare time?”

The landed wiki classes.

“Gov-ern-ance! Gov-ern-ance!”

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:25 am
My idea of web 2 would be to close down 90% of all government websites and fire Conroy.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:25 am
I took a mining bet this morning on the back of my expectation that Rudd will capitulate on the mining tax issue. I put those odds at better than 80%.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:28 am
I want to close down 90% of government departments

tal

5 May 10 at 11:30 am
I suppose it could involve opening up govt websites to Homer so he could surf around and annotate them with interesting anecdotes and reading lists:

e.g. on the RBA website: “One of your former governors was known as Supermac in the corridors I power-walked. Supermac’s ex boss was Kezza. Kezza got his haircut over near the Woolies’ etc etc

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 11:30 am
I agree combined chance of Rudd capitulating and/or losing the election is got to be around 80%. I think the only chance we will see it will be in a watered down form.

Steve Edney

5 May 10 at 11:32 am
Several beaver families got together in Canada and built the world’s longest dam. True story.
Beaver dam

Tear the thing down. If those fuckers didn’t get IPA approval and have an environmental impact study done they ought to be fined heavily and possibly sent to prison.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:34 am
They could set up a whole department devoted to chasing down Homers reading lists correcting his Toozing errors.

Steve Edney

5 May 10 at 11:34 am
Yea, homer will love carousing around web 2 posting stupid advice about how they should make Treasury paper 2345 23A-41 more accessible.

He loves that crap.

——-

Hey homer:

We’ve got a job for you as a web 2 analyst. The pay’s good which in your case means you don’t have to pay to be kept on.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:37 am
Steve happy to reply to any error however each time a person puts up an ‘error’ we find they have made an ‘error’ usually because they didn’t read the book!

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 11:40 am
I recall that Fisk, DB and Sinclair actually read it. I may be wrong. They were outraged at your illiteracy.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:44 am
Or in your case homer …. you say you’ve read the book but really have no fucking idea what the author’s saying, or simply lie about it hoping no one will catch you.

Homer, you need to realize that every source you give will be read and it’s findings be publicized.

Some of us are so pissed with you that we may alert author’s about your desecration of their work so they correct the record.

In fact Homer, you could very well be banned from every book store including Amazon for the things you’ve done to people’s work.

Go away.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:46 am
To paraphrase Keating…he’s like the bubonic plague of academic publishing, this destroyer of cutting edge research.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 11:47 am
They were outraged at your illiteracy.

And even those of us who didn’t read it were outraged by his illiteracy. He has a fucking lot to answer for. We could be here for days tabulating the intellectual offenses he’s responsible for.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:48 am
Intersetingly, I see that Animal Reviews score the beaver as a 6.9 out of 10:

http://animalreviews.zelica.net/reviews/beaver.htm

BirdLab

5 May 10 at 11:50 am
To paraphrase Keating…he’s like the bubonic plague of academic publishing, this destroyer of cutting edge research.

He’s like a nuclear detonation in the publishing world. Want to destroy a book? Get homer to read it.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:51 am
Hey Homer:

Have you and you mate possum being doing any statistical analysis recently? Love to hear about it.

JC

5 May 10 at 11:53 am
fooREST

The Gestapo were just like telemarketers. I have reported this FACT a dozen times now and cited wheere you can conferm this. Rid their annual reports.

>>>>

End Homer transmission

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 12:00 pm
Ah yes the three amigos who are knows for the ahem accurate detailing. Let us just take Snoopy. His big thing was that the Mefo bills proved the Nazis were changing the statistics.

This showed a profound misunderstanding of Mefo bills that would do Forrest justice.
The Mefo bills , as we know from the nurmeburg trials, were merely a device to obfuscate the fiscal position of Germany.
It had nothing to do with statistics at all.
Indeed his attempt to at this back-fired badly because the entire military expenditure story relies on the Mefo bills being an accurate construction of what went on with a few large inbuilt assumptions.

Of course Snoopy never got over what Tooze had to say about the Me 109.

Forrest is still getting over the egg on his face from saying royalties would not be rebated by the Federal Government.

Forrest like Mark believes Germany did not get out of the Depression however tooze says Germany achieved full employment by 1936 and had labour scarcities by 1938.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 12:03 pm
yea I remember that. The idiot was peddling this swill that the Gestapo were the equivalent of Newspoll. Lol.

Hey Homes, were they running tracking polls too?

You goose.

JC

5 May 10 at 12:04 pm
Tell us more about these Mofo bills, Homes?

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 12:05 pm
Keep digging Homer.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 12:06 pm
yes homer.. I was wrong about the RRT treatment of royalties. I thought they were to be treated as an additional expense but in fact they are treated as a credit.

However they’re not rebates you audacious twit.

Grow a set, man-up and apologize for your numerous fuckups at this site.

You annoying goose

JC

5 May 10 at 12:09 pm
It’s on page 21 on Mein Kampf.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 12:09 pm
Keep digging Homer.

He’s worn all the shovels in Eastwood and he’s still going.

JC

5 May 10 at 12:10 pm
His big thing was that the Mefo bills proved the Nazis were changing the statistics.

No, that was not my ‘big thing’. My big thing was calling you out on the egregious claim you made that the Nuremberg laws were “nothing of note”. Have you forgotten how you were basically arguing that it was all milk and cookies for German Jewry until 1938? I can understand how even you might might to distance yourself from such a claim.

Of course Snoopy never got over what Tooze had to say about the Me 109.

What did Tooze say about it? And what did I say about the Me 109? That we might have different opinions about the Me 109 doesn’t detract from your verballing Tooze on almost every occasion.

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 12:11 pm
“The Mefo bills , as we know from the nurmeburg trials, were merely a device to obfuscate the fiscal position of Germany.”

LOL. The invasion of Poland was merely done to ensure Lebensraum for the German volk.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 12:12 pm
Dover:’
He did his best trying to destroy that poor author’s good work.

Poor Tooze would be sickened if he read what this knucklehead was suggesting was in his book.

Yea it was like a Hampton’s party you see on Sex and the City for German Jews until 1937. They were having a ball there……

JC

5 May 10 at 12:17 pm
Humphreys has just returned from North Korea. No kidding.

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 12:22 pm
North Korea? Sightseeing or psy-ops training?

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 12:26 pm
Wait till Bird hears about this. I’m was already pretty convinced that he was a Chinese spy, but this clinches it.

BirdLab

5 May 10 at 12:37 pm
oops Forrest like Statman before him doesn’t know that tooze himself compare the Gestapo to the Gallup organisation for knowing the Nation’s mood. gosh fancy that.
Another idiot who hasn’t read the book.

Oh dear Snoopy has another bit of forgetfulness.
This is bit lie his take on petrol prices he runs away from what he says when he realises his statement was silly.

no Snoopy the Nuremberg laws didn’t put Jews into concentration camps and have them shot like in 1938.
almost any academic of note says Jews were only put in Concentration camps for being Jews in 1938.
I do remember asking fisky for some evidence this wasn’t the case.
It was liking asking Mark for academic support that Germany never got out of the Depression.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 12:38 pm
WTF?

Why was Humphreys in NK?

Bird will have him for breakfast… out of jealousy of course.

JC

5 May 10 at 12:39 pm
No idea, just an update I saw on his Gmail chat icon

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 12:39 pm
I bet Birdie would love to meet Dear Leader. They both seem to have a lot in common. Same ideals and body shape: short and pudgy.

JC

5 May 10 at 12:41 pm
Hey Troops,

I’m waiting for the day when someone in the press calls Rudd to account on his greatest hero: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yeah, he was a hero, what is Rudd?

John H.

5 May 10 at 12:42 pm
Humphrey’s should pick Bird up some cheap hooch from Pyongyang Duty Free – Dear Leader Private Reserve.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 12:45 pm
Germany was improving and then rapidly deteriorated under Hitler. GDP was improved at the expense of child mortality, living standards, disposable income and massive fraud. Construction work was done through interning civilians as a paramilitary construction force on bowl a rice a day wages and awful living conditions. Part of the motivation to invade Czechoslovakia was to alleviate a FX crisis.

“almost any academic of note says Jews were only put in Concentration camps for being Jews in 1938.”

Right. So what if they protested expropriation of their property at the hands of the SA? Let me guess. They get murdered and nothing happened.

The Gestapo were like newspoll. Any idea they were evil was part of a dishonest propaganda campaign by Churchill.

You have the intelligence of a chocolate eclair, Homer.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 12:46 pm
A left wing day of mourning perhaps?

iThe Fox News Channel reported its highest-ever quarterly profit, the company said, increasing its operating income 31 percent from a year ago, largely from improved advertising revenue and rate increases from its affiliates.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/news-corporation-earnings-beat-estimates/?src=busln

What a top result. In a period of recessed ad sales these dudes raise quarterly profit by 31%.

JC

5 May 10 at 12:47 pm
Oh dear Snoopy has another bit of forgetfulness.
This is bit lie his take on petrol prices he runs away from what he says when he realises his statement was silly.

No, I always acknowledge my mistakes when they’re brought to my attention and apologise. You, however, verbal everyone you meet.

no Snoopy the Nuremberg laws didn’t put Jews into concentration camps and have them shot like in 1938.
almost any academic of note says Jews were only put in Concentration camps for being Jews in 1938.

No one here argued the above. You, however, stated that the Nuremberg laws were “nothing of note”; you pointedly and repeatedly argued that “nothing of note” occurred to German Jewry prior to 1938. This is commonly remembered as one of your many egregious statements regarding your adventures in Nazi Keynesianism and no amount of bluster will erase our memories.

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 12:47 pm
Just for homer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Uaml0iEmw

JC

5 May 10 at 12:49 pm
Marky ,

no-one is debating Germany did not improve from 1936.

if you ever read any academic work it is what happened up to 1936 that matters after-all that is when they got out of the Depression.
Hitler made it clear in 1936 the main expenditure would be on guns not butter.

if you are alluding to the RAD it did little construction work and the money given out was comparable to similar work in other countries such as the USA, UK et al. You forget you didn’t even know it was part of the policy in EVERY country that had such policy people would be paid a token stipend.

the SA was disbanded in 1934 ( night of the long knives anyone). the Nuremberg laws were mainly in 1935. Exactly what expropriation are you on about?

No-one is disputing they were evil however when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.
If you ever read Gellately you would find their roles greatly changes particularly after 1938.
Guess why.

although Snoopy thinks the Nuremberg laws and Kristallnacht are the same few other people do.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 1:01 pm
No-one is disputing they were evil however when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.

The Nazis were the AC Neilson of the day. They were evil because they would annoy just as dinner was been served.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 1:04 pm
when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.

Homerism #74969

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 1:07 pm
Keep digging Homes.

JC

5 May 10 at 1:12 pm
Reading the Gov2 blog makes my head hurt. Here’s N Gruen in the post after the one Jason posted above:

“Now there are things that I clearly agree with here – particularly the need for ‘permission to fail’. What about the insistence that the most important thing was to understand what was achievable: well who could object to that? It seems the very acme of commonsense. Now if we take it as a piece of commonsense then perhaps it means that if you set up a social media site, don’t expect that volunteers are going to start solving all your problems. But if that’s the case, then it’s also a pretty empty thing to say. If it’s making a strong claim to insight – which the body language of the paragraph suggests it is, I think it is both wrong and that it contradicts the earlier injunction to be prepared to experiment. If an experiment is anything, it seems to me it is something that one cannot have a “clear understanding” of what it might achieve.”

I hereby give the whole Gov2 project “permission to fail”.

steve from brisbane

5 May 10 at 1:12 pm
“if you ever read any academic work it is what happened up to 1936 that matters after-all that is when they got out of the Depression”

If you were literate you’d know thet were improving beofre the Nazi takeover, then declined.

“You forget you didn’t even know it was part of the policy in EVERY country that had such policy people would be paid a token stipend.”

Except they weren’t shot if they ran away.

“the SA was disbanded in 1934″

*Membership in the organization dropped from 2.9 million in August 1934 to 1.2 million in April 1938.*

^ Evans, Richard (2005). The Third Reich in Power. Penguin Group. pp. 40. ISBN 0143037900.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 1:16 pm
I’m gobsmacked! Simon Cowell of Idol and Talent fame, talks a remarkable amount of commonsense about Britain’s woes:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/election2010/2959573/Simon-Cowell-says-General-Election-MUST-bring-change-to-Britain.html#ixzz0n16Vsez2

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 1:20 pm
Hitler made it clear in 1936 the main expenditure would be on guns not butter.

The main expenditure was on guns, not butter, prior to 1936. Tooze:

From the moment that Adolf Hitler took power in Germany on 30 January 1933, it was clear that armaments production was the central priority of his regime.1 Within days of taking office Hitler made this clear both in confidential remarks to the cabinet committee on unemployment and in meetings with the military leadership. And the financial evidence is incontrovertible. Already in the first months of 1933, hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks were diverted towards the Reichswehr, an organization whose budget in the 1920s had rarely even reached a billion Reichsmark. By June 1933 the government agreed a spending package that was to provide no less than 35 billion Reichsmarks over 8 years for the military, raising military spending from less than 1 percent of GDP to between 4 and 5 %. And in practice, by the autumn of 1935 military spending was racing ahead of these targets, surging to more than 10 billion RM in 1936. In 1938 spending accelerated further to an extraordinary 20 percent of GDP…Military spending accounted for 73 percent of the Reich’s expenditure on goods and services as early as 1935.

although Snoopy thinks the Nuremberg laws and Kristallnacht are the same few other people do.

A lie, but it illustrative of how little regard you have for the evil of the Nuremberg laws. Kristallnacht,/i> would have been much harder to achieve had German Jewry not be set apart from German society, which was the achievement of the Nuremberg laws.
http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/academic_staff/further_details/tooze-arming-reich.pdf

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 1:20 pm
That’s also what Hannah Arndt said. Take thier citizenship away, then you can abuse their human rights.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 1:29 pm
I’d actually say most people agree:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/minchins-views-on-smokers-described-as-neodarwinian-20100504-u75x.html

Chapman is a spruiker for Government intervention everywhere.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 2:35 pm
His views were attacked as ”insensitive and inaccurate” by the group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at Sydney University, said the comments were ”neo-Darwinian … Has there ever been a lower watermark in public life?”

But Senator Minchin said he defended ”the right of smokers in a liberal, free democratic country to smoke. We all get to choose our way to go.” The new impost on smokers was ”a terrible tax”, he said. It hit hardest at low-income earners, who tended to smoke more.

Professor Chapman said while the $5 billion taxes collected on cigarettes would outstrip the purely medical costs of treating smoking induced disease, the overall damage, including loss of productive lives, was estimated at about $31 billion a year.

WTF. Is this academic serious about adding the cost of “losing productive lives” and using that to justify the obvious reduced burden by smokers on the health system.

Wtf has happened to academia when doofuses like that are allowed to roam free in the halls of learning.

You can’t subtract his assumption from reduced medicare costs. What a idiotic thing to say.

Lord help academia.

JC

5 May 10 at 2:40 pm
I don’t know why Chapman is having a go at Minchin. If you’re going to complain about the public expense of smokers its perfectly reasonable to argue that in fact they are not an expense for this or that reason. Chapman, for instance, complains of the loss of smoker’s productive capacity because they die earlier and yet he thinks such arguments aren’t obscene.

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 2:44 pm
Chapman seems to be recycling the anti alcohol propaganda from the USSR. Very novel.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 2:49 pm
JC Like most people in Public Health, Chapman is a sociologist, not a medical practitioner.

ken n

5 May 10 at 2:54 pm
Chapman’s “productivity loss” reminds me of Robert Frost:

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way”

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 2:56 pm
Imagine getting a medical check up from Doctor Bahnisch

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 2:57 pm
Is this academic serious about adding the cost of “losing productive lives”

Don’t be so selfish JC, he needs your tax dollars to pay his wages.

Steve Edney

5 May 10 at 2:59 pm
Ideally we want cigarrettes to be more addictive and less lethal so we can tax the crap out of smokers for longer.

Steve Edney

5 May 10 at 3:01 pm
Snoopy yes Tooze had military spending rising from 2 to 10% over two years of GDP yet no-one noticed!

What was the point of the mefo bills given that purported spending!
Except the mefo bills themselves are suspect and cannot be taken to be accurate according to Snoopy.
double oops

Actually Tooze has thew origins of Kristallnacht being in the absolute certainty of war and the Nazis believing their own propaganda that the Jews would be a fifth column.

but of course you would have to read tooze to know that which is why Statman made a joke about it until he realised it was tooze’s thesis.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 3:21 pm
Actually Tooze has thew origins of Kristallnacht being in the absolute certainty of war and the Nazis believing their own propaganda that the Jews would be a fifth column.

Yeah Homes the Nazis were nuts and they beat up the Jews because of Nazi ideology in other words. What’s your point exactly? How does ‘believing their own propaganda’ exonerate them or make it less serious?

Incredible

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 3:24 pm
keep digging hones

jc...

5 May 10 at 3:30 pm
Statman it doesn’t exonerate them at all it merely explains their actions. After all Tooze makes the point and he certainly was doing neither.

There would be war. thereby there was no need to take into account world opinion and they had to ensure there was no fifth column

you of course would have realised this if you had read Tooze as you and the rest here allege.

incredible.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 3:32 pm
Homer
The whole point of Nazi ideology is that the Jews are a ’5th column’. This is not new to Tooze or to you. Why are framing it in terms of ‘the war was coming. The Nazis were scared witless by their own propaganda and lashed out at the Jews as a result’?

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 3:36 pm
“What’s your point exactly?”

Hitler got the General Theory to work before Keynes wrote it.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 3:38 pm
just read the book!

War was not just coming it was seen as a certainty and the Nazis were preparing for it.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 3:39 pm
Is this the fellow?
http://twitter.com/propertybookman

ken n

5 May 10 at 3:40 pm
“War was not just coming it was seen as a certainty and the Nazis were preparing for it.”

Yes, especially according to the other “book” Hitler had all Germans have a copy of.

They had fantasised about Eastward expansion since the 1920s. Your point being?

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 3:41 pm
War was not just coming it was seen as a certainty and the Nazis were preparing for it.

What a stroke of luck for the Nazis that they were preparing for a war they were about to start. Fooking brilliant.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 3:42 pm
Shoter Homer:

The Nazis prepared for a war by trashing Jewish shops.

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 3:44 pm
Anyway let’s go back to Homerism #74969

“… when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.”

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 3:45 pm
you twit there is a vast difference between preparing for it and it actually arriving

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 3:45 pm
ah yes go back to what tooze says about the Gestapo hey guess what it is very similar to what Gellately says .
funny about that

Oh by the by Nazis put how any into concentration camps and killed how any exactly

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 3:48 pm
No-one is disputing they were evil however when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.

Oh by the by Nazis put how any into concentration camps and killed how any exactly

The Nuremberg Laws were nothing of note.

Can someone help me find a way to read the above statements WITHOUT concluding that the author is an apologist for Nazi Germany?

Michael Fisk

5 May 10 at 3:56 pm
Axis deficits good.

Allies deficits bad.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 4:01 pm
The Times Square terrorist gave an accurate email address to the guy who sold him the car he used for his bomb plot.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2010/05/the-case-of-faisal-shahzad.html

God, even Detective Inspector-General Bird could have broken this case.

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 4:02 pm
What I want to know is who unlocked the cellar door this morning?

Homer, you shouldn’t allowed out when you’re in this condition. The carers should be aware.

JC

5 May 10 at 4:11 pm
Page 21

Rococo Liberal

5 May 10 at 4:21 pm
Fisky you can’t read so do not try to bother.

if anybody really wanted to understand the workings of the Gestapo then Gellately has actualy written extensively on them.

One of his conclusions is that with so few actually working in the Gestapo they needed the assistance of a lot of the German population to work effectively.

Hey RL if you print it out and read it then you won’t make the mistake Sinkers and the rest did

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

5 May 10 at 4:25 pm
Snoopy yes Tooze had military spending rising from 2 to 10% over two years of GDP yet no-one noticed!

What was the point of the mefo bills given that purported spending!
Except the mefo bills themselves are suspect and cannot be taken to be accurate according to Snoopy.
double oops

What are you talking about?

Actually Tooze has thew origins of Kristallnacht being in the absolute certainty of war and the Nazis believing their own propaganda that the Jews would be a fifth column.

This is ridiculous even for you, Homer. The origins of Kristallnacht are in the future, according to Homer. It had nothing with the blatant anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party reflected in Mein Kampf and the party’s anti-Semitic policy, ie. the Nuremberg laws; no, it was merely an ad hoc response to the approaching war. God save us.

War was not just coming it was seen as a certainty and the Nazis were preparing for it.

White-hot idiocy; burns the eyes.

dover_beach

5 May 10 at 4:28 pm
Have a Margarita dover, it helps

tal

5 May 10 at 4:29 pm
“Fisky you can’t read so do not try to bother”

Homer’s comment leads me to be reminded of Heydrich’s insecurity as he was part Jewish.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 4:32 pm
One of his conclusions is that with so few actually working in the Gestapo they needed the assistance of a lot of the German population to work effectively.

Imagine that, secret police with informers! You can see why these Krauts are such innovators with automobiles. Always thinking outside the square.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 4:38 pm
It must be a slow day when you’ve got nothing else to do but poke sticks at a troll.

ken n

5 May 10 at 4:38 pm
Anyway let’s go back to Homerism #74969

“… when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.”

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 3:45 pm

Let’s look at what they got up to fram day dot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-14468,_Berlin,_NS-Boykott_gegen_j%C3%BCdische_Gesch%C3%A4fte_crop.jpg

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 4:39 pm
Not me Ken I’m at the wet bar

tal

5 May 10 at 4:39 pm
let’s go back to Homerism #74969

“… when the Nazis first came into office they main duties were finding out public opinion.”

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 4:40 pm
Jason – have a look at the photo I posted from wiki – the date is 1/4/1933.

“Hey guys, we’re just doing a survey and would like to abuse your human rights”

Yep, just like Newspoll.

Semi Regular Libertarian

5 May 10 at 4:41 pm
Homes in cellar : the early years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZjfmWlkVvI

JC

5 May 10 at 4:41 pm
Good place to be tal. I’m off to return grandson to his rightful owners then out to dinner with my girlfriend.

ken n

5 May 10 at 4:49 pm
It’s nice how Homer speaks in his neutral, detached way about Nazi atrocities as if they were some unstoppable natural phenomena like erupting volcanos or tidal waves. Sure, the Nazis “had” to pass the Nuremberg laws to strike out the “fifth column” and assist in preparation for the “coming war”. It can’t possibly be the case that all of this was deliberately implemented by rational people and was in fact the logical consequence of Nazi ideology itself.

Michael Fisk

5 May 10 at 4:50 pm
What are you talking about?

He’s saying that Nazism was basically fine until 1938. In so many words.

Michael Fisk

5 May 10 at 4:54 pm
“they main duties ”

I know my typing is pretty awful, but Homer’s text is completely frre of meaning because of constant typos.

But do I understand that this git is telling us that when the Nazis got into power (in a coalition) in 1933 there was some moral or legal requirement that they had to discover what the public was thinking?

This is madness. Homer is a total count.

Rococo Liberal

5 May 10 at 4:59 pm
Sorry that should have been “Homer is a totla ctun”

Rococo Liberal

5 May 10 at 5:00 pm
Hemor si a total cnut

Rococo Liberal

5 May 10 at 5:01 pm
No RL:

Homer shouldn’t be allowed out of the dark cellar even on sunny, lazy summer days.

JC

5 May 10 at 5:01 pm
That’s it, Cnut: holding back the tide of reason

Rococo Liberal

5 May 10 at 5:02 pm
It’s rare that the “c” word is appropriate, but in this case it’s almost mandatory.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 5:04 pm
The Phil-Bird romance continues

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/the-11th-commandment-thou-shalt-not-tax-profits/#comment-29891

Oh Mr B you are a true original and with such a wonderful sense of the absurd.

jtfsoon

5 May 10 at 5:06 pm
Jim Jones-Bird:

Hopefully the continent of Australia can break free of the malign forces controlling the rest of the world and be a floating island on its way to a more perfect liberty.

JC

5 May 10 at 5:08 pm
I know a discussion about Deadwood has already transpired here on Catallaxy, but I ignored it at the time, not having seen the show. Having just finished the first season (in about three days of procrastination), I’m interested in people’s views. Jason? CL?

Jarrah

5 May 10 at 5:18 pm
I-bank summary of what they think will happen in Europe. Shorter still. Print the cash with the result that Germany and France to a lesser extent boom as monetary policy is directed to ease the beaches region of Europe.

Monetary induced boom that fucks up Germany and France. Way to go fellas. Keep that monetary spigot open.

Easing collateral requirements/expanding ECB balance sheet: We think the ECB had no choice other than to water down their collateral requirements.
There is now no credit rating required in the repo market for Greece (only three months ago, it was meant to be A- by year-end). This is the slow path of the ECB expanding its balance sheet. Our economists speculate that the ECB could, under its emergency powers, end up buying short-dated peripheral European debt. This isn’t a trivial matter to organise as, according to William Porter (head of European credit), the ECB would probably have to instruct peripheral European national central banks to buy their own debt.

The way out of this mess is: (a) a much weaker Euro; (b) a booming Germany- a one size fits all monetary policy has to be set at a level to help peripheral Europe, and that is going to end up being too loose for Germany (Germany has the least leveraged balance sheet in the developed world, the most undervalued property market and unit labour costs that are 10% too low – remember German GDP is 50% larger than that of peripheral Europe.); (c) the ECB buying peripheral European debt and (d) if necessary, EU/ IMF providing package to support Spain.

We think that the ECB will be forced into the end game (buying peripheral European debt) and, if necessary, to ring-fence Greece by announcing a huge support package for Spain. We believe that the ECB has no other option.

What to purchase? German REIT’s with ears pinned back.

JC

5 May 10 at 5:56 pm
No kidding, these Keynesian influenced central banks and governments will end up causing a global depression sooner rather or later.

They’re creating a fucking mess.

JC

5 May 10 at 5:59 pm
Sophal Ear, an American, is a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He was almost a casualty of the Cambodian holocaust. He tells us the story of his family, using photos: We see his mom and his dad, young and in love. Life in Cambodia was pretty good, envied and copied by others in Asia. Then the Khmer Rouge came to power, with their diplomas from Paris. They remade Cambodian society, killing a quarter of the population in the process. Ear’s father was one of the victims. The rest of the family managed to escape to Vietnam.

The Communists wanted to create an “agrarian utopia,” Ear says. “You know the John Lennon song ‘Imagine’? ‘Imagine no possessions, no religion’? That’s what it was like in Cambodia. The only thing people had was a spoon, for eating the daily pourridge. And that pourridge was grossly insufficient for the work they were made to do in the fields.”

I don’t believe I have ever heard the John Lennon song cited negatively. It is thrilling.

…

But worse, possibly worse? Ear reminds us of all the Western intellectuals who loved — loved, loved, loved — the Khmer Rouge. Many of them were in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. Ear shows us pictures of the “Kampuchea Conference” that took place in Stockholm, in 1979. Stockholm is not very far from here. The purpose of the conference was to promote the restoration of the Khmer Rouge to power. Jan Myrdal was the keynote speaker — the famous intellectual who is the son of Gunnar and Alva. Ear also quotes Noam Chomsky, others. Chomsky is still making moral and political pronouncements, and so is Myrdal.

Being on the left means never having to say you’re sorry. They just glide on . . .

http://article.nationalreview.com/433215/oslo-journal-part-iv/jay-nordlinger

Pol Pot was indeed wildly popular on the Left.

Michael Fisk

5 May 10 at 6:17 pm
Canned unicorn meat:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/unicorn-meat.shtml

BirdLab

5 May 10 at 6:23 pm
Pol Pot was indeed wildly popular on the Left.

That trash in the National Review will rot your brain, Fisk. Chomsky wasn’t at the ‘Kampuchea Conference’. The claim that he supported Pol Pot was dispatched literally decades ago. Among those who were the first to expose Pol Pot’s crimes were leftists, such as Pilger, and it was a communist regime that liberated the Cambodians. Smear FAIL.

THR

5 May 10 at 6:33 pm
No, the author of that article did not claim that Chomsky attended any conference. Read more carefully. Nevertheless, Chomsky was unquestionably an early supporter of the Khmer Rouge, who later became a Genocide Minimalist after Khmer Rouge advocacy ceased to be a respectable position.

Michael Fisk

5 May 10 at 6:40 pm
Wonder if it goes well with green ginger wine BirdLab

tal

5 May 10 at 6:47 pm
No, the author of that article did not claim that Chomsky attended any conference.

So why bring up Chomsky then?

Nevertheless, Chomsky was unquestionably an early supporter of the Khmer Rouge

Really? Where’s the evidence?

Chomsky’s position was that the initial reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities had to be taken sceptically. In view of Western propaganda about communist regimes, this was a perfectly reasonable position.

THR

5 May 10 at 6:47 pm
In view of Western propaganda about communist regimes, this was a perfectly reasonable position.

The perfect storm is upon us. Today we’ve had Nazi and Commie regimes defended.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 6:55 pm
THR,
The only real problem with the “Western Propaganda” about most communist regimes is that it was grossly understated. I do not remember that anyone really grasped the sheer scale of the tragedy accompanying “Socialism in One Country”, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” or “Year Zero”.

Andrew Reynolds

5 May 10 at 7:17 pm
Rudd thinks anything above 6% close enough to the bond rate is a super profit.

These people really have to go.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/05/05/2890906.htm

JC

5 May 10 at 7:38 pm
The moron now suggests you get a good deal as an individual through the superannuation scheme. How do you though if the stock market takes a hit as a result of a higher tax.

One pundit thinks taxes don’t have any effect on stock prices.

amazing.

JC

5 May 10 at 7:40 pm
Rudd now says that the profits are going offshore. Can someone stop this idiot lying. A very tiny amount goes to foreigners (as if that happens) through dividends as mining is not high dividend payer it’s stock price appreciation story.

JC

5 May 10 at 7:43 pm
Man some these lefties are thin skinned. Over at Crikey, possibly the worst pay site in the country, Homer’s “statistical analysis” co-idiot- Possum- has put any further criticism of his pathetic insulation assertions on moderation.

Here’s what the marsupial rodent won’t answer. If he’s suggesting that the Lurch/Rudd insulation mess reduces fires should we not only reinstate the program but also increase it by leaps and bounds in view of the fact that it is a home fire repellent?

He should be banned from ever, ever going within 50 meters of a Excel spread sheet. Ever.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/05/01/cowards_and_idiots/all-comments/#comments

JC

5 May 10 at 8:18 pm
JC – you’re being a bit silly. Possum’s analysis is as good as it gets given the data limitations. Agree to disagree and move on. Getting yourself banned isn’t a good look.

Sinclair Davidson

5 May 10 at 8:34 pm
I think Possum must be a mate of yours, Sinclair.

His ‘analysis’ was preposterous nonsense.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 9:14 pm
Do yourselves a lemon flavour and listen to the link at Bolt’s with Rudd being interviewed by Russell Woolf on 720 ABC in Perth today. There’s a beautiful moment when Rudd pretends the reception drops out:

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

Rudd is a psychopath.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 9:23 pm
Old Jellyback has refused to appear before a Senate probe into his home incineration catastrophe.

Yes, he has something to hide.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 9:40 pm
I was talking to a friend of mine who goes drinking with some CMFEU dudes at times. Apparently they absolutely despise Rudd.

They reckon one of his promises before the election was that he’d get rid of the building commission and he didn’t. Knowing what side their butter is buttered on and the high wages their earning from mining they think this tax will destroy their job prospects in that industry.

Of course they can’t bring themselves to vote libs, but they’ll vote Greens and he won’t get a penny from this union.

Labor infighting is fantastic to watch.

JC

5 May 10 at 9:50 pm
CL – to be fair, the prime minister of Australia would never appear before a senate inquiry. That’s what question time is for.

Sinclair Davidson

5 May 10 at 10:15 pm
Question Time is where the executive may comfortably avoid giving answers. Given the deaths and destruction involved, it’s perfectly reasonable for Jellyback and company to face a parliamentary venue where that is less do-able.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 10:24 pm
I understand and sympathise. But I don’t think the PM qua PM can be compelled to appear before a parliamentry sub-committee when he appears daily before the whole parliament.

Sinclair Davidson

5 May 10 at 10:37 pm
European stocks are getting kicked in the teeth again. The ECB better pull a rabbit out of the hat here or Houston has a problem.

JC

5 May 10 at 10:37 pm
Let it bleed, jc, let it bleed.

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 10:47 pm
I do not remember that anyone really grasped the sheer scale of the tragedy accompanying “Socialism in One Country”, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” or “Year Zero”.

Andrew, who in the West was supporting Pol Pot? Chomsky is smeared over this, but Chomsky merely questioned the propaganda (which was reasonable in view of repeated, attempted genocide in Indochina by the US and friends) and suggested that the machinations of the US and Thailand set the scene in terms of context. None of this ought to be controversial.

THR

5 May 10 at 10:51 pm
yea but you don’t want blood spilling over to our side of the table. If they don’t stop the bleeding it will.

Frog and German banks have around $250 billion stuffed in Greece.

Not saying it will, but it could get ugly as this has the smell of Bear sterns to it…. then Lehman but only bigger.

The euro feels like its going to implode as there’s huge portfolio shifts going on out of there by the Asian central banks.

JC

5 May 10 at 10:53 pm
What’s really deplorable about this entire mess and the fiscal stimulus is that 1 1/2 years ago the IMF and the bigger countries were telling these guys that they had to pull together and spend money like blazes in order to keep the world out of trouble.
So Greece, Spain and the rest of them went out and did their requisite 4.5% is wasteful spending.

Now they’re telling them they have to pull in by the same amount over the next year and more the year after that.

This Keynesian sickness has to be beaten out of the system or the system will implode .

JC

5 May 10 at 10:59 pm
None of this ought to be controversial.
.
No, but the US is such a major player on the international stage, that if anyone does anything bad, anywhere, they can throw their hands in the air and claim that the “scene was set” by the US. The US was no doubt meddling in the region. Hence using this logic, some people actually pin the Taliban on the US, because America helped Afghanistan repel the Russians. Seriously.
Might as well blame evertything on the Romans because they set the scene for the Middle Ages which set the scene for the Rennaisance, the enlightment, Western imperialism, and world war one. Oh and of course world war one “set the scene” for world war two. And so on.
.
I hope you can see why I’m skeptical of this line of thinking. Essentially whoever is the superpower of the day gets blamed for everything.

daddy dave

5 May 10 at 11:00 pm
“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” – Maggie Thatcher

I couldn’t help thinking of KRudd when I read this. Of course, I’m sure there a many politicians who’d fit this bill.

Michael Sutcliffe

5 May 10 at 11:28 pm
Not the whole parliament, Sinclair. But we’ll see.

Andrew, who in the West was supporting Pol Pot?

Gough Whitlam came.

In a paper delivered at the Australian National University in September, 1978, Whitlam said he doubted “all the stories that appear in the newspapers about the treatment of people in Cambodia”. In other words, three years after Pol Pot’s killing fields began operations, Whitlam remained unconvinced that the communist Khmer Rouge regime was into mass murder – in the face of all evidence.

Given your anti-Bolt stance on the Armenians, THR, I expect you to be appropriately outraged.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 11:32 pm
Remnant of: ‘Gough Whitlam came close.’

Intended edit: ‘Gough Whitlam.’

C.L.

5 May 10 at 11:33 pm
The left’s solution to everything: kill people.

Three killed in firebomb attack on Greek bank.

THREE people have died in a firebomb attack on an Athens bank, as protests in the Greek capital become more violent.
Hooded youths hurled petrol bombs in protest of a government austerity drive.

As many as 20 people were inside the bank when it was set alight.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 11:41 pm
The election of President Obama has inspired black Americans in record numbers … to run as Republicans:

http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/05/democrats-worst-fear-is-about-to-come.html

Infidel Tiger

5 May 10 at 11:53 pm
This is ridiculous.

“An official investigation found Primus had placed a $20 multi-leg bet which included a preseason semi-final between Geelong and Carlton.”

Half a pony and he’s out for two weeks.

Honestly, this country’s going full-on Amish.

C.L.

5 May 10 at 11:59 pm
No, but the US is such a major player on the international stage, that if anyone does anything bad, anywhere, they can throw their hands in the air and claim that the “scene was set” by the US.

Well, in addition to throwing up of arms, there was a lot of carpet-bombing, planned starvation, and payments to guerrilla armies. Millions were killed before the Khmer Rouge took control.

THR

6 May 10 at 12:01 am
Chomsky is smeared over this, but Chomsky merely questioned the propaganda (which was reasonable in view of repeated, attempted genocide in Indochina by the US and friends) and suggested that the machinations of the US and Thailand set the scene in terms of context. None of this ought to be controversial.

Chomsky did not merely “question” propaganda. In fact he created propaganda of his own and uncritically reported the propaganda of Khmer Rouge supporters. He, in particular, endorsed the ludicrous claim that the mass evacuation of Phnom Penh saved lives by averting a famine when in fact all it did was kill the elderly and the sick, and, most risibly of all, that the Khmer Rouge were spreading “medical care” to the “poor” when in fact they to all intents and purposes abolished medicine. Chomsky repeatedly endorsed the the lowest possible death toll quotes that he could find and, rubbished the direct reports of mass murder by refugees who had been swelling on the the Thai border. The grisly details are here:

http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm

And also here:

In sum, the overall pattern of Chomsky’s engagement on the Khmer question was consistently in the direction of supporting particular Khmer Rouge policies (which were, predictably, disastrous), minimising to the greatest extent possible the extent of the atrocities that had occured, and rubbishing anyone who actually knew what was going on.

Chomsky has form in this field – he wrote the preface to the work of a well-known Holocaust Denier, and lied about his political views (“apolitical liberal” indeed!).

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 12:32 am
Thanks for reminding me about that, CL. The former Australian Prime Minister was also a Genocide Minimalist. What a disgusting man he was.

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 12:33 am
Chomsky has form in this field – he wrote the preface to the work of a well-known Holocaust Denier, and lied about his political views (“apolitical liberal” indeed!).

If you honestly believe this, and you’re not merely stooping to provocation, then you’re an idiot. A dribbling idiot, in fact. Deal with actual arguments, not straw-fantasies.

THR

6 May 10 at 12:36 am
Stunning. Rio shelves $11bn in projects:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/rio-tinto-shelves-billions-in-projects/story-fn5eo6td-1225862783233

This is getting freaky.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 12:47 am
Actually, you’re the one who has to fall back on ad-hominems while ignoring actual arguments. Chomsky was perfectly aware of who he was dealing with in Robert Faurisson when he claimed he was a “relatively apolitical liberal”.

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 12:48 am
Fisk, yeah, Whitlam was a monster. East Timor, Pol Pot, Mao, acknowledgement of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, panhandling from Saddam Hussein. A truly horrendous record. It would be fair to say that he didn’t ever encounter a mass murderer he didn’t like.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 12:53 am
IT – secession must be placed on the table. Man up Barnett!

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 12:53 am
Secession is becoming a distinct possibility. This is twilight zone stuff.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 12:56 am
$11 bill down the gurgler, hey?

OJ really is a one-man wrecking ball.

Helped by the spirits of Messrs Keynes and Connor (left and right), behold the man himself carrying the Australian economy off to oblivion.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 1:00 am
The Aussie dollar has fallen 3 cents since last Friday when the rumors started doing the rounds.

JC

6 May 10 at 1:03 am
Ha ha! I never tire of that photo and now we have context!

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 1:03 am
The Shanster: Gillard is no longer Ms Teflon.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/julias-teflon-wearing-a-bit-thin/story-e6frg6zo-1225862769544

C.L.

6 May 10 at 1:09 am
These idiots don’t really have negative understanding how modern mining or business works for that matter.

Mining houses everyday looking at their various portfolios and where to allocate capital.

This isn’t a “we hate Rudd thing” and therefore we’re going on a capital strike to get even.

It’s cold hard calculation on a series of spreads sheets with mining analysts working it out.

They have say $10 billion to invest and possess or can purchase rights to mines around the world.

They simply do their projections and the capital is allocated to whatever asset provides the best return on capital after costs.

It’s all cold hard calculation and no emotion.
Rio is simply doing what’s best and putting the money elsewhere where there’s risk of gouging and the government welcomes the investment.

Rudd’s fucked.

JC

6 May 10 at 1:11 am
Actually, you’re the one who has to fall back on ad-hominems while ignoring actual arguments. Chomsky was perfectly aware of who he was dealing with in Robert Faurisson when he claimed he was a “relatively apolitical liberal”.

You can do better, Fisk. Show us evidence that Chomsky supported Pol Pot. Better yet, show us evidence that Chomsky supports Holocaust denial. That his defense of the French idiot was motivated by more than commitment to free speech.

Go!

THR

6 May 10 at 1:11 am
oops have no understanding…

I gotta read it before I post.

JC

6 May 10 at 1:12 am
“IT – secession must be placed on the table. Man up Barnett!”

Well as I actually live in WA, let me kindly suggest that you stick that up your arse, Fisk.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 9:34 am
Leave the kid alone, FFS:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/jessica-watson-sails-into-another-storm-20100506-ub8t.html?autostart=1

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 9:38 am
Dammit BirdLab, I thought I’d deduced your identity, but it doesn’t fit if you live in WA

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 9:54 am
Well, I agree with BirdLab. We’d actually like WA to stay in the Commonwealth.

Victoria, though, is free to skedaddle.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 9:57 am
Bwahahaha!

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 9:57 am
Can we get rid of Tasmania while we’re at it CL? We could gift it to New Zealand.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 9:58 am
Jason, I guess you were thinking birdlab was This blogger? That would have been my guess too if not for the WA spanner into the machinery.

daddy dave

6 May 10 at 9:59 am
Little Tassie? I dunno. It’s pretty Aussie.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 10:01 am
Nah DD that wasn’t my guess. My guess was the aviation guy for crikey. But his linkedin profile places him in Sydney. Then again it might not be updated. so could be a red herring

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 10:03 am
just get rid of the ACT

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 10:03 am
The ACT proposed outsourcing community policing duties to NSW, but some still push for statehood?

Lame.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 10:05 am
BTW Lab may not be aviation guy (that’s still up in the air) but I’m pretty confident Nabs is aviation guy

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 10:05 am
Good idea Jason. And I would also suggest the western suburbs of major Australian cities. And the Eagles.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 10:07 am
“Half a pony and he’s out for two weeks.

Honestly, this country’s going full-on Amish.”

This is worse: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fallout-over-foul-language-charge-being-dismissed-20100504-u55h.html

When did everyone become such delicate flowers?

AJ

6 May 10 at 10:13 am
That magistrate is an absolute c**t. Whatever happened to decent community standards?

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 10:21 am
“Science student Henry Grech, 22, had an offensive language charge against him reportedly cleared in Waverley Local Court yesterday after NSW magistrate Robbie Williams decided the word “prick” would not offend a “reasonable person”.”

The cop needs to worry about actually being assaulted on the job, not being called something nasty an ex girlfriend calls you.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 10:24 am
Daddy Dave – How the fuck coud you think Birdlab was Margos Maid? Their styles are nothing a like.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 10:33 am
Quite right. Apart from anything else, I have a concentration span of about five seconds.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 10:35 am
BirdLab is a screaming marsupial

tal

6 May 10 at 10:38 am
So you know my secret, tal?

You are dead to me.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 10:41 am
Oh well, such is life

tal

6 May 10 at 10:47 am
THR,
Any, purported, genocide by the US in Indochina had nothing, at all, on the slaughtering of a quarter of a country’s population or 80 million deaths in China.
In any case, I was not claiming that anyone at all supported him. All I was saying was that the “Western Propaganda” you were deriding was wrong – but only in understating the true extent of the horrors of those three events.
If you are going to deride “Western Propaganda”, make sure you say that the only reason it was wrong was that it was understating, not overstating, the crimes perpetrated on the peoples of those countries by those governments.

Andrew Reynolds

6 May 10 at 10:48 am
Kidding tal.

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 10:51 am
ABC’s The Drum: if only the conservatives wouldn’t be so damn right wing. can’t we have Malcolm back as leader? He’d clean up on the ABC journo vote all across this wide nation.

daddy dave

6 May 10 at 10:51 am
Little Tassie? I dunno. It’s pretty Aussie.

Have you ever been there? They are very much tassmanian’s first australians second. You are either from Tassie or “the mainland”. I’m pretty sure they don’t realise there are states up here.

Send them to NZ!

Steve Edney

6 May 10 at 10:56 am
The media love to show off their non-partisan credentials by lauding ‘conservatives’ like Malcolm Turnbull, Malcolm Fraser, Petro Georgiou, Charlie Crist and Andrew Sullivan.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 10:59 am
They’ve got a chip on their shoulder as Victorians/Melburnians treat them as an extra suburb/region. They love beating Vic in sport more than NSW loves a 3-0 Origin whitewash.

That’s what a Hobartian explained to me.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 10:59 am
They are very much tassmanian’s first australians second.

They sound like Queenslanders, Sandgropers and Territorians, then. Like I said, they’re pretty Aussie.

Victoria, on the other hand, should be sold off to whatever country will accept Sam Newman as a leading sultural identity and Victorian glorified force em backs as ‘football.’

C.L.

6 May 10 at 11:02 am
Oops.

Victoria, on the other hand, should be sold off to whatever country will accept Sam Newman as a leading cultural identity and glorified force em backs as ‘football.’

C.L.

6 May 10 at 11:03 am
You dare compare us to Quincelanders, CL? Have you no shame?

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 11:13 am
Emigration-wise, no.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 11:16 am
Sorry to tell ya, Birdlab, but WA and Qld could have been separated at birth. Perth and Brisbane even look the same. And we have the same problems – too many black skivvy wearing turds from the lesser states moving in to ogle our women and steal our jobs. That rabbit proof fence is a joke.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 11:20 am
Birdlab barracks for Fremantle – I know of two Freo supporters, but BL isn’t Kim Beasley. That leaves …

Sinclair Davidson

6 May 10 at 11:24 am
Carmen Lawrence!

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 11:25 am
Whatever happened to Carmen?

tal

6 May 10 at 11:31 am
OJ doubles down on the Chavez rhetoric:

PM warns on broadband network.

PM Kevin Rudd today warned the National Broadband Network it will happen whether some of the nation’s “largest companies” co-operate or not.

In a blunt reference to whether Telstra will willingly make its existing staff and facilties available to help build the NBN, the PM warned the government will not be deterred.

He was speaking ahead of today’s release of a $25 million implimentation study on the NBN.

“We will not be deterred – despite the opp from some of Australia’s largest companies – from making this happen,” Mr Rudd said.

Large companies bad. Foreign companies bad.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 11:33 am
“That leaves …”

Adele Carles?

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 11:34 am
Large companies bad. Foreign companies bad.

A few more years of Rudd and we’ll have neither.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 11:35 am
are you saying you’re a woman, Lab?
Careful, Phil will be jealous.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 11:36 am
Kevin has the national ankle well in hand.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 11:37 am
Carmen Lawrence barracks for Freo too? FMD.

Sinclair Davidson

6 May 10 at 11:44 am
I believe she was number 1 ticket holder. Like her, I can’t remember.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 11:45 am
“are you saying you’re a woman, Lab?”

I wasn’t last time I looked. And unlike Bird, I can spot the difference.

“That rabbit proof fence is a joke.”

Infidel:

http://thingsboganslike.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/60-going-to-work-in-the-mines/

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 12:08 pm
Ha ha So he now warning domestic firms? He really is a fucking clown.

JC

6 May 10 at 12:08 pm
If you are going to deride “Western Propaganda”, make sure you say that the only reason it was wrong was that it was understating, not overstating, the crimes perpetrated on the peoples of those countries by those governments.

Nonsense, Andrew. The same propaganda ignored entirely the atrocities committed in Indonesia, for instance. Claims about understatement of communist atrocities are also dubious, since there are many examples of overstatement (and still are to this day).

In any case, my point was that we shouldn’t take the National Review seriously at all, and should treat it as basically defamatory when it comes to somebody like Chomsky.

THR

6 May 10 at 12:34 pm
Brilliant last-ditch Labour strategy to win back British everyman:

Labour MP Harriet Harman sparks new spat with The Sun newspaper by vowing to ban page 3 models.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 1:02 pm
Yep that’ll do it

tal

6 May 10 at 1:05 pm
It’s disturbing to contemplate what bleeding heart a-holes we have on the bench in this country:

Serial rapist jailed for 84yo’s ordeal.

A convicted serial rapist who held an elderly woman against her will and planned to rape her has been jailed.

Kenneth Allan Robertson went to the 84-year-old victim’s house in 2007 and subjected her to an ordeal lasting several hours.

He threatened her with a knife and told to take off her dressing gown, which she refused to do.

Robertson served two previous sentences for raping a prostitute in 1983 and raping a 13-year-old girl at gunpoint in 2000.

The latest case was referred to the South Australian Supreme Court to determine whether Robertson was able to control his sexual urges.

It ruled that with adequate counselling and supervision for his drug problem, Robertson would not pose a danger to the community.

Judge Peter Herriman sentenced Robertson to seven-and-a-half years in jail, with a non-parole term of five years and nine months.

Here’s an idea: lock him up for the term of his natural life before he kills someone. How’s that?

C.L.

6 May 10 at 1:15 pm
Here’s an idea – remove his equipment, then give him a choice of staying in jail the rest of his life or moving into the community but having his movements trackable on a public websire

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 1:17 pm
who pays these clowns?

http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/style/skirting-the-issue-at-fashion-week-20100505-uakx.html

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 1:31 pm
I’d better the beta boys would love those fashions. They’re dying to get into little frilly dresses.

JC

6 May 10 at 1:36 pm
oop bet.

JC

6 May 10 at 1:36 pm
Do they come in footy colours?

tal

6 May 10 at 1:39 pm
LOL

Page 3 girl Peta Todd was quoted as saying: “Knife and gun crime at alarming levels, our troops being killed in Afghanistan and the highest youth unemployment for a generation.

“But all Labour and the Lib Dems are thinking about is putting me and my pals out of a job.”

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 1:40 pm
Bernadi beclowns himself on burqas:

http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2010/05/ban-the-burqa.html

THR

6 May 10 at 1:48 pm
Vindication for Steve – who once linked Nick Minchin to warm weather. Now that the Minch is out of politics, April was cooler, says Roy Spencer.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 1:58 pm
THR,

What does Bernadi think about the clothes of religious orders or carrying briefcases on public trasnport?

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:02 pm
Oh dear!

A man has been robbed at gunpoint by a bandit dressed in a burka in Sydney’s south yesterday.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/06/2891505.htm?section=justin

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 2:05 pm
RSS says it was the second warmest April (1998 beat it):

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/rss-2nd-warmest-april/

steve from brisbane

6 May 10 at 2:06 pm
Couldn’t agree more:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article7052392.ece

The Burqa is actually quite stupid IMO. It is totally peripheral to Islam. The debate is 100 x sillier.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:07 pm
Bring it on Steve. I’ve taken to beach culture and surfing recently.

A brutal and pulverising ice age would devestate my free time.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:09 pm
Yeah
and I don’t carry a photo ID around with me since I don’t drive. I guess I must be dangerous and we should all be required to carry around photo ID.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 2:09 pm
Women in religious orders are not compelled to wear habits by men. All orders of women religious decide on these things in their own communities. And they choose to enter the communities that do wear them. It’s really only nuns, properly so-called, who wear them these days.

There is no comparison to the Muslim oppression sack.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:10 pm
How did you get into pubs when you were younger? Serious question.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:11 pm
The only time I got asked for ID was once when there was a blogmeet at an RSL club.

The classier pubs don’t ask for ID. They are also usually the ones which don’t have dodgy bouncers.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 2:13 pm
C.L.,

If women are compelled by any man in Australia to do anything without proper legal authority they are committing an offence.

This is a slippery slope. Government guidelines on clothing children?

It is also massively insulting to most of society.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:13 pm
“The classier pubs don’t ask for ID. They are also usually the ones which don’t have dodgy bouncers.”

They must have some Rosarch test to see if a 1C licence gives you a power trip or not.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:14 pm
He was disguised as an elk?

BirdLab

6 May 10 at 2:17 pm
It’s not something I support for Australia, SRL, because it isn’t necessary.

In Europe, it’s a different story.

There are, however, numerous government-enforced laws about what we wear. You can’t wear a helmet into a bank, you must wear WH&S reflector gear on all industrial and building sites, you must wear a bicycle helmet. Etc. France, by comparison, is probably more liberal on all of this stuff.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:20 pm
At Viral Vids:

Worst wedding ever:

http://viralfootage.com/?p=6997

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:21 pm
In France every driver must have a reflective vest in their car!

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 2:22 pm
I see C.L. It’s the same thing with having relaxed borders here and not in Palestine. It makes sense.

Or they could get rid of their PC laws which dictate then they need anti free speech/expression laws on top of the PC laws…

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:26 pm
I’m not really following your argument, SRL. Are you being sarcastic about the subject or expressing an opinion??

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:28 pm
No.

You’re inferring most countries in the EU allow Muslim men to order Muslim women to do things on the grounds of “religion”. If a German woman wears a burqa, it is legally by choice.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:33 pm
So German Muslim households/ghettos strictly adhere to European norms?

Are you serious?

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:35 pm
Read it again.

“If a German woman wears a burqa, it is legally by choice.”

If there is slave labour in Australia, we don’t ban assembly line work, we stop the coercion and punish the offender.

You want a sledgehammer to crack some nuts.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:37 pm
No I think he’s saying that there are no Europeans laws that force women to wear those dreadful things.

This stuff creates far too many problems in host cultures in the west. Perhaps it’s time to look for immigration from other places.

The last car bombing attempt in the US more or less shows that this is a little more than random attacks now.

the other thing we also need to realize is immigration from these places invariably calls for more state intrusion in our lives and UK police meddling, hate crimes laws etc only add to it.

We’re not living in libertarian societies ourselves.

JC

6 May 10 at 2:43 pm
That’s like saying women who stay with abusive husbands (as we know they do) do so legally by choice.

Not much of an argument.

Australia should certainly button its lip about the alleged injustice of banning burqas given that Catholics are still legally banned from ever becoming head of state.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:44 pm
Sorry, we thought you Catholics had something against people becoming queens? Our mistake!

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 2:47 pm
“Not much of an argument.”

Yes it is.

…and indeed it turns on your argument that it is shallow. Why? Because treating these women in the same way as you would a women who wants to wear a burqa would restrict their freedom and leave their wife bashing husbands unharmed.

“Australia should certainly button its lip about the alleged injustice of banning burqas given that Catholics are still legally banned from ever becoming head of state.”

Yes, we need a republic now to break from the UK and it’s oppressive Bill of Rights provisions.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:47 pm
I’ve said this before.

Most Muslims weren’t as nuts in the old days (God I sound like an old man) – at least those from sane places like Turkey, SE Asia, and central Asia.

So what happened? The jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion happened, followed by Saudi oil money flowing in and indoctrinating a whole generation and radicalising even otherwise relative sensible Muslims.

We can coexist with Muslims, there’s no need for reformation because though they have problems among themselves which they need to sort out, they really weren’t that nuts before. But before that can happen, Bird is right, we have to hunt down and kill regime leadership.

Ideally the Saudi royal family should be brought down and that country turned over to someone sensible like the King of Jordan.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 2:49 pm
The period of Islam we remember as being peaceful is perhaps an historical aberration and things are now reverting to type.

There’s no doubt though that the Saudi funding of Madrassas throughout SE Asia and Europe is sending an excitable religion of its fucking tits.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 2:53 pm
Totally agree.

Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia are the sources of Jihad.

Bird will now charcterise you as a “Hashemite agent of influence”. “Jason of Transjordania”.

He’ll also raise you up on a pedestal once more until you debunk a crackpot idea he has.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:53 pm
I haven’t really been making an argument, SRL. You’ve overblown the libertarian angle on governments and what people wear. Our own governments legislate on what men, women and children wear already. They’ve been doing it for years.

Don’t believe me? Try walking into a bank in a motorcycle helmet or onto a building site in a pear of boardies or onto a playground without a hat or into an RSL club in a pear of thongs etc etc.

In Europe, legislators – reflecting the popular will – feel it’s necessary to insist that no woman be compelled or raised or educated or pressured or counselled or encouraged to cover her body and face. So they’re killing off the acceptability of doing so. Good. When the same attitude reigned in Turkey, that country was immensely better off. Now it’s women are covered and it’s teetering on the seat of the Islamist toilet.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:56 pm
Pair of boardies…

Mmm… pears.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:57 pm
Meant: Now its women are covered and it’s teetering on the seat of the Islamist toilet.

Sorry – am multi-tasking at the mo.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 2:59 pm
C.L.,

Your arguments are inconsistent. The English Bill of rights was by popular will, yet you insist that both of us should shut up because of it, justifying legislation rather than common law, private property and common sense as to what people can wear.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 2:59 pm
No Mark both Iran and Syria are implicated in supporting violence against Israel but they are not sources of Jihad.

The jihadists are of the Sunni variety anyway.

Saudi Arabia is indirectly implicated because of their export of ‘Islamic education’ however I am pretty sure they never meant the consequences to occur as they have.
Having said that getting rid of the present Saudi Royal family does sound good however beware remember Hamas only came into existence because of direct Israeli intervention!

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 3:00 pm
Jason:

You have a point. I recall (and I would bet my people my age would most probably say the same thing) growing up we never even knew Indonesia was the largest Muslim country in the world.

As a country we didn’t like the place much as we felt threatened by them from time to time but religious issues were never even thought about.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:04 pm
Well everybody has had a good chance to unload their telstra shares and now its all over red rover for the creaking dinosaur.

rog

6 May 10 at 3:05 pm
“both Iran and Syria are implicated in supporting violence against Israel but they are not sources of Jihad.”

You say potato, Hezbollah and Hamas’s PR wings call it Jihad.

The funding comes from the named countries.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:05 pm
…however beware remember Hamas only came into existence because of direct Israeli intervention!

Yea I suppose you’d say it was the Jews that gave rise to Hitler, although recently it seems you don’t think that was s such a bad thing seeing he practiced Keynesian economics, which in your sordid little mind seems to trump all.

It’s always the Jews with you, isn’t it Homer? They kinda of gnaw at you for some reason.

I’d bet you haven’t met many as I’d hazard to guess Macquarie was never an educational center of excellence for them.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:10 pm
well Homer is right about Syria.

Syria is a secular dictatorship. They’re not nice people but they’re not ideologically committed to the fundies though they may be using them against Isrel.

As for Iran, I think different dynamics are at work there. The Iranians had a great civilisation before Islam which they still take pride in and this works against a tendency towards islamic totalitarianism in the long run. I think Iran is ripe for change, the middle classes supported Khomeini because the Shah was so corrupt and they didn’t know what they were in for,

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 3:12 pm
Well everybody has had a good chance to unload their telstra shares and now its all over red rover for the creaking dinosaur.

Great advice Wodge. So if everyone is selling, the other side of the ledger is made up of …. no buyers but the price will magically hold up? LOL

Were you and Homer made bizarro dux of Eastwood tech or something.

Look doofus.

Destroying shareholder value by new firms coming up and taking away share isn’t a bad thing, such as Apple taking market share from the other phone markers.

Destroying it through legislative fiat and populist measures is the equivalent of the 9th circle of hell.
Destroying telstra as a result of the government pushing them away so they create a disaster like NBN is like the 30th circle of hell if it were there.

That’s the place doofuses like you end up for being a malicious fool.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:18 pm
True jason lots of Iranians still refer to themselves as Persian

tal

6 May 10 at 3:19 pm
rog,

I think things like this may spell the end:

http://www.iinet.net.au/bob/

The thing is Telstra still pay a really good dividend.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:19 pm
Bird should get together with this guy

http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/out-of-this-world-russian-region-leaders-alien-abduction-story-shakes-officials-20100506-ucw9.html

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 3:24 pm
SRL;

I think they’ve done a pretty decent job with wireless and seem to be industry leaders in that field.

The US is heading to G4 while we’ve been dicking around for the past 5 years doing government impact studies.

The future seems to be wireless with some predicting wireless will carry up to 10 times the data volume than cable.

However, as I see it we’re going to have serious problems with that going forward.

Which firm would be prepared to upgrade to G4 with NBN hanging around? There’s no way the government would allow wireless to take a dominant position if they’ve spend 43 billion of the crap if there is a fear they won’t get a reasonable return. They’ll simply stop it and force people on their system.

It wouldn’t be worth the risk.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:27 pm
I find it astonishing that anyone could delineate a false distinction between the anti-Jewish jihad of Hezbollah (bankrolled by Syria and Iran) and the generic jihad against ‘the West’ conducted by Sunni groups. As though Israel wasn’t part of what we call Civilisation. Moreover, Iran has been cooperating with and facilitating Al Qaeda for years.

Oh, it was Homer.

Suddenly I’m not astonished.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 3:28 pm
“There’s no way the government would allow wireless to take a dominant position if they’ve spend 43 billion of the crap if there is a fear they won’t get a reasonable return.”

I actually don’t think they care.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:29 pm
Of course it was homer.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:30 pm
The NBN is revenge on all the Howard Battlers who bought Telstra shares. I have no doubt it will revolutionise Australian telecommunications:

http://www.pennsylvaniafiduciarylitigation.com/tin%20can%20phone.JPG

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 3:32 pm
Fairfax is running blatant propaganda pieces on the NBN:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/consumers-the-biggest-winners-of-nbn-20100506-udz0.html

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 3:37 pm
To paraphrase a wiseman:

“Oh, it was the SMH.

Suddenly I’m not astonished.”

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:39 pm
Soon to be available at very high speeds:

http://kevinruddisacunt.com/

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 3:42 pm
yeah Forrest you do not know how Hamas came into existence?
good grief. well No it is to be expected.

How many countries do Hamas and Hezbollah attempt to terrorise?

Yeah that’s right one.
When most people talk about Jihad and terrorism it is about movements, mostly one but now decentralizing at an increasing pace.

Think, UK, Spain, USA, Indonesia notice the similarity.

The utterly false distinction is to lunk in Hams and Hezbollah with AQ.

Wireless cannot take a dominant position.
Guess why

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 3:43 pm
The shocked old lady is a cracker. I can’t see Rudd winning. The EFA people are usually pro ALP:

http://www.netalarmed.com/

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:47 pm
Homer,

No money = no Hamas. Yes it backfired on Israel but that’s the folly of interventionism.

“Wireless cannot take a dominant position.
Guess why”

Why don’t you tell us why genius?

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:49 pm
Homer:

What’s with this new irritating and annoying habit of asking and then answering your own question like that other idiot (Rudd). If you must post comments here (something I’ve always tried to dissuade you from doing) you don’t have to remind us of that turnip. Please.

In response to your last comment… So in your “mind” it’s okay for Jews to be terrorized, is it? I honestly don’t understand how you could even go there after the recent comments you’ve made. I would have thought you’d have more shame than that.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:52 pm
“How many countries do Hamas and Hezbollah attempt to terrorise?”

At least three.

Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 3:55 pm
Wireless cannot take a dominant position.
Guess why

Homes, can I suggest you tell this dude as he thinks it will carry 10 times more data flow than fiber.

here:

http://www.microstrategy.com/company/people/saylor.asp

At least that’s what was reported in the WSJ he said.

JC

6 May 10 at 3:57 pm
really Mark,

lets see how many rockets has it sent in Lebanon?

hmm how many suicide bombers have killed himself in Palestine?

you cannot compare either Hizbullah or Hamas to AQ.

with AQ the world is the target.

The other two it is Israel.

The World can deal with AQ.
Israel needs to deal with the other two but won’t.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:07 pm
Um yeah sure and Palestine & Lebanon have “fair and free” elections with normal politicians being assassinated etc by these freaks.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:09 pm
The World can deal with AQ.
Israel needs to deal with the other two but won’t.

Interesting analysis, homer. I presume you mean that the world can deal with AQ by destroying it, however Israel can’t do the same seeing they also offer an existential threat to the Jewish state.

You hypocrisy knows no bounds.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:10 pm
“hmm how many suicide bombers have killed himself in Palestine?”

Quite a few actually. If you’re not a moron you’ll also remember Fatah and Hamas had a min civil war.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:14 pm
Marky you can’t provide other examples. Thought not.

Forrest can you elaborate on how either provide an existential threat to Israel.

Feel free to provide examples of the weapons they would use that would provide that threat.

Ever thought why conservative magazines like the Economists believes Israel should negotiate over Palestine?
no didn’t think so.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:14 pm
Mark so now you are saying a civil war is an act of terrorism

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:15 pm
“you can’t provide other examples. Thought not.”

Bullshit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hamas_suicide_attacks

We can also include Egypt as a target. As well as Rafik Hariri.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:19 pm
Forrest can you elaborate on how either provide an existential threat to Israel.

You’re not serious. You really are.

Feel free to provide examples of the weapons they would use that would provide that threat.

Oh okay. Hopefully one of your neighbours keeps firing Katyusha rockets at your house and then you’ll post a comment here telling us it’s not an existential threat you.

You knucklehead.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:20 pm
“so now you are saying a civil war is an act of terrorism”

Between terrorists (and former? terrorists) who kill their own civilians in order to kill Israelis, who attack three external neighbours, who are on the payroll of evil foreign influence, and who repress their own people with violence, indoctrination and electoral intimidation, I’d say yes.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:21 pm
Obviously you cant read jc, or your comprehensive abilities have been damaged by excessive nicotine.

If everybody switched over to wireless you would need 5x towers and then some more.

Think about it.

rog

6 May 10 at 4:24 pm
Hamas and Hezbollah are just public opinion pollsters. Just like the Gestapo.

Infidel Tiger

6 May 10 at 4:24 pm
“If everybody switched over to wireless you would need 5x towers and then some more.

Think about it.”

What stops us building 5x as mnay towers? They are not new buildings, only improvements to current ones.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:27 pm
“Obviously you cant read jc, or your comprehensive abilities have been damaged by excessive nicotine.”

Nicotine improves memory. We discussed this last week.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:28 pm
Please don’t bring up the Nazis IT.

Homer can only defend one set of genocidal bastards at a time.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 4:33 pm
Wodger:

Umm I can read and I can also comprehend. By the way nicotine actually has a positive effect on mental acuity, which means you ought to be a chain smoker sucking down 8 at a time.

Look Doofus the prediction is that wireless will end up carrying 10 times the data than fibre. If you have a different opinion to people that are in that field then go ahead, be my guest.

However I would hasten you to be really careful when it come to your business acumen. One time your were telling us how you saw value in a business venture where people go to see whales being slaughtered.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:34 pm
Forrest believes Katushya rockets are a threat to Israel.

Say no more.

Why haven’t the Israelis surrendered given the weapons.

well the dictionary says
ter·ror·ism (t?r’?-r?z’?m)
n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Of course in a civil war it is unlawful force against unlawful force.

sorry to tell you this but neither Hams nor Hezbollah attack three external neighbours.

Hizbullah must be poor at electoral intimidation as they didn’t most of the votes and few observers dispute Hamas didn’t win most of the votes in Palestine.

Great call again Marky

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:35 pm
oh Statman, you are so poor when you lack knowledge.
I didn’t defend the Nazis at all.

Merely attempted to see if your memory of reading Tooze had improved.

it hadn’t.

It is on a par with IT.

funny how much you knock his ideas

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:38 pm
“Forrest believes Katushya rockets are a threat to Israel.

Say no more.

Why haven’t the Israelis surrendered given the weapons.”

At times like these, I almost feel sorry for your chocolate eclair level IQ.

“sorry to tell you this but neither Hams nor Hezbollah attack three external neighbours.”

Bullshit – Israel. Lebanon. Egypt. At least three – on top of their own civilians.

“Hizbullah must be poor at electoral intimidation as they didn’t most of the votes and few observers dispute Hamas didn’t win most of the votes in Palestine.”

Simple question for you Homer. Do the ALP, the Coalition and Greens hold violent political rallies and intimidate voters? A simple yes or no will do.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:38 pm
It’s been made clear that you’re interpretation of Tooze virtually contradicts his work almost word for word in parts. Thanks to DB for showing this.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:39 pm
Forrest believes Katushya rockets are a threat to Israel.

Say no more.

No, that’s not true. I asked you if you would consider it an existential threat if your one of your neighbors decided to fire katyusha rockets at your house while you’re in there?

Should I apply your standards here Homer and look to the reasons why?

JC

6 May 10 at 4:43 pm
“the prediction is that wireless will end up carrying 10 times the data than fibre.”

Ho ho ho

You should start buying tesltra, its going to go real cheap

rog

6 May 10 at 4:44 pm
Yeah Snoopy showed what.

your knowledge of German history is only equalled by your breath-taking ability at Statistics.

Please explain how Katushya rockets threaten Israel’s existence.

Ask some friends from Lebanon if the rallies by hizbullah are more violent than any other there.

as for intimidation it clearly has not worked.
overseas observers were there at the last election you konw

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:45 pm
Why would I do that Wodge, when you’re cheering the government’s act to destroy equity value through government fiat?

oh I get it.. you want me to lose money… Leave the pins and the voodoo dolls alone, Wodge it doesn’t work.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:47 pm
Forrest no.1
however Israel can’t do the same seeing they also offer an existential threat to the Jewish state.

forrest No.2
Feel free to provide examples of the weapons they would use that would provide that threat.

Oh okay. Hopefully one of your neighbours keeps firing Katyusha rockets at your house and then you’ll post a comment here telling us it’s not an existential threat you.

Forrest no.3
No, that’s not true. I asked you if you would consider it an existential threat if your one of your neighbors decided to fire katyusha rockets at your house while you’re in there?

no wonder he believes in wireless

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:48 pm
So your points are:

1. Artillery and rocketry aimed at civilians isn’t a “threat”.

2. Hezbollah aren’t violent.

3. There was no intimidation because there were o/s observers.

It’s times like these I wish I was smart enough to take Jason’s advice and ignore your imbecilic droning.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:48 pm
look let’s be fair to Homer a bit here.

His original point was that our worring about terrorist attcks here due to AQ is subject to quite different motivations from Syria and Iran funded attacks on Israel. We are in no danger of getting another 9/11 because of Syria and Iran, we are from the crazies funded by Saudi money.

jtfsoon

6 May 10 at 4:48 pm
wow,

Statman is correct.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:49 pm
“no wonder he believes in wireless”

———–

erm yse Hmre, coaxeal cable is the waya of the fuuture. it was in the Zimbabween juorAnl of telecommnctions.

——–

end homer channelling

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:49 pm
Please explain how Katushya rockets threaten Israel’s existence.

You’re right Homer.The rockets are being misunderstood by those Jews. They’re just being fired to celebrate Hamas national day. Every day happens to be Hamas national day.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:50 pm
“We are in no danger of getting another 9/11 because of Syria and Iran, we are from the crazies funded by Saudi money.”

Why does he come up with those ridiculous 1.-3. then? Obviously you feel sorry for this dim witted chap.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:51 pm
Jason:

Iran has actually funded attacks in the rest of the world. The attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires was an Iranian funded attack. That’s just one I can think of.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:53 pm
Forrest you are saying they threaten the Nation of Israel yet Israel is stronger today despite them.

Israel would be threatened if they had weapons which could endanger the country, they clearly do not

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:54 pm
and we’re always, always fair towards Homer.

I complemented him in 2004 for something he said.

JC

6 May 10 at 4:54 pm
Mark,

you came up with those not me.

do not call yourself names

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 4:55 pm
The whole point of the armed forces is to protect your civilians from external threats.

Israeli civilians are targeted but this isn’t a threat?

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:56 pm
No, you just agreed with 1.

You implied 2.

You implied 3. – which was completely absurd.

Semi Regular Libertarian

6 May 10 at 4:57 pm
Sure they threaten Israel, you nimrod in the same way as a neighbor would threaten you if they fired rockets at your house.

What the fuck do you think happens with those things, you eternal mentally deranged goose?

They hit people’s homes.

Don’t you think the Israeli state has a right to protect its citizens from attack?

JC

6 May 10 at 4:58 pm
Mark I implied nothing, you were simply being a goose again.

you claimed the voters were intimidated yet the results and observers said no.

Israel can destroy any country in the vicinity.
No country can do the same.

Any you clowns stil lwant to claim Israel is threatened.

forrest ever tghink why on very conservative estimates there are ten times as many palestinans killed as Israelis?

oh yeah
should we in Asutralia be wooried about Hamas, Hizbullah or AQ?

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

6 May 10 at 6:01 pm
Homer our primary concern in Australia is that we should be worried about the fact that someone keeps opening the cellar door and lets you out at certain times of the day allowing you to infest other people’s sites with rank idiocy.

whatever way you want to cut it, that is a prime national security issue.

Why the question as to which of those organizations threaten us? we’re not talking about Australia, you nimbus. However there there are reasons to be concerned with terror attacks here.

And yes, Israelis are threatened by your newly acquired nazi like friends. You can’t help yourself can you.

You ought to stop reading the “Learned Elders of Zion”, Homer as it’s bogus.

JC

6 May 10 at 6:16 pm
Bolt has a funny piece. Emerson was suggesting we shouldn’t kill the golden mining goose a few days before Charlie Rudd pretends he’s Huggy Chavez.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/

Poor old Craig. There must be fist holes in his office walls.

JC

6 May 10 at 6:26 pm
MarkB from LP now likes Rudd and goes all commie-class- war on us.

Paul Keating believed that investment had been deliberately held back in the lead up to the 1993 election, as capital went on strike to try to engineer the election of a Liberal government by prolonging the sluggish economy. Let’s make no mistake about his; if Gottliebsen is right, and this talk isn’t just bluster, what we’re seeing is the limits capital places on democracy. If the equation that resources capital’s interests are equivalent to the national interest is rejected, then what we get from mining companies is the ugly face of capital’s self interest.

Mark needs to learn how to use a spread sheet, stick some figures in there and play around with relative rates of return. This isn’t the 70′s when we had capital controls. Firms can and do make decisions about IIR with respect to capital allocation, where the returns have quality long terms scope and political risk is seen as minimal.

Parts of Africa now offer better rates of return and guaranteed no interference. The money will just flow there.

The limits of capital on democracy… LOl He’s so dramatic.

JC

6 May 10 at 6:34 pm
Unions , especially teachers unions are an indispensable fabric of a civilization so we’re told by the left.

The Chicago Tribune reports that an effort to allow kids to leave their failing schools for better ones through a school voucher program has been killed by the unions.

A measure to let students in Chicago’s worst-performing and most-overcrowded elementary schools use taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools was defeated in the Illinois House on Wednesday, giving teachers unions a major victory.

Lets ensure the continuance of civilization and support our unions.

JC

6 May 10 at 6:58 pm
“I Have The Pussy, So I Make The Rules,”

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0505101tshirt1.html

Why would someone wear such a thing to a court? Why?

JC

6 May 10 at 8:14 pm
Some folks are just dumb Joe

tal

6 May 10 at 8:16 pm
other court “apparel”.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0716081shirts15.html

scroll through the pages as there some good ones. like that.

JC

6 May 10 at 8:18 pm
Birdy is justifying his slothfulness:

you cannot keep your wife and children safe from predators and go to work at the same time.

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/the-11th-commandment-thou-shalt-not-tax-profits/#comment-29907

THR

6 May 10 at 8:42 pm
latest fake Bird twitter is directed at Chris Berg

http://twitter.com/wingedmenace

@chrisberg The real problem with immigration are the agents of communist influence from Beijing. Like Jason Soon. Or Poh from Masterchef.

Jason Soon

6 May 10 at 8:46 pm
THR:

It was never a big step to go from Sharia banking to sharia law for Birdie. I presume the female members of his family are right now being talked in wearing the burqua.

JC

6 May 10 at 8:55 pm
At least in Birdtopia, women wouldn’t have to remove their birdqa in the bank, since there wouldn’t be any banks in the first place.

THR

6 May 10 at 8:59 pm
JC – there was a young lady – well young female, at least – in Minotaur today with a tee-shirt that a picture of nipple-clamps on it.

I’m going back tomorrow. Just to make sure, of course.

Sinclair Davidson

6 May 10 at 9:00 pm
Sick old man

tal

6 May 10 at 9:01 pm
actually JC I get the impression that the Bird is henpecked.

I think he would get an upper cut from his wife if he ever suggested something like that

Jason Soon

6 May 10 at 9:01 pm
ahem – that’s dirty old man.

Sinclair Davidson

6 May 10 at 9:05 pm
Well actually there would be banks, THR, but not in a traditional sense or the sense we know them as.

Birdbanking would resemble a place with a bunch of safety deposit boxes where you would store your gold coins and hungry, burlap wearing people outside begging for a piece of bread seeing we’d have around an 80% unemployment rate in Birdtopia.

They would also be giant warehouses where you would also store useless, unused and fast accumulating liquefied coal: millions of the freaking things sitting on pallets just gathering dust.

JC

6 May 10 at 9:07 pm
Sinc :’

Really… Boy I need to get around more and look at t-shirts. nipple clamps? LOl.

——–

Jason:

I hope so. In fact I hope she’s particularly harsh on the fat, bald porker as he truly deserves it after the abuse he dishes out at people on the web.

JC

6 May 10 at 9:09 pm
oh dear has the Bird finally lost it?

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/israel-lets-be-fair-government-is-always-evil-and-stupid/#comment-29910

We see here a man doing what Donald Young used to do. I cannot wait until the rain comes and the lion sleeps. Because I’m sick of telling my girls that there are grave threats out there, and them just ignoring me.

Jason Soon

6 May 10 at 9:09 pm
Just think about liquefied coal for a second. Mises has a great definition of money as being the commodity that is in most demand.

In his anti-wisdom Bird has struck on the idea of using possibly the least in demand commodity in the industrialized world. Liquefied coal. This alone ought to get him the anti-nobel economics prize for coming up with the dumbest idea in economics for the past 30 years.

JC

6 May 10 at 9:14 pm
This alone ought to get him the anti-nobel economics prize for coming up with the dumbest idea in economics for the past 30 years.

Relocating all of Australia’s cities to the Simpson Desert deserves a special mention. It’s as if Pol Pot was a Birdist.

THR

6 May 10 at 9:16 pm
Because I’m sick of telling my girls that there are grave threats out there, and them just ignoring me.

There’s an interesting sideline to that. I’m reading a book called “the science of fear”. All I seem to read these days are books about risk and probability

Anyways the writer discussed the fear US media has put into Americans about child abduction : killed or simply stolen.

He talked about how CNN ran a special on this telling parents what they should do to prevent what sounded (on CNN) to be an epidemic of child abduction running through the country.

He looked closely at the numbers. After you strip away the fact child kidnapping by parents or other family members, the real number gets down to 57 children kidnapped each year and not found again. Okay that’s pretty horrible but it’s a very minute risk.

JC

6 May 10 at 9:24 pm
anyone know WTF Bird is talking about here?

Is his birthday on Israeli independence day or something?

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/israel-lets-be-fair-government-is-always-evil-and-stupid/

Perhaps I’m biased in favour of the Israelis armed forces. I don’t know. Thats possible. Their girls are such honeys and they always remember my birthday. I suppose its a sentimental weakness I have because they never forget my birthday. It may be that at that time I’m three sheets to the wind, but it always brings a sentimental tear to my eye when the Israeli armed forces remembers my birthday.

Jason Soon

6 May 10 at 9:25 pm
Could be. Who knows what’s going on.

JC

6 May 10 at 9:41 pm
Best put down of the year so far.

Whenever people complain about Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes being smug, condescending, or arrogant, I always tell them: “Well, maybe you would be smug, too, if you’d won a Victoria Cross and the Tour de France in the same year. And maybe you would be a little condescending if you’d devised an inexpensive water purification method with life-saving applications throughout the Third World and also a failsafe courtroom gambit to defeat all speeding charges. And maybe you would be arrogant as well if you’d knocked out Evander Holyfield in a street fight and secured a world-first interview with the Hidden Imam.”

Mind you, I’m not aware that Holmes has actually done any of these things, but he must have come terribly close. Otherwise he’s just some English bloke hosting a dull 15-minute TV show, in which case acting so very superior just makes no sense at all.

Makes other put-downs seems so amateurish.

JC

6 May 10 at 10:24 pm
People were (fairly rightly) sceptical of predictions of George Pell being elected pope at the last conclave. However, if this widely discussed rumour swirling throughout the world is true, Pell is set to become the most powerful Catholic churchman in history.

Interesting.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 10:37 pm
Is that like the CEO position to the pope being chairman?

JC

6 May 10 at 10:41 pm
Not quite, JC. That would be the Secretary of State. The position being mentioned in relation to Pell is boss of the Congregation for Bishops. That means he would have immense power over the appointment of bishops throughout the world. If chosen, he will be the first English-speaker in history to have that job.

C.L.

6 May 10 at 10:47 pm
The Euro is just collapsing. This is very “ungood”. The ECB better start pulling a few more rabbits out of the hat.

I find it interesting that that it was up to about 4 months ago the conventional wisdom (which i warned against) was that the US Dollar would be destroyed and the Euro would rein supreme. Huge Asian central bank inflows followed that advice.

China stuck around 25% of its 2 trillion reserves in the Euro.

This thing will end up at parity with the dollar if they’re not careful or even lower.

JC

6 May 10 at 11:06 pm
Nigel Farage injured in British plane crash.

http://www.infowars.com/eu-critic-nigel-farage-injured-in-plane-crash-in-northamptonshire/

An amateur attempt by MI6. Who do they think they are? Putin?

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 11:40 pm
Rudd got this one right.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/rudd-backs-brown-as-britons-go-to-the-polls-20100506-ug17.html

Hear hear!

Michael Fisk

6 May 10 at 11:46 pm
Wow. Nice concept car, Ford.

fords becoming the best carmaker in the world.

http://news.drive.com.au/photogallery/drive/2010-ford-start-concept/20100427-tnsy.html?selectedImage=0

JC

6 May 10 at 11:57 pm
Cross-dressing man in burka robs jeweler.

A CROSS-DRESSING robber wearing a burka and hijab tricked jewelers into opening their door, only for an armed gang to raid the store, UK police said last night.

The man, dressed in traditional Islamic women’s clothes, rang the doorbell at the Capri Jewellers in Bury, in the northern English county of Lancashire on Wednesday afternoon.

But as soon as he was buzzed in, a further three men – including one with a shotgun – stormed the store.

The group stole a large amount of jewelry, including bangles, rings and lockets, before escaping in a waiting car, described as a silver Toyota Yaris.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 1:10 am
With a lavish dollop of irony, Michael C. Moynihan at Reason laments the fact that there isn’t a Tea Party movement in Greece – where leftist ‘protesters’ prefer to kill people.

If Only the Tea Partiers Were More European.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 1:15 am
No wonder he responded so tardily:

Obama biggest recipient of BP cash.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 1:20 am
Thanks god it wasn’t Halliburton.

JC

7 May 10 at 1:24 am
“anyone know WTF Bird is talking about here?”

Hopefully he’s back on the hooch. Finer comedy is rarely had.

BirdLab

7 May 10 at 9:08 am
Lab
It looks like he’s hidden a thread about Barry Manilow.
I guess we all have our limits in terms of subjecting ourselves to public humiliation, even Bird

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/the-greatest-song-time-to-give-barry-manilow-his-due/#comment-29940

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 9:15 am
I’ll have to take back what I said about Bird having excellent musical taste now.

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 9:17 am
“you claimed the voters were intimidated yet the results and observers said no.”

Um yeah sure Homer, the voters aren’t intimidated in Palestine.

“Israel can destroy any country in the vicinity.
No country can do the same.

Any you clowns stil lwant to claim Israel is threatened.”

Here’s some homework dummy: google “asymmetric warfare”

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 9:40 am
No wonder CL supports the tea party movement.
last CBS poll had 64% of them believing Obama had increased taxes for most Americans where in fact he actually cut them.
They seem unaware fully 40% of his stimulus package was tax cuts. One reason why it wasn’t as successful as it should have been.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 9:43 am
Interview with Gaddafi. Imagine if Bird has his own country to run. This is what it would be like. The man is nuts

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,692626,00.html

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 9:45 am
But the question is surely what are Gadaffi’s views on fractional reserve? Not to mention Barry Manilow.

BirdLab

7 May 10 at 9:48 am
“last CBS poll had 64% of them believing Obama had increased taxes for most Americans where in fact he actually cut them.”

It’s great to see you still don’t understand market dynamics or intertemporal decision making. Joe and Bubba understand Ricardian equivalence and the fiscal theory of prices better than you.

“One reason why it wasn’t as successful as it should have been.”

What was the ROI on the Government projects?

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 9:49 am
SPIEGEL: Whatever you may now say about Switzerland, previously it didn’t bother you in the least. You did business with the country — your company Tamoil Suisse has dozens of filling stations in Switzerland.

Gadhafi: Money is laundered on a grand scale in Switzerland. Anyone who robs a bank later invests the money in Switzerland. Anyone who evades taxes goes to Switzerland. Anyone who wants to deposit money in secret accounts goes to Switzerland. And a large number of owners of such secret accounts have died under mysterious circumstances.

SPIEGEL: Excuse me?

Gadhafi: Yes, Switzerland is behind it all. …

Gadhafi: But we are talking now about Switzerland. It is possible that among the Libyans who you are asking about — and who died abroad — there were also some who died because they had secret accounts in Switzerland.

SPIEGEL: And you are seriously maintaining that Switzerland as a state ordered the killing of these people?

Gadhafi: The investigations will show this. And this brings me back once again to the phenomenon of assisted suicide. A large number of people have been deliberately eliminated under this pretext. Switzerland maintains that these individuals expressed the desire to take their lives. But in reality it was done to get at their money. More than 7,000 people have died like this. I am thus calling for Switzerland to be dissolved as a state. The French part should go to France, the Italian part to Italy and the German part to Germany. Even Ayman al-Zawahiri …

SPIEGEL: … Osama bin Laden’s deputy …

Gadhafi: … took al-Qaida’s money to Switzerland, where it is still located. Switzerland finances terrorism.

SPIEGEL: Once again: Even if all of this were as you say — why did this never bother you before?

Gadhafi: We had already noticed that money is laundered in Switzerland and people die in unexplained ways. But recently Switzerland has given itself away.

SPIEGEL: You have recently been to Europe on a number of occasions. Who do you see as your closest friend among the European heads of state and government?

Gadhafi: My closest friend in Europe is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, but a few others are also close to me.

SPIEGEL: What do you think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel?

Gadhafi: She is a strong personality. More like a man than a woman. But I have never had a conversation with her.

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 9:52 am
Marky ,
your claim of voters being intimidated in Palestine is claptrap.

When Hamas was voted in it was because they were seen as cleanskins with regard to corruption and being seen as administratively competent.

what happened instead of trying to get Hamas involved in the political process alah Northern Ireland they were ostracised.

War aint going to solve problems in this area only a political process will.

who is winning in the area Israel or Hamas?

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 9:52 am
My god Jason. He’s actually chanelling Bird!

BirdLab

7 May 10 at 9:55 am
“When Hamas was voted in it was because they were seen as cleanskins with regard to corruption and being seen as administratively competent.”

Does your local members staffers walk around with paramilitary gear and automatic weapons during an election?

“War aint going to solve problems in this area only a political process will.

who is winning in the area Israel or Hamas?”

Yes dummy, and Hamas was formed in a reaction to Fatah refusing to stick to the principle of the destruction of Israel.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 9:56 am
Marky answering a question on whether Obama has increased or decreased taxes has nothing to do with intertemporal decision making as you should know.

This is just like your laughable understanding of whether a VAT is regressive or proportional.

you should know but do not know. If you went to university and had studied economics you would know so go and do it.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 9:56 am
no Marky.
If you are capable go and find out how Hamas was formed and who enabled it to actually be an organisation.

Another wonderful example of Marky’s research capability he brags about.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 9:59 am
Obama has tripled the deficit and his stimulus package has increased unemployment.

Naturally, Homer approves.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:00 am
“Marky answering a question on whether Obama has increased or decreased taxes has nothing to do with intertemporal decision making as you should know.”

Robert Rubin and David Ricardo disagree.

“This is just like your laughable understanding of whether a VAT is regressive or proportional.”

This is beyond the pale. Proportionality is a measure variance of the tax rate that the jurisdictional authority applies as your income rises. That’s it.

Your reasoning is so absurd that abolishing taxes, even regressive ones, is ultimately more regressive.

Imbecile.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 10:01 am
“If you are capable go and find out how Hamas was formed and who enabled it to actually be an organisation.”

Err yes Lord Dummy Israel supported the Muslim Brotherhood as splitters, but you actually know very little about Hamas’ gaols etc. You think they want to “negotiate”.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 10:02 am
Yes Mark, weren’t you aware that Hamas delivered a Boyer lecture on this stuff?

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:03 am
Homer’s amazed that playing clever buggers with people you exchange artillery fire with might backfire.

I’m shocked he’s so naive.

Well, not really of course.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 10:06 am
Former US General Warns of Chemical Attacks Against Israel.

It’s OK, though. Syria and Iran are just finding out public opinion.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:12 am
John H – comments please.

It appears that everyone except sub-saharan Africans have a little Neanderthal in them

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html?pagewanted=2&ref=science

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 10:16 am
Homelessness update:

After burning down 120 houses, Rudd ‘government’ now threatening to seize the houses of the installers it paid.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:17 am
“Potential Hezbollah offensive includes chemically armed SCUD missiles with a 450 km range, preemptive strikes on air fields, and a wave of tunnel attacks that cross from Lebanon into Israel.”

Homer: “That’s not even an existential threat! Sure, many civilians on both sides would die, but Israel would win a knock em down, drag em out fight!”

Homer is sounding vaguely Gen. Jack D. Ripper-ish today. Although he assures us that Hezbollah just want something like the Good Friday accords.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 10:18 am
C.L – with Rudd’s stuff up of building 0 of 2000 houses for over $670 million -

http://bovination.com/readArticle.jsp?articleID=1661838

I think Rudd has a policy of tackling unemployment – but the trade off is an increase in homelessness.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 10:20 am
Good news: Rudd’s Hugo Chavez mining policy has boosted investment:

Rio Tinto re-starts iron ore program in ‘attractive’ Canada.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:57 am
Rudd. The Manitobian candidate.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 11:02 am
Marky,

you have admitted your bizarre understanding on VAT isn’t even in the textbooks so until it does get there buzz off.

no neither Rubin nor Ricardo deal with questions asked at a period in time on what is happening at that exact time.
duh!

oh it would help to understnd the beginnings of Hamas
both Begin and Shamir were murderous thugs who as terrorists murdered more innocent civilians than anyone in Hams could dream of but surprise surprise put them in a political situation where things could change or even in government they changed even Arafat changed in government!

gosh CL people who sign that they are experienced and competent at something and then turn out to have catallaxian expertise and experience which houses burn down are going to be dealt with .
Who’d ever thunked it

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 11:16 am
Mark, why do you bother?

dover_beach

7 May 10 at 11:21 am
gosh CL people who sign that they are experienced and competent at something and then turn out to have catallaxian expertise and experience which houses burn down are going to be dealt with .

Can someone take out the Babel fish and translate this for me?

Is Homer trying to out-Joyce James Joyce?

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 11:22 am
“you have admitted your bizarre understanding on VAT isn’t even in the textbooks so until it does get there buzz off.”

Homer, please show me a textbook which supports your idea that the only “proportional” taxes are those which are levied progressively. Or show me one that would go into a digression and disprove the idea itself by showing that abolishing a regressive tax is “regressive”.

If you also can’t reason against the poorly written sections of an undergraduate text, you should hand back your masters.

You’re also justifying Hamas’ goals by rewriting them because you don’t like Begin – all to justify your claim that Palestine has elections free of intimidation – so you can further justify your claim that only Israel is threatened – *not even esitentially* which belies a further assumption of yours that Syria and Iran have clean hands.

This is getting rather loopy, given the chemical weapons tipped Scuds and the documented cases of “Palestinian” terrorist attacks in and out of Israel, and where the arms and money comes from.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 11:26 am
Liquid breakfast for Homer again. Chateau Turpentine.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 11:26 am
“no neither Rubin nor Ricardo deal with questions asked at a period in time on what is happening at that exact time.
duh!”

Intertemporal analysis and comparative dynamics are flawed because they are more complete than comparative statics?

It’s like you’re championing the cause of dumbing down economics.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 11:29 am
Looks like David Cameron’s outstanding strategy of being a leftist with a blue badge is working a treat. Hung parliament here we come. I do hope the US military will intervene and save the great libraries and museums of Britain when it’s a smouldering ruin in 6 months.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 11:30 am
Marky even a blithering idiot can see the question is unrelated but hey great obfuscation.

No IT the polls started to look less attractive for the Conservatives straight after announcing their expenditure cuts.

There was hung parliament in the mid 70s.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 11:32 am
“even a blithering idiot can see the question is unrelated but hey great obfuscation.”

How Homer. You should justify this or man up and answer the questions.

“No IT the polls started to look less attractive for the Conservatives straight after announcing their expenditure cuts.”

Sure. A link to a poll that proves this would be nice. Which is bizzare in the first place as you’ve characterised the British as being so dumb that they expect the conservatives to be socialists.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 11:35 am
“why do you bother?”

Stupidity needs to be called out.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 11:35 am
Let me guess, you used to eat little lunch with Clement Attlee and you once went grouse hunting with Bonar Law? You also had an internship that involved cutting the crusts off the Black Rod’s cucumber sandwiches.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 11:36 am
Let’s see what Nate Silver has to say:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/05/final-uk-projection-conservatives-312.html

Oh.

BirdLab

7 May 10 at 11:54 am
Hey Marky it was in the special issue of the economist that looked at the election.

nice to know IT’s knowledge of history matches that of Marky.

Actually Bonar Law was from Northern Ireland. not much hunting there

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 12:10 pm
This is the latest from the BBC based on actual results so far, despite Homer’s illiterate miscomprehension of the Economist:

Share of votes

1. CON 32.6%
2. LAB 29.1%
3. LD 20.3%
4. Others 18.1%

It’s a protest vote. Homer thinks it backs the current largesse.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 12:16 pm
Isnt Homer great?

Avant-garde literary artist, psephologist, political historian, geographer and even an expert on hunting

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 12:17 pm
SRL:

Just ignore homer. Someone’s been opening the cellar door each morning deliberately in violation of asylum rules. Nursing staff are trying to get to the bottom of this.

JC

7 May 10 at 12:18 pm
“Actually Bonar Law was from Northern Ireland. not much hunting there”

Hmm really Homer. He wasn’t. How mnay times have you been hunting in N Ireland?

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 12:19 pm
Bonar Law was a Canadian of Irish-Scot heritage who settled in Scotland and represented Glasgow and Manchester in Parliament.

“Hey Marky it was in the special issue of the economist that looked at the election.

nice to know IT’s knowledge of history matches that of Marky.

Actually Bonar Law was from Northern Ireland. not much hunting there

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 12:10 pm”

You can’t even convincingly lie about an obscure UK PM.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 12:20 pm
Well played, Homer! I couldn’t have imagined that response in a thousand years!

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 12:21 pm
He was hunting in Northern Island, SRL. He was the hunted , they were hunting him. They would have rung his neck if they caught him.

JC

7 May 10 at 12:21 pm
BBC live results here.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 12:22 pm
Sarah Cameron’s quite easy on the peepers.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 12:23 pm
Yea, I thought that too, Fidel and then I recalled who she married.

JC

7 May 10 at 12:26 pm
LOL

if oNly Homre would READD a little!@

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=dtUtUdvYnrwC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=bonar+law+hunting&source=bl&ots=nWkQFFiwYV&sig=HhoUNScidtXpDyMvSWXCGDkF3dc&hl=en&ei=f3njS9LsMc-gkQWxv4UT&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Bonar Law
By Andrew Taylor

“Law profoundly disliked music and the theatre, he was utterly ignorant and indifferent to hunting, shooting and fishing…”

I think Homer is as well.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=northern+ireland+hunting+lodges&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 12:28 pm
Cameron should be thrown out on his freaking ear for what he’s done to the Conservatives. Looking forward he’s destroyed that party.

The Bank of England governor was almost right when he said recently that the party which government this time around will destroy themselves for a generation. The reason is of course that no one was up front with the British public in telling them what needs to be done seeing the UK’s finances now are rivaling Greece.

Cameron should should have been honest with the public and told them what was needed and if they chose the other course then so be it. The conservatives would have won and held power for a generation after that.

Conservatives, or the right should never ever play the election like Cameron did by coming across as a soft left douchebag… especially in an election as important as this one.

JC

7 May 10 at 12:35 pm
Didn’t even Gimme Shelter:

Rolling Stone Bill Wyman says he really hopes the Tories win. Speaking on the BBC election boat, he says he grew up in a working class family, but “Labour did nothing for me”.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 12:41 pm
I think Homer knows more about Boney M than Bonar Law

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 12:44 pm
I suspect most of the Rolling Stones are Tories. They’d hate taxes. And Mick Jagger went to the LSE

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 12:45 pm
Lefties, particularly at one site have been extolling the virtues of the European welfare state and why Australia should become more like them (presumably to go broke sooner rather than later)..

Ladies take a freaking look at this chart of misery and see if you can make head or tail of it.

In the commercial world Enron executives went to jail for shit like this. Meanwhile our virtuous leftdom want us to look like them.

Fellas this is what leftwing fuckery looks like.

This is what you end up with in Leftville.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html

JC

7 May 10 at 12:46 pm
whoopsy I was thinking of Edward Carson.

The problem is if you cut in earnest you end up with a larger deficit.
to wit Ireland increased their deficit by about 50% by harsh cutting.
the best way to restore the budget is to enable growth to permeate and then consolidate and then make the large cuts.
That is when it will boost growth rather than retard it.

the UK is hardly in the situation of Greece. It has its own currency which makes re-adjustment much easier.

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 12:50 pm
JC – Nice graph. Should have been titled CLUSTERFUCK.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 12:52 pm
Thanks for that JC. You stated well over a year ago that while everyone was looking at the US Europe was a far bigger problem. That web of debt is scary because of posible domino effects. We are living in interesting times.

John H.

7 May 10 at 12:59 pm
No kidding Homer, but did you suck down the entire bottle of dumb pills this morning?

How the fuck are Greece or the rest of the PIIGS for that matter going to be allowed by the market to raise the deficit ante? Who is going to finance them?

The market? Greece paper was trading at 12% last night which incidentally is now trading at a higher rate than regular corporate junk bonds.

Let growth permeate? Is that like your brain percolating bullshit.

There’s about as much chance these rotten apples are allowed to raise or even maintain these deficits as you getting the Nobel prize in economics. In other it’s not even slim. It’s no chance at all, you idiot.

Let growth permeate? LOl.

You should be permeated off this site for posting crap like that, as it makes everyone’s head hurt.

The PIIGS are the first little piglets to be shown the door away from the welfare state. It’s over.

No doubt they’ll to continue the bullshit and pretend that E60 trillion in forward combined EU liabilities they have accumulated to 2035 can easily be paid for but it’s over.

JC

7 May 10 at 1:05 pm
hey JohnH any comments on the recent finding of Neanderthal genes in Eurasians (the population that left subsaharan Africa)?

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 1:06 pm
Yea John… I always said the real problem was Europe and unfortunately it’s come to pass. The other one is Japan of course. That will be the mother of all eruptions.

It will go like this i think.

Europe get keel hauled then Japan and finally it will move back to the US where the states and the cities with the worst finances finally cop it in the between the legs.

The GFC was never ever a repudiation of markets etc. It was a direct repudiation of interventionism and welfare statism which resulted in huge amounts of mis-allocated debt and resources.

JC

7 May 10 at 1:09 pm
The Boondocks don’t like Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6maW42gPZm8&feature=player_embedded

tal

7 May 10 at 1:12 pm
Hey Jason,

No, saw the headlines but not that surprised. What is fascinating about the finding though is that neandertals are an offshoot of the heidelberg stem from circa 550,000 years ago, whereas we are from an African stem of circa 200,000 years ago. So there must have been a certain degree of what evolutionists call “convergence” in evolutionary dynamics. The two species may have started from differing lineages but evolved towards similiar features.

However, I’m not qualified to know if such studies are valid and given earlier reports claiming no admixture I’m a little cautious about drawing too many conclusions. Paleoanthropology is fascinating stuff but so much is conjectural.

As a fascinating aside re genetic you might enjoy:

Scientists Uncover Transfer of Genetic Material Between Blood-Sucking Insect and Mammals

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100430155856.htm
…

“It’s not a smoking gun, but it is as close to it as you can get,” Feschotte said

The infected blood-sucking triatomine, causes Chagas disease by passing trypanosomes (parasitic protozoa) to its host. Researchers found the bug shared transposon DNA with some hosts, namely the opossum and the squirrel monkey. The transposons found in the insect are 98 percent identical to those of its mammal hosts.

The researchers also identified members of what Feschotte calls space invader transposons in the genome of Lymnaea stagnalis, a pond snail that acts as an intermediate host for trematode worms, a parasite to a wide range of mammals.

John H.

7 May 10 at 1:17 pm
All I want to know, John, is this: can they rebuild extinct critters or not?

C.L.

7 May 10 at 1:25 pm
I say old chap, that BBC Election site is simply capital. The speed at which it is updating is wizard.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 1:26 pm
Rog

With regard to your comment about fibre vs wireless, have a read of this article by Steve Jobs. The implication is that users are moving from getting their internet via a PC to getting it via a mobile device – ie, over wireless.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Then there was this in the Aus today:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/most-interner-users-would-prefer-slower-cheaper-plans/story-e6frg6n6-1225863336449

But as construction of the NBN moves into full swing, current market reports show that fixed-line services are under immense pressure from the mobile broadband systems.

An analyst’s report by Goldman Sachs released in January suggested the fixed-line broadband market had reached saturation, adding just 80,000 new customers in the second half of last year, its lowest growth in seven years.

In contrast, wireless broadband pricing was becoming cheaper, with subscriber numbers growing by more than 600,000 in the same period, the strongest growth in eight years.

Whilst fibre is indeed capable of carrying a lot more data than wireless, that is of no importance. What is important is how the consumer chooses to connect. If enough people move from browsing via a PC to browsing wirelessly, then 10 times more data could be delivered to the consumber by wireless than fibre.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 1:26 pm
All I want to know, John, is this: can they rebuild extinct critters or not?

No, can’t be done because genes are not the only determinant of the phenotype. Need the right womb.

John H.

7 May 10 at 1:27 pm
So much for the media narrative. The Lib Dems are getting their arses handed to them.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 1:29 pm
Looks like a hung parliament with the Conservatives in charge. Is that right? Lib-Dem vote up by a piddling 0.8 percent. So much for the media’s lefty post-Labour Clegg parachute.

Meanwhile…

…Gordon Brown said he wanted to play a part in the UK “having a strong, stable and principled government”.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 1:33 pm
That’s right, Boy. The computer as we know is living on borrowed time. The future is all about portability along the Ipad lines.

Homer and Wodge of course are Eastwood’s premier software and internet entrepreneurs so if there’s anyone in this country who should be listened to it’s those two knuckheads. I mean, fair shake here. Would you listen to Jobs and Goldman’s market research or would you listen to Homer and Wodge? Of course you’d listen to Eastwood’s finest minds.

JC

7 May 10 at 1:37 pm
Delightful news that Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith lost her seat.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 1:39 pm
“The problem is if you cut in earnest you end up with a larger deficit. to wit Ireland increased their deficit by about 50% by harsh cutting.”

Bullshit. You are fitting the facts to your magic pudding economics.

Cutting did not reduce GDP growth. Nor did it logically follow that the deficit would increase.

The only possible way for this to happen is if either a) Government projects return a higher ROI than the private sector, or b) the Government cuts the projects with the highest ROI which are better than the average.

Another whoopsy from you Homer.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 1:40 pm
What do they use to cary the signal to the towers?

rog

7 May 10 at 1:40 pm
“the UK is hardly in the situation of Greece. It has its own currency which makes re-adjustment much easier.”

Yep, they can end up like Japan or the US. Another whoopsy.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 1:41 pm
“What do they use to cary the signal to the towers?”

I forgot rog, we’re at “peak spectrum”.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 1:42 pm
If enough people move from browsing via a PC to browsing wirelessly, then 10 times more data could be delivered to the consumber by wireless than fibre.
.
so we could be stuck with the biggest white elephant in history. Lots of wires hanging from apartment buildings and running down every street; unused, ignored, wasteful; while kids access the web with their ipads via phone towers.

daddy dave

7 May 10 at 1:43 pm
What do they use to cary the signal to the towers?
Buckets.
If Jack falls down while he’s carrying it up the hill, all those email messages and youtube vids will spill down and go everywhere. it would be a disaster.
.
But seriously Rog, the NBN is like a telephone rollout with a physical connection to every household, not just tower to tower. It will go up streets and down lanes, through cities, towns, and villages everybody will have a big cable plugged into their house. It will go everywhere.
But you could hook up all the towers and hubs at a minuscule fraction of the cost – leaving the households to connect however they can (probably wirelessly).

daddy dave

7 May 10 at 1:48 pm
Wodge:

What do you think 4G does in terms carrying capacity? Who are the demands in the US being satisfied?

———–

“the UK is hardly in the situation of Greece. It has its own currency which makes re-adjustment much easier.”

Much easier? How so?

Through devaluation?

Good one Mr. Market Economist. The bond and currency markets are certainly of a mindset to allow fiscal expansion and people will continue buying UK bonds and sterling without any concern for devaluation and a bond market collapse.

You really think that, right?

Do you understand this is the repudiation of the welfare state.

There’s two ways you could finance a cradle to grave welfare system. You could do it through taxes or you can for a time do it through borrowing and fiddling the nation’s fiscal balances.

Taxes would need to go to 75% at the median rate to just continue in some European states. We tried that in the middle part of the last century and it failed.

We then went to borrowing for it and that is failing right now.

JC

7 May 10 at 1:52 pm
They use this stuff called fibre to link the towers. Hemp fibre. Or perhaps finely spun yak hair.

As others have already pointed out, it is cheaper to run fibre to say 10 towers in a suburb than 5,000 homes.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 1:52 pm
Furthermore to Homer’s idea: the Irish started to recover in Dec 2009. If he was right, they would be facing a serious long term problem of near zero growth, given the postulates of Keynes – e.g an economy in a slump may neve recover.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:02 pm
Amazing, they are going to run fibre underground – how novel!

next they will be running water underground too.

and gas

and fuel

and electricity

rog

7 May 10 at 2:06 pm
You forgot trains, Rog. Don’t forget the metro.

And cars – cross city tunnel and so on.

I’ve even been in a canal that went underground.

Your point?

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 2:11 pm
My point? telstra is finished

rog

7 May 10 at 2:12 pm
Rog, I am currently getting fibre hauled into 3 offices in the CBD. I had it pulled into another site last year. I have had a hand in building a fibre ring around the Sydney metro area and another through Newcastle, with the links running at a mix of 1Gb and 10Gb.

These are/were all sites that have good, existing ducts. I am not going to try and explain just how time consuming and difficult the process has been in each and every case – and I have dealt with every carrier in the country that owns its own fibre, and most of the big contractors that haul it through the ducts.

I know that conceptually, it sounds easy. There is a hole in the ground – let’s run a fibre through it. But it isn’t that easy in practice. Heart transplants sound pretty simple too – rip the old one out and stuff in a new one. What could go wrong?

Telstra may be finished – but it will be a long, long, long time in the dying.

It’s a damn sight simpler to just run fibre to a few towers and broadcast from there.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 2:28 pm
Wodge:

You honestly think the market doesn’t know the government is trying to expropriate telstra’s assets?

You think you’re the first person to have caught on to that idea?

JC

7 May 10 at 2:30 pm
Another “oh shit!” memo about Europe from today’s positively suicide inducing Daily Reckoning:

*David Rosenberg:

“Back to Greece – the fiscal future is really messy. Latest projections show that by 2013, public debt-to-GDP will approach 150%. Debt-service charges will absorb 9% of GDP and 25% of tax revenues will be siphoned to bondholders outside the country. Government spending is 50% of GDP and the civil service does not seem willing to accept even a freeze – not a cut – to wages, benefits, and pensions. It is not difficult to see the Euro-area going the way of the Latin Monetary Union a century ago.”*

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:30 pm
My take is that the Euros will sell off gold to finance their debt consolidation.

A delta hedged position may be worthwhile considering until it happens, old money may seek safety in gold.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:32 pm
the civil service does not seem willing to accept even a freeze – not a cut – to wages, benefits, and pensions.
.
holy crap.
This reminds me of dealing with a small child having a tantrum; and you just have to wait it out and let them have a tantrum.
They eventually figure out that ice cream willl not be forthcoming, no matter how much they scream and flail.

daddy dave

7 May 10 at 2:33 pm
Leightons have been doing it for years, it is doable and is done

rog

7 May 10 at 2:37 pm
Britain, as we speak, is a totalitarian banana republic.

Technically, the incumbent prime minister has first crack at forming a coalition in a hung parlaiment – regardless of whether the other contender won a larger majority of the votes.

That’s just what Gordon Brown says he’ll try to do.

Many seats will probably require by-election because of widespread breakdowns at polling booths. Labour proved incapable of staging a fair and proficient election on top of everything else.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 2:39 pm
Using a Rolls Royce to do parcel deliveries is also doable to, Wodge, you nimbus.

JC

7 May 10 at 2:39 pm
What are you fantasising about now jc, telstra sp has been sliding for years – and all through Howard’s tenure.

rog

7 May 10 at 2:40 pm
If it’s so simple, why does it take 12-16 weeks to get a fibre pulled through an existing duct in the CBD? And sometimes longer?

Leightons have indeed been doing it for years. That doesn’t mean though that it is easy, quick or cost effective to run it into 90% of the houses in the country.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 2:42 pm
Send the UN inspectors to Britain please.

Our preferential system shits all over this travesty.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 2:43 pm
“What are you fantasising about now jc, telstra sp has been sliding for years – and all through Howard’s tenure.”

Their yield is excellent. I suspect VOIP will actually be more of a threat. It is current, the NBN will take a long time to finish.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:44 pm
The immigration led gerrymandering planned and executed by Blair/Brown has paid handsome dividends:

There seems to have been a sharp difference in the swing from Labour to Conservative depending on the ethnic minority population of the constituency, says our analyst Prof John Curtice. On average, where the ethnic population is less than 2%, the swing from Labour to Conservative has on average been 5.1%. In contrast, where more than 25% belong to an ethnic minority, the average swing is just 1.7%.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 2:51 pm
Greece is just another example of what happens when governments use lies and obfuscation to get re-elected. I’m amazed at how well people tolerate political lies. Just a few days ago I had an encounter with a leftie who is a fan of Foucault. Basically his argument was that we should not be perturbed when governments lie to us because of “real politik” consideratons. Oh sounds so informed but the phrase is empty of content. I sometimes get the impression that some people trained in the humanities are more interested in winning the argument than in making truthful statements. I really do hate that. Believe it or not troops I work hard to be honest. I suggest that the decline in the valuation of honesty is very dangerous for democracies.

Since that discussion I have been toying with the idea that the efficacy of any system, be it conceptual, technological, or cultural, is heavily contingent on the quality of information within that system. So when politicians lie to us they are paving the way to hell. When we accept those lies as justifiable political strategy we are already in purgatory.

John H.

7 May 10 at 2:53 pm
BTW has anyone told Pauline Hanson that she’s moving to a country that has proportionally more Muslim immigrants? (now that’s she’s OK with Asians but doesn’t like Muslims).

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 2:54 pm
Well, she’s going to buy off a Muslim, not sell to one.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:55 pm
Infidel:

That number is too small to worry about. They lost because Cameron couldn’t close the deal with the British public and no amount of excuses from him will change that.

He fucked up big time.

JC

7 May 10 at 2:58 pm
Looks like UKIP is the UK’s 4th largest party.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 2:59 pm
Wodge:

You say the NBN is doable. Of course it is, you knucklehead. of course it’s doable.

However the real question is if it presents also with economic efficiency and if it in fact turns out to be a white elephant. That’s the real issue, you nimrod.

No one here is questioning when it can be done. It’s the cost, the relative efficiency and in fact if it will be used as much as you and Conroy think.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:03 pm
Bird comments on JC’s Europe debt graph

Look at this. The Italians exhibiting the Cambria understanding of economics.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html

Cambria swore black and blue that you cannot cut spending during a recession. He has no knowledge of economics. Look at what happens when you have that many dumb wops all in one place.

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 3:09 pm
Bird’s gone nuts:

“Cambria swore black and blue that you cannot cut spending during a recession. He has no knowledge of economics. Look at what happens when you have that many dumb wops all in one place.

We are missing out on the most wonderful opportunity. The opportunity of the century. The idea is just to send all these banks broke. Everyone could just repudiate their debts. A great way to get these parasitical banking scam-artists out of our lives. All the banks should be bankrupted. We have to do this. We really have no choice. We will carry these parasites at great cost to ourselves.”

No, JC mentioned that if you had a good fiscal policy and budgetary prioroties, there wouldn’t be much more to cut than welfare, which does have a staboliser element and is politically undoable.

Other than that, if Bird wants to live in a paradise with broke banks, he can always move to Greece in a few months time.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 3:09 pm
There seems to have been a sharp difference in the swing from Labour to Conservative depending on the ethnic minority population of the constituency, says our analyst Prof John Curtice. On average, where the ethnic population is less than 2%, the swing from Labour to Conservative has on average been 5.1%. In contrast, where more than 25% belong to an ethnic minority, the average swing is just 1.7%.

How does that work? Given the over all swing is 5.3%, a moderate amount of ethnics must increase the tory vote even more than 5.3%

Steve Edney

7 May 10 at 3:18 pm
examples of Chinglish

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 3:22 pm
Examples of nonsense:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/05/07/a-new-indigenous-representative-body/

# shabadooNo Gravatar
May 7th, 2010 at 1:50 pm

Indigenous Australians, like all Australians, have a representative body. It’s called Parliament.
# 8 David Irving (no relation)No Gravatar
May 7th, 2010 at 2:33 pm

Gee, shabadoo, you sound almost exactly like a certain right-wing trollumnist.
# 9 adrianNo Gravatar
May 7th, 2010 at 2:46 pm

I was thinking what an unusually intelligent conversation this was until shabadoo turned up. Thanks everyone else.

——

Apparently thinking Aboriginies should have equal treatment is unintelligent.

I can’t understand how “enlightened” people have this ludicrous freakshow view on indigenous issues.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 3:25 pm
Kroger essays Rudd: a classic.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 3:26 pm
Bird’s an idiot.

What I said was that it’s hard to (and you shouldn’t) cut spending directly related to automatic stabilizers that function during a recession.

That’s things like the dole.

Furthermore we were talking about Australia and as far as I recall the PIIGS were never mentioned or formed part of the discussion.

In short Bird’s an ADHD addled idiot.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:30 pm
Oh dear God:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/05/06/rspt-capital-to-go-on-strike/

naskingNo Gravatar
May 6th, 2010 at 8:40 pm

Taking into account the problems in Greece & some other European nations based on widespread corruption, tax avoidance by the rich, and meddling by investment banks for their own profiteering ends…it seems to me that Australians need a government that is willing to means-test rebates and tax the profits of those who do not pay their fair share.

Whilst redistributing said revenue to infrastructure jobs & other business sectors & industries/manufacturing to maintain & create jobs during more GFC-related stress.

All in eggs in too few baskets is frankly dumb.

The lucky country but…

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 3:31 pm
Crikey. Rudd will be in intensive care for a month after that mauling.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 3:33 pm
Everyone could just repudiate their debts. A great way to get these parasitical banking scam-artists out of our lives.

shorter Bird.

He wants debt forgiveness for himself. He wants debt forgiveness on the stupid loan he took to buy that house at the top of the Sydney market.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:33 pm
Heads will roll after he reads that CL

tal

7 May 10 at 3:35 pm
“He wants debt forgiveness for himself. He wants debt forgiveness on the stupid loan he took to buy that house at the top of the Sydney market.”

Property, like stock investing, as he told us, is “dead easy”. I do wonder how he lives with the guilt of supporting the welfare queen industry that is retail banking, however..

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 3:36 pm
Bird corrects Mark in his usual professorial style

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/blindingly-fast-results-on-productivity-improvement-easy-to-come-by/#comment-29950

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 3:38 pm
That’s a great essay. It’s so good it makes me weep in agreement.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:38 pm
I never said stabilisers increase spending. They merely give rise to path dependence to normal activity as long as mispricing is not widespread or persistent.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 3:41 pm
Marky,
to wit Ireland

Ireland began cutting back deficit spending in 2008, when its banking crisis began to spread and its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 7.3%. The economy promptly contracted by 10% and, surprise, surprise, the deficit exploded to 14.3% of GDP (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-22042010-BP/EN/2-22042010-BP-EN.PDF).

do you read anything or are you in fact as stupid on fiscal policy as Forrest.

Forrest the UK would not devalue. It has a floating exchange rate. It would take advantage of a depreciation.
Perhaps a read of the Washington consensus would help.
You curb domestic demand and only rely on net exports for growth.
Greece and any other nation in the Euro cannot do this.
They can only regain competitiveness through wage cuts. A double edged sword which means years of barely any growth.

Oh what happens if Wireless attracts heaps and heaps of customers?

Does that same happen to the NBN

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 3:51 pm
I sometimes get the impression that some people trained in the humanities are more interested in winning the argument than in making truthful statements. I really do hate that.
.
John H, thanks for articulating that because I think I’ve felt the same thing for a long while; but in contrast to you, when I say it, it just comes out incoherent and angry.

daddy dave

7 May 10 at 3:52 pm
Bird says I swore black and blue that we could not cut spending in a recession. Bird ignores what I said which that you should leave the stabilizers there in a recession, otherwise why have them in the first place.

I never advocated the Rudd financial malfeasance.

he’s such a delusional liar.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:55 pm
Hands up all those who have installed a fibre network at home to connect up their PCs, printers, Xboxs, laptops, home entertainment system etc.

Hands up those who use a mix of copper and wireless.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 3:57 pm
Homer;

You nimbus , the term devalue is used interchangeably with depreciation.

go ahead be my guest, try and advise a government in Europe to raise their spending/deficit. In fact advise the UK government to do so and see what happens.

You nimrod, the UK pound would end up being used as toilet paper in a day. Their bonds would be worth no more than a few cents in the pound.

Go away.

JC

7 May 10 at 3:59 pm
Oh what happens if Wireless attracts heaps and heaps of customers?

Ummm let me guess. Gee demand goes up and they build more receptors or think of ways of getting more out of the spectrum.

Homer, you really are dumb.

JC

7 May 10 at 4:00 pm
“Ireland began cutting back deficit spending in 2008, when its banking crisis began to spread and its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 7.3%. The economy promptly contracted by 10% and, surprise, surprise, the deficit exploded to 14.3%”

Homer’s talking out of his arse again:

Government expenditure (Ire), 2006-09
(% of GDP)
34.4
36.6
42.0
48.4

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 4:03 pm
Same years, (Ire)

Government deficit (-) / surplus (+)
(million euro)
5 221
261
-13 198
-23 350

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 4:03 pm
Homer,

I expect a swift and unconditional apology for your mendacious blockheadedness over Ireland and your magic pudding economics.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 4:06 pm
Bird and Bahnisch sitting on a tree
K-i-s-s-i-n-g …

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/blindingly-fast-results-on-productivity-improvement-easy-to-come-by/#comment-29954
rom ABC Unleashed:

Graeme Bird :
06 May 2010 10:26:40am
We’ve got to stop calling this a “Greek Bailout.” Its no such thing. Are we so much like Pavlovian dogs, bitch-slapped around by bankster abuse, that we cannot see this thing for what it is? Its just another bank bailout. Its just another way we will be subsidising bigshot bankers for their wealth-destroying activities. They are supposed to send capital resources to wealth-creating activities. Instead they send these resources to subsidise budgetary slackness and vote-buying.

Why oh why don’t most of the rest of you want to see these rich-slobs out on the street? We will never be free of these wealth-destroying banker-elites if we do not apply the free-enterprise rules. You destroy wealth you are out on the street. Pretty simple.

Reply Alert moderator

jtfsoon

7 May 10 at 4:09 pm
Homer obtained his head injuries in a jousting accident with Lord Liverpool.*

*I expect he’ll tell me Liverpool was a billiards man.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 4:09 pm
“Oh what happens if Wireless attracts heaps and heaps of customers?”

We’re at peak spectrum. Be very afraid.

Semi Regular Libertarian

7 May 10 at 4:10 pm
I sometimes get the impression that some people trained in the humanities are more interested in winning the argument than in making truthful statements. I really do hate that.

Can you win an argument without making truthful statements?

dover_beach

7 May 10 at 4:13 pm
BOAB, its wireless for me.

dover_beach

7 May 10 at 4:15 pm
Bird and Bahnisch sitting on a tree
K-i-s-s-i-n-g …

Yes, but fair is fair. Birdie wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a silly hat.

JC

7 May 10 at 4:19 pm
Yes, but Bird would mistake MB for a woman.

BirdLab

7 May 10 at 4:21 pm
I don’t think so. The hat has no feminine attributes at all.

See here:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/images/mark_bahnisch_100.jpg

JC

7 May 10 at 4:24 pm
If little red riding hood goes into the words today, she’ll be sure of a big surprise.

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Japan bond risk climbed to the highest since February, according to traders of credit-default swaps.

The Markit iTraxx Japan Index surged 22.5 basis points to 142.5 basis points as of 8:30 a.m. in Tokyo, according to Morgan Stanley prices.

Credit-default swap indexes are benchmarks for protecting debt against default and traders use them to speculate on credit quality. An increase suggests deteriorating perceptions of creditworthiness and a drop shows improvement.

JC

7 May 10 at 4:30 pm
I guess everyone here knows the 4 ways to spend money – you spend your own money on yourself, you spend someone else’s money on yourself, you spend your own money on someone else and you spend someone else’s money on someone else.

If people spend their own money on themselves, they opt for wireless and/or copper in the home – cheap and sufficient.

NBN is an example of spending someone else’s money on someone else – you care nought for costs or value.

Since Rog seems to be having trouble grasping these concepts today, I propose that he pays for me to install a fibre network in my house. Even better, he could pay for me to install a fibre network for any other commentator. I promise to try and spend under $20,000 on the job. I’d never spend my own money on doing that, but I am quite happy to spend his.

And we don’t have to worry about value for money. Thanks to the precedent set by the BER, all that matters is how much money I plow into the economy in the process.

So Rog, just hand over the credit card and I’ll get on with it.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 4:37 pm
Marky,
Err I was using budget deficit as a % of GDP as normal people do not raw figures as economic illiterates do.

You do not seem to understand why the aggregates went as they did despite horror austerity budgets brought about by the banking crisis.
They attempted to do as you said but it ball went pear-shaped because it has the opposite effect.

Oh it helps to understand here the relationship between the structural side of the budget and the cyclical.
In poor times if you attempt any sort of structural surplus let alone one that means several % points of GDP it leads to enormous blowout in the cyclical deficit.No if you had done any economic classes in third year you would know that but you didn’t so you don’t.
keep it up

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 5:04 pm
I can’t understand how “enlightened” people have this ludicrous freakshow view on indigenous issues.

As a friend of mine likes to say SRL: the American Indians were in the shite until they decided that it really has become a white man’s game and we may as well play their game because ours now belongs to a bygone age.

There remains a Noble Savage element in all this. The idea that aborigines should preserve their culture and enjoy the fruits of ours is just ludicrous. It is not possible to separate culture from its benefits, we enjoy long lives and better standards of living because of various cultural facets. If aborigines wish to preserve their own culture then fine but they must also accept that the resultant lifestyle will markedly reduce their quality of life and life expectancy. Having said that, it is perfectly obvious that cultural preservation is a nonsense concept. Same sillyness as conservation. Nothing stays the same, with the possible exception of a sizable proportion of the population who still buy into that “good old days” crap.

Thus:
Title [Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science
Author [Alan Cromer
Publisher [Oxford University Press
Place Pub [New York
Date [1993

5
“Our current technology and way of life differ more from that of the eighteenth century than the eighteenth century’s did from that of the time of the pharoahs.”

56
“Organized society, far from having robbed human beings of some original purity or innocence, has in fact given us whatever claims we may have to nobility.”

John H.

7 May 10 at 5:05 pm
Err I was using budget deficit as a % of GDP as normal people do not raw figures as economic illiterates do.

Homer, SRL was nice enough to give us numbers expressed as % of GDP.

Take another look. Here:

Homer’s talking out of his arse again:

Government expenditure (Ire), 2006-09
(% of GDP)
34.4
36.6
42.0
48.4

JC

7 May 10 at 5:10 pm
The idea that aborigines should preserve their culture and enjoy the fruits of ours is just ludicrous. It is not possible to separate culture from its benefits, we enjoy long lives and better standards of living because of various cultural facets.

I’m not sure it’s culture. I see culture as an arbitrary thing that we construct for our own pleasure. For example, you could have two peoples with the same legal system, the same productive output, the same values even, but a different culture. I’m more of the view that indigenous folk should be able to fit into our society – and both benefit from it and contribute to it – while preserving their own culture and even bringing it into the modern age. I see indigenous culture as meaning a communal basis, a certain type of art and music, teaching through story telling, stuff like that. I see culture as kind of what you do in your own time when you’ve done the important stuff like work out how your going to surivive – of which all humans should all agree because we’re all after the same thing.

Michael Sutcliffe

7 May 10 at 5:29 pm
yeah the Irish brought in a free spending budget in response to the banking crisis.

Does anyone here understand fiscal policy here at all

you people are idiots

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 5:32 pm
Sinc I have found a T Shirt for you
http://www.cafepress.com/+boltits_yellow_tshirt,304877760

tal

7 May 10 at 5:34 pm
Michael,

I was in a hurry so used “culture” as a shortcut. I have a wider understanding of the term so in culture I include ideas like sanitation, health issues, dietary practices, understanding what pathogens are and how they are tackled.

To give you one example, a friend of mine who works in Darwin hospital told me how she was amazed that aborigines would leave meat out for 3 days and then pick it up and eat it. We know better than that. It may be their cultural practice that arose principally because once upon a time there were no fridges and meat was hard to come by but given our cultural knowledge such a dietary habit must be considered to not only be irrational but downright dangerous.

John H.

7 May 10 at 5:34 pm
You’re the angry guy in the bar that hangs around on his own and looks for fights, aren’t you mate? Up here they have name for guys like you based on the drink they used to like: ‘Dark and Punchy’!

Michael Sutcliffe

7 May 10 at 5:35 pm
Homer, I’m going to be very nice to you on this one occasion.

You told us that Ireland reduced their budget deficit (wrongly, you suggested) and as a consequence they, according to you, ended up with a larger deficit.

SRL then nicely laid out the Irish budget position in a neat column for the pertinent years showing that rather than the deficit contracting as you suggested, it exploded.

You then incorrectly asserted that the numbers posted by SRL in those neat columns were in fact not % of GDP but the actual money involved.

When I saw that you had either lied or bungled this up I came in and corrected you explaining that the SRL figures in those nice little columns were in fact %’s of GDP.

You now seem be asking us if anyone here understands fiscal policy, homer.

This is becoming impossible with you, homer. You are such a Beta male unable to fess up to errors that you should now be referred to as the Omega man.

Go away please.

JC

7 May 10 at 5:45 pm
Britain is run by lunatics:

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain says that, although Labour has lost ground, the public has not opted for a majority Conservative government. Labour and the Lib Dems agree there should not be public spending cuts before the economy is secured, he adds.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 5:52 pm
I don’t know how “clag” LD can now go with Labor seeing his party lost lost seats. Where’s his momentum to be a king maker other than in the delusional minds of the BCC leftwingers.

JC

7 May 10 at 5:59 pm
That mincing little jack off Clegg will do a deal with Brown to form government on the proviso they bring in proportional representation. Britain will be Tasmania but without the charm.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:03 pm
Ok so we all knew Bird was a Truther but he only used to believe there was more to it than met the eye. But now he’s completely jumped the shark. He thinks the US govt was behind 911

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/blindingly-fast-results-on-productivity-improvement-easy-to-come-by/#comment-29960

Secretive government organisations ruthlessly reinforce their mistakes. Hence it could be that by now the organisational virus that started with the Kennedy hit, has metastisized, to such an extent, that you have black projects able to operate ruthlessly outside of the administration, who are after all out-of-town blow-ins.

I haven’t yet seen anything linking Bush or any other administration official to the planning of this thing. You would however wonder if they could be intimidated after the fact.

LBJ and Hoover didn’t formulate the plans for the Kennedy hit. They just went along with it. I didn’t claim that it was specifically an LBJ murder (one of many it turns out.) They are the two most responsible however. Since strident opposition from either of them could have put an end to it.

Its a fact that the US government was involved. You aren’t going to think so because you don’t believe in following the evidence. If you decided to ruthlessly follow the evidence then you would have no choice in the matter.

Jason Soon

7 May 10 at 6:09 pm
Gee Tal, thanks. I’ll have to get one to go with my mankini.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:13 pm
looking at this map England should really split from the rest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

JC

7 May 10 at 6:16 pm
I was just looking at that JC. No wonder every Scot you meet is a raving socialist.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:21 pm
No. there is an enclave who resist the invader.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:22 pm
1 seat out of 59 for the Tories in Scootland! The canny Scot is nothing but a mooching tax eater.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:25 pm
It’s the transfer payments, infidel. They can turn a rabid libertarian into a socialist if it’s big enough and the flow of cash goes on forever.

England should hire the New Mexico firm that built the fence between the US and mexico to construct one up north, as well as the south east to keep the socialist Welsh hordes out too.

JC

7 May 10 at 6:27 pm
They’re all heroin addicts too. Well, so I’m lead to believe.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:28 pm
JC – your ancestors built a wall to contain my ancestors. So there is nothing new under the sun.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:29 pm
Deep fried Mars Bars.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:29 pm
Should build a private business. That would scare them off.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:31 pm
For all the bullshit about Nick “Clag” the fucker has lost 6 seats.

2 days ago the leftwing romanticists at the BEED were telling the world this guy was going to be the next PM… And he’s lost 6 seats.

I’d fire the entire BEEB newsroom for that national embarrassment.
Leaving aside the Scottish that are looking for English transfer payments I would dearly like to know who are the 29% of the population that voted for Gordo as they should be evaluated for mental illness by proper medical personnel.

It appears that a 1/3 of the British population may be mentally ill.

JC

7 May 10 at 6:35 pm
I’m sure I’ve told this story before; all throughout the 1980s we used to get letters from our Scottish relatives carrying on about the bastard English and how that terrible woman was just a fishwife. blah, blah, blah. Then in the late 80s the great letter arrived. My uncle finally got a job. He had gone on a ‘bastard english government’ program, updated his skills and become employable.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:36 pm
Actually I need to refine that. if you wipe out the welsh, the Scots and norther island it looks like 15% of the English population is ill. It’s certainly a better result than I first thought but tragic nevertheless.

JC

7 May 10 at 6:37 pm
Sinc:

Yea, but I bet he’s voting lab though.

I think the English need to build a couple of fences here.

JC

7 May 10 at 6:38 pm
oops Northern Ireland

JC

7 May 10 at 6:40 pm
JC – your ancestors built a wall to contain my ancestors. So there is nothing new under the sun

Yes, sinc, that very true. They obviously very astute ancestors (mine).

JC

7 May 10 at 6:44 pm
My relatives vote Scottish Nationalist.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:46 pm
JC – I don’t know about that. Nobody ever wrote How the Italians created modern civilisation and everything that it good in the world.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:48 pm
That’s fine. In that case they should be allowed to move south or at least be allowed an entry permit.

Those northerners are literately destroying the place. Cameron’s a fool, however there is no earthly reason anyone would vote lab. transfer payments or not.

Look at the mess they’ve created now

JC

7 May 10 at 6:49 pm
The Scots are like the Greeks. All the ones with any get up n’ go, got up n’ left.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 6:50 pm
How’s that wall around Olympic Dam going Joe?

tal

7 May 10 at 6:50 pm
LOL. JC they don’t want to go south. They just don’t what the bastard english to come north.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 6:51 pm
Sinc:

That’s fine.. In fact I wouldn’t doubt any of that book’s findings as those old scots really did create the modern world … in the US too i might add.

However I’m worried about the new lot.

JC

7 May 10 at 6:52 pm
An English friend of mine at the FCO once observed, “If the Scots hate the English so much, how come they’re all living in London and working for the fucking BBC?”

Ev630

7 May 10 at 6:57 pm
JC – people get the government they deserve. If the Brits are so dumb as to not decisively toss the bums out after 13 years then they deserve everything that comes their way. Every now and again you got the toss the bastards out and give the other mob a go. Even if its just to remind how bad they really are.

Ev630 – yeah, yeah.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 7:03 pm
Confronted with the facts on telstra JC quickly moves to another topic of ignorance in which he excels, UK politics.

There is no end to the junk that spills out of his keyboard, is he just a bot spewing forth Foxnews?

Fair dinkum, JCs brain would be worth dissecting, just to see if there is anything there and confirm if it is edible.

rog

7 May 10 at 7:09 pm
yuck.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 7:12 pm
yes, that’s true up to a point, Sinc.

I’m a huge believer that human beings a simply ciphers to incentives for the most part. There’s nothing wrong with the Scots or Welsh, as they’re simply responding rationally to the regional transfer payments (incentives) created by the labor party there to more or less ensure their majority.

However that’s not what the English voted for or desire.

JC

7 May 10 at 7:13 pm
Conservatives have received more votes than Blair’s NuLabour did in 1997 yet have won 50 less seats.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 7:14 pm
Well, yes. But those bastard english should have thought about this all those hundreds of years they persecuted the Scots and the Welsh. Now, it’s payback time. and on that happy note, I’m off to Friday drinkies.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 7:16 pm
IT – the power of incumbancy to drawn electoral boundaries.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 7:17 pm
Rog:

You sound particularly angry this evening. Both angry and very emotional.
Frankly i prefer it when you’re like this because it makes me laugh.

Now go away. Geoffrey wants his back rubbed.

JC

7 May 10 at 7:18 pm
Wodge says:

Fair dinkum, JCs brain would be worth dissecting, just to see if there is anything there and confirm if it is edible.

Lord jeez, I think we’ve attracted Jeffrey Dahmer’s copy cat.

JC

7 May 10 at 7:20 pm
Oh God Sinc is off for sundowners wearing a mankini and nipple clamps

tal

7 May 10 at 7:23 pm
The finest prospect… etc

Ev630

7 May 10 at 7:23 pm
The latest results are – Labour and Lib-Dems put together are leading the Tories by 7 seats.

Gordon Brown could still hang on yet! C’mon Gordie!

Michael Fisk

7 May 10 at 7:26 pm
Forrest get it right I said they attempted to reduce their deficit however they actually increased.

I have even told you why.

Irish budget 2009
minister says this
In framing this Budget, the Government faced a deficit of the order of about 8% of GDP on the General Government Balance unless decisive action was taken. As the White Paper on Receipts and Expenditure shows, we have reprioritised our spending focus as a Government. The opening position this afternoon is a reduction in the deficit to 7% of GDP. This is a significant adjustment. Our approach has been to reduce public expenditure as much as possible on the current side and as much as is sensible on the capital side.

The changes I am announcing in this Budget build on these decisions. This Budget will adjust the incidence and focus of taxation to those better able to contribute. This Budget will provide a social welfare package of €515 million. As a result of these budgetary adjustments, the deficit will be about 6½% of GDP in 2009. I believe this is the maximum reduction that we can achieve in 2009. Our intention is to reduce it further.

there is a supplementary budget fol owed by more austerity.

you blokes really have no idea at all

Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop

7 May 10 at 7:27 pm
I agree Michael. Brown has done such a fantastic job, he should be allowed a few more terms for whatever benefits to slowly crystallise and manifest themselves.

Plus he’s Scottish and he doesn’t exactly have any prospects of obtaining gainful employment in his homeland unless he enrolls in a bastard government programme.

Ev630

7 May 10 at 7:31 pm
Same with Rudd. Give it time. Give it tiii-i-i-i-i–me.

Ev630

7 May 10 at 7:35 pm
Justice demands that Brown be allowed to serve as PM for the rest of his natural life. In fact, he should be declared “eternal PM” rather like Kim Il-Sung.

Michael Fisk

7 May 10 at 7:36 pm
Agreed! The same with Obama. Such a lovely speaker. Nice diction and well-mannered too.

Ev630

7 May 10 at 7:39 pm
Fisk

As bad as Cameron is and he is deplorable, he isn’t as bad as Gordo. Brown could actually send the nation into African living standards in 5 years time as these loons, Clag and Brown are actually talking about not lowering the massive deficit.

JC

7 May 10 at 7:40 pm
The Greens got pounded. UKIP managed to get over 3 times the green vote. Even the BNP got double the green vote.

boy on a bike

7 May 10 at 7:42 pm
The opening position this afternoon is a reduction in the deficit to 7% of GDP. This is a significant adjustment.

note should be made of:

In framing this Budget, the Government faced a deficit of the order of about 8% of GDP

Homer, are you actually peddling this as a significant cut?

As this was a projection let’s take a look at what really happened, shall we?

From SRL’s stats.

42.0 2008
48.4 2009

The budget blew out another 6.4% in 09. Homer still continues to say this is a cut.

Homer really is an idiot.

JC

7 May 10 at 7:46 pm
Let the Queen run the joint for a couple of years

tal

7 May 10 at 7:52 pm
Eh. Who cares who runs the joint? It’s just the UK. The last dying days of yet another European nation.

Ev630

7 May 10 at 7:55 pm
Ev630 it would be fun to watch

tal

7 May 10 at 8:09 pm
I think Sir Iqbal Saqranie would be a first class choice.

Ev630

7 May 10 at 8:18 pm
Sir Elton John!!!!!

tal

7 May 10 at 8:42 pm
James Dellingpole on the appalling candidacy of David Cameron:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100038419/hilton-letwin-boles-into-my-office-now/

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 9:10 pm
How old is maggie now? Well into her 80′s? I’d bet that she would have won with 150 seats, even if she had come back in at her age.

Dellingpole is right. The people couldn’t stomach the idea of a toffy nosed Horray Henry as PM.

JC

7 May 10 at 9:19 pm
They would have elcted one of Churchill’s cigar stubs.

Remember, Malcolm Warmbull and Dave Cameron are peas in the same pod. Bullet dodged.

Infidel Tiger

7 May 10 at 9:29 pm
Ev – can I just say, since I discovered that ‘programme’ is French and not proper English ‘program’ I have reverted to the latter. Just saying.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 9:33 pm
Tal – you make my attire sound like it’s somehow wrong. it’s a positive externality, I could charge people just to look at me.

Sinclair Davidson

7 May 10 at 9:34 pm
Damien Thompson has a few posts up on the election:

The humiliation of the Lib Dems: they didn’t see this one coming.

Could The Guardian possibly have got this election more wrong?

The UK really is a cowardly nation of slobs these days. They once had an empire and now, like Zimbabwe, they can’t even run an election. It warms the cockles of all Irishmen. Now all they need to do is get the hell out of Éire – I mean their Northern colony of hillbilly oafs – and it’ll be just about perfect. Brits Out!

C.L.

7 May 10 at 9:59 pm
Pink batts for the Parthenon?

Good news: Kevin Rudd in talks with the IMF to solve the Greek crisis.

C.L.

7 May 10 at 10:05 pm
Barnaby Swan:

The truly scary aspect of this is the lack of understanding from Rudd and Swann towards equity risk premiums. The equity risk premium is the extra return an investor is paid in return for taking equity risk. The new tax is slated to apply if a business earns more than a 6% return (equal to the rate paid on “risk free” government bonds). Effectively they are saying we should not bother investing in industry that offers a better return than government bonds or they will double tax you.

Our strategist asked Treasurer Swann a question yesterday on this issue and asked why the tax kicked in when returns exceeded the bond rate rather than the bond rate + an equity risk premium of say 5% (otherwise known as a companies cost of capital). Swann did not understand the question no matter how it was re-phrased – in other words the treasurer of Australia does not know what the cost of capital is for Australian companies. This is economics 101!

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

C.L.

8 May 10 at 12:22 am
Ev – can I just say, since I discovered that ‘programme’ is French and not proper English ‘program’ I have reverted to the latter. Just saying.

Sinkers, pédant is a French word. Just thought I’d mention it. (Mention is also a French word, quelle horreur!

Ev630

8 May 10 at 12:29 am
It seems like there is finally some good news with the spill. The Houston Chronicle reports, U.S. ships were being outfitted earlier this month with four pairs of skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days.” Better than never, I guess. For all those feeling pretty gloomy about this situation, I recommend a good laugh… Here’s a funny joke, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd0svVWfFbo

Stanley

21 Jun 10 at 4:54 pm

Catallaxy Files

Open Forum, May Day 2010

850 Responses to 'Open Forum, May Day 2010'

Leave a Reply

Liberty Quotes

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Archives

Pages

Blogroll

Meta