Open Forum September 11, 2010 at Catallaxy Files

Open Forum September 11, 2010

814 comments

Written by Sinclair Davidson

September 11th, 2010 at 12:42 am

Posted in Uncategorized

814 Responses to 'Open Forum September 11, 2010'

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Some red meat from Governor Christie:

Your Chris Christie Moment Of AWESOME.

Ace: “Behold what happens to a teacher who says Christie is talking down NJ schools. When the big man takes off his coat… you’re toast.”

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 12:57 am
There’s trouble at the station. I think Stedders needs to keep his bags packed even if he’s moving in.

“INDEPENDENT Andrew Wilkie has threatened the Gillard government’s mining tax, warning he will block it unless it is fundamentally redrawn and possibly expanded to capture profits from more mining companies.

Mr Wilkie, the first independent to pledge his support to Labor in the hung parliament, said the proposed mining tax was “unsatisfactory”, must be redesigned from scratch and should be included in next year’s proposed tax summit along with the rate of GST.”

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:59 am
A confused editorial in The Australian which equates burning the Koran with “deluded supporters of an Islamist caliphate, who have no compunction about blowing up children.”

Always the same ‘logic’ at play: we shouldn’t offend Muslims by linking their religion to barbarity because they kill people when their religion is linked to barbarity.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 1:06 am
Wow. You just gotta love Christie. He’s fabulous. The way he’s able to articulate fairly complex arguments and put them in easy to understand lingo is a true gift.

Wow he’s good.

Christie/Ryan for 2012.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 1:11 am
First to mention date of this post.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 1:12 am
Yea, yobbo, good pick.

I’ll never forget that. It was round 8.45 is or so, can’t recall the time and I was hoeing into a buttered bagel. Someone picked up a call for me and I recall picking up the phone with clammy hands (from the butter). It was a buddy of mine from London calling about some shit they’d seen on CNN there about a small plane accidently going into the WTC and if we knew of anything.

I was about to tell him to fuck off and stop the bullshit when some dude in the trading room hollered out the same shit. We had all our TVs on CNBC so we switched over to CNN and there was the shot of a hole in the WTC with smoke billowing out.

So we’re all looking at the shot and wondering out aloud how could some moron pilot hit the WTC on a perfect cloudless day.

Then some other dude in the trading room screamed out it was some sort of terror attack. Some other dude called out that was bullshit.

More rumors came in about it being a terror attack and then right on the screen around 40 minutes later the second plane went in.

From that point on it was fair to say that it wasn’t a small plane accident.

The rest is history.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 1:26 am
It’s hard to believe it’s 9 years already, and despite more deaths each and every day to Muslim violence, many people still think that it’s our fault.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 1:31 am
yea, that’s so true.

And we worry about their violence and argue with ourselves about stupid freaking cartoons. Even cartoons can send them into violent rages killing people.

And we now are treated like crap when we try to board a plane.

Yep, it’s our fault alright. NOT!

JC

11 Sep 10 at 1:38 am
We must burn the Koran at once.

Michael Fisk

11 Sep 10 at 1:54 am
Better to drown it in the icy water of egotistical calculation.

Taylor

11 Sep 10 at 3:32 am
This is what you support when you support the ‘liberation’ of Afghanistan:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers

Don’t expect Time to put it on their cover any time soon.

THR

11 Sep 10 at 3:55 am
h/t Karl/Max Weber.

Taylor

11 Sep 10 at 3:59 am
THR, that’s terrible. Those guys are scum. But supporting the objective does not equate with condoning war crimes.

Now, be sure to link to the atrocities of the people the good guys are fighting, for balance. Thanks.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 5:25 am
Time magazine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TT81o4hL4c

Ouch!

.

11 Sep 10 at 7:24 am
One for Graeme M Bird:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/construction-complete-on-911-truther-memorial,18034/

.

11 Sep 10 at 7:40 am
THR,

Do you usually assume the guilt of people who have not yet been before a court — or only if they’re US soldiers?

Piett

11 Sep 10 at 8:13 am
It’s in the Guardian so it must be true.

But if it is, it’s hardly an indictment of the Afghanistan mission. Allied soldiers were sometimes charged with murder ‘liberating’ Europe from the Nazis in World War II.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 8:58 am
‘Why was the FBI dropping by the wannabe Koran burners‘?

Good question.

Jonah Goldberg made a great point last night on FNC’s Special Report…a lot of people went nuts right after 9/11 when Ari Fleischer said, “all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” (follow the link for Hitchens’ take down of the faux hysteria). Now however it’s the policy of this administration to have figures such as the head of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the Secretary of State, the President of the United States of America weigh in on the wisdom of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. The Secretary of Defense even called Jones to personally discuss the situation with him.

Remember the outrage when the cops dropped by that Bill Henson ‘art’ exhibition?

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 9:04 am
Free laptops. ~~Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and the Labor gubbermint~~ A private charity and Rupert Murdoch deliver for disadvantaged Aboriginal children.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 9:09 am
He’s baa-aack. The worst prime minister in Australian history – dumped for incompetence – will be named Foreign Minister today, reports Michelle Grattan.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 9:19 am
I watched it on CNN on the Internet. The Internet was crap for video in 2001 but it was the first option available after my brother called me on my mobile. My brother had said somebody had launched an attack on the USA. I was saying it must be crap because I couldn’t think of a war in history that had no prior build up. Clearly we are in new age.

An aside. Did anybody see Tony Blair on the 7:30 Report the other evening? I thought he defended himself admirably. I don’t share his view of the Iraq invasion but he explained his position well.

TerjeP

11 Sep 10 at 9:35 am
Tony Blair explained his position well?

Can you elaborate Terje?

FDB

11 Sep 10 at 9:40 am
Since we’re sharing…

I remember preparing for the late news when someone started squawking in the newsroom about an accident in New York. Switched over to the feed and saw the smoke billowing out of the first tower, and selfishly thought, “Oh crap, this means they’re going to change the running order, maybe have a whole new story.” … Then the second plane flew into view, and the wrenching feeling, as my understanding of what was happening coalesced, was like being hit in the head.

Jarrah

11 Sep 10 at 9:56 am
LOL. A clearly lying…

Oakeshott cranky at revelation of cabinet talks with Iemma.

“Bullshit,” he told The Australian, in the spirit of the New Paradigm.

Steve from B will be scandalised by this appalling language.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 10:07 am
CL, my avoidance of swearing is, at heart, a family thing. I don’t think my father, a bricklayer, ever said more than a rare “bloody.” My mother doesn’t even use that, although a “shit” exclamation when hurting herself possible. I don’t know why that was: my father drank (too much during parts of his life), and apart from going to church on Sundays, we weren’t taking a big part in the parish. We were not, in other words, a prudish family; just a pretty regular Catholic one.

I don’t know why it bother people so much that I have kept the same habits the whole of my life, and generally find routine use of such language as JC and others here use as boring and (as it is pretty much a public context here) sometimes offensive.

No one ever had their credibility in argument aided by throwing in a few sprinklings of “fuck” and “cock-sucking” and “c**t”, and I think it certainly seriously detracts from the quality of this blog that there is virtually no call for moderation in language from those who run it.

It’s odd how in the Australian blogosphere it is a prominent right wing blog, which does run serious and worthy commentary much of the time, that tolerates nearly any language in the comments (is it the libertarian streak at work here?) It’s the left wing blogs (particularly Quiggan and LP) that are the examples of civility in language.

And before anyone says it, I know I don’t have to come here. Just adding my two bob’s worth on how I think it would be better served, and taken more seriously.

steve from brisbane

11 Sep 10 at 11:01 am
Is Steve from B in fact Rob Oakeshott? That’s two bob’s worth but ten pounds worth.

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 11:17 am
It’s odd how in the Australian blogosphere it is a prominent right wing blog, which does run serious and worthy commentary much of the time, that tolerates nearly any language in the comments (is it the libertarian streak at work here?)

Steve, that’s true, but by the same token, catallaxy allows a lot more dissenting opinions. People do get banned but you’ve got to really cross the line for that to happen.

It’s the left wing blogs (particularly Quiggan and LP) that are the examples of civility in language.

Yeah but on those blogs, but if you disagree too much, you’ll just get locked out. “moderated.” banned. whatever. Here, the argument will go for as long as people are prepared to argue, and nobody says “okay that’s enough of that topic.”

So there’s more free-flowing comment here, more dissent, more argument, more diversity of opinion, and also more bad language.

daddy dave

11 Sep 10 at 11:35 am
Obama at his best

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/obama-defends-rights-of-american-muslims-we-dont-differentiate-between-them-and-us—-its-just-us.php?ref=fpa

Tilman

11 Sep 10 at 11:36 am
Now a fact apparently

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/smith-takes-defence-emerson-goes-to-trade-rudd-to-run-foreign-affairs/story-fn59niix-1225918230065

Nice guy Steve Smith gets Defence – another one to be chewed up by the machine.

KRudd been given an open air ticket, can of petrol and box of matches. Another dangerous obsessive takes to the skies on 9/11.

Myrddin Seren

11 Sep 10 at 12:07 pm
It’s the left wing blogs (particularly Quiggan and LP) that are the examples of civility in language.

I see that the exemplars of ‘civility in language’ are brainstorming ways in which the government can silence the criticism it is receiving from the Australian newspapers. But as long as they don’t say “shit” this accords with the canon of civility, at least as it is understood by Steve from B.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/09/10/tingle-on-friday-labor-must-decide-what-to-do-with-news-limited/

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 12:16 pm
Nice guy Steve Smith gets Defence – another one to be chewed up by the machine.

He’s the stand up dude in the entire front bench and he gets side swiped for the little turd? Fme what a clownish government.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:23 pm
That’s pretty incredible.. Steve thinks LP is civil and has nothing to say about it’s support to muzzle New Ltd.

Jeez.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:27 pm
It’s the left wing blogs (particularly Quiggan and LP) that are the examples of civility in language.

I note that Larvatus Prodeo has now deleted the post where Noel Pearson is referred to as a “coconut” in comments.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 12:30 pm
That’s the other point about the LP type blogs. Leftwingers simply don’t like it when people disagree with with them. They can’t stand it and it causes them to cry.

So commenters are constantly worried if they offend the moderator in some way. In other words it’s an oppressive freaking site.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:34 pm
I note that Larvatus Prodeo has now deleted the post where Noel Pearson is referred to as a “coconut” in comments.

hahahahahahha. They left it up for a while though and obviously only removed it because of the heat they were receiving from people here.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:36 pm
Dover B

Think you are being charitable in describing the LP thread as ‘brainstorming’.

Here is the most recent comment:

“The rising Green vote is the clearest indication of this trend”. – he refers to a Gen Y attraction to left of centre politics – “Australia needs its version of The Guardian.”

News flash comrade – your prayers are answered – its called “The Age”. Wonder how you missed ever reading it – oh foe of Murdochism ?

Myrddin Seren

11 Sep 10 at 12:37 pm
I hope you kept a copy, CL. Or perhaps it’s even cahed so there should be no way they should be allowed to get away with that stuff.

Blow torching will continue.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:38 pm
The rising Green vote is the clearest indication of this trend”. – he refers to a Gen Y attraction to left of centre politics – “Australia needs its version of The Guardian.”

A beta speaks truth to power I see. lol

The moron doesn’t realize that he’s drowning in a sea of Guardian type crapology. There’s Fairfax to the extent that even their business masthead is the most left wing business paper in the world. And of course there’s the ABC.

The doofus is swimming in a sea of Guardians if he bothered to look.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 12:42 pm
Don Surber on the left’s new de facto blasphemy law:

Via the Hill, deputy managing editor Thomas Kent of the Associated Press in a memo to his staff: “Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning. With the exception of these specific images and descriptions, we expect to cover the Gainesville event, in all media, placing the actions of this group of about 50 people in a clear and balanced context.”

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/20884

Naturally, when the next ‘artist’ does a picture of the Virgin Mary with his own puke or something, AP will not show the pictures or provide detailed text descriptions.

Oh, sorry. I mean they will.

Is there a difference?

Yes there is.

What is it?

Muslims express their outrage by killing people.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 12:45 pm
lol… an article about the staffers of the three indies being “under siege” reveals that Oakeshott was prone to sending out press releases with 10-page attachments of speeches by Abraham Lincoln.

Fleeced

11 Sep 10 at 12:46 pm
Think you are being charitable in describing the LP thread as ‘brainstorming’.

Well, yes, convict me of charity or civility if you please, of these crimes I most certainly am guilty.

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 12:50 pm
Fleeced, did he include Abe’s 1858 speech in Springfield upon accepting the Republican Party’s nomination as United States senator?

Made famous by his paraphrasing of Matthew 12:25:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Lincoln.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 12:56 pm
Oh, that is brilliant, CL. Just brilliant!

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 12:59 pm
Seems Gillard did reward those involved inRudd’s stabbing….her latest ministry:
Simon Crean to be Minister of Regional Developement
Wayne Swan Treasurer
Penny Wong Minister of Finance
Craig Emerson Minister for Trade
…Peter Garrett Minister for Schools Education and Youth
Kym Carr Minister of Science
Anthony Albanese Minister of Transport and Infrastructure
Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs
Stephen Smith, Minister of Defense
Tony Burke, Minister of Environment, Water
Greg Combet, Climate Change
Stephen Conroy, Minister assisting the PM as well as Communications
Nicola Roxon, Minister of Health
Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Inclusion and Human Services
Mark Arbib, Indigenous employment, Minister for Sport
Bill Shorten, Assistant Treasurer

Gab

11 Sep 10 at 1:47 pm
JC

There is a hell of a lot of deleting posts, and adding to them later, that goes on over there.

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 1:58 pm
CL are you sure that AP isn’t just trying to avoid getting themselves blown up?

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 2:25 pm
Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/20/us.military.bibles.burned/index.html?hpt=P1

Michael Fisk

11 Sep 10 at 3:07 pm
That is one half of the rationale of the new blasphemy code, Yobbo. The other half is a value judgement that Muslims are officially a victim group and their religion must therefore be afforded heightened esteem.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 3:11 pm
“I note that Larvatus Prodeo has now deleted the post where Noel Pearson is referred to as a “coconut” in comments.”

Fail. The whole of May and June 2007 has gone missing.

That you can’t get over this event (someone in comments using politically incorrect language of all things!!! For shame!!! etc etc faux-outrage for 3 solid years) shows the kinda guy you are CL. And it ain’t a pretty sight.

By the way, can anyone point out for me where anyone in the ALP vs News thread says anything to back up your claims? Anything about ‘silencing criticism” or “muzzling”?

If not, your claims smack of dishonesty.

FDB

11 Sep 10 at 3:38 pm
The good news is that at least three other churches have pledged to burn the Koran even if Jones doesn’t. It’s like whack-a-mole with these crazy Christians! I hope at least one of them go through with it.

Michael Fisk

11 Sep 10 at 3:43 pm
Fisk

Doing the sort of thing is shitty behavior. No one is suggesting they should not be allowed to do it, but the thing lacks civility.

There’s no purpose to burning the Koran.

Jc..

11 Sep 10 at 3:55 pm
Can you believe that Wong has been given Finance! What a government!

Infidel Tiger

11 Sep 10 at 4:33 pm
Can you believe that Wong has been given Finance! What a government!

I can’t imagine a safer pair of hands, IT.

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 4:48 pm
KIm Carr for Treasurer and then we are set. Venezuela watch out!

Infidel Tiger

11 Sep 10 at 4:50 pm
The fact that Rudd has been given a portfolio he damaged as PM suggests he holds much more leakable information.

Bring it on!

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 4:56 pm
Actually, anyone who has managed passive aggressive staff in a toxic work environment can see that allowing Rudd to linger in the limelight making cow eyes at the Prime Ministership is going to end in tears. A real manager would lance that boil and have the problem staffer shipped out to the Southern logistics division at Mawson’s Hut.

Gillard has never managed staff except arselickers, so she can’t see it yet. And Bill Shorten in the cabinet? How dumb is that?

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 5:05 pm
There’s so much confidence is this outstanding team of geniuses, that Centrebet have an election by Christmas at $1.95. Frankly if it didn’t mean we’d all be living in cardboard boxes and dining at the Salvation Army kitchen I’d want it to last forever. Comedy gold.

Infidel Tiger

11 Sep 10 at 5:10 pm
Penny Wong is finance…? What’s the strategy here? She’s an arts law grad FFS. What the hell does she know about finance.

I actually like Penny. I think she’s a smart gal but didn’t have the guts to stand up to the little turd and she was pushing a policy she knew little about because it does straddle finance.

Kate Ellis for treasury I hope. At least unlike Swandive she looks great in a short skirt and high heels.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:19 pm
Can you believe that Wong has been given Finance! What a government!

Don’t worry Tiger, the ALP like to make financial decisions when the Finance Minister is in Barbados.

Adrien

11 Sep 10 at 5:20 pm
Tanya Plibersek – Human Services and Social Inclusion

Kate Ellis – Employment Participation, Childcare

We’re in safe hands with these two. Our jobs are safe.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:26 pm
Wayne Swan – Treasurer
Penny Wong – Finance
Kevin Rudd – Foreign Affairs
Robert McClelland – Attorney-General
Simon Crean – Regional Australia
Stephen Smith – Defence
Greg Combet – Climate Change
Craig Emerson – Trade
Peter Garrett – Schools, Early Childhood, Youth
Chris Bowen – Immigration
Chris Evans – Jobs
Martin Ferguson – Resources, Energy and Tourism
Joe Ludwig – Agriculture
Tony Burke – Sustainable Population plus Communities, Environment and Water
Tanya Plibersek – Human Services and Social Inclusion
Kate Ellis – Employment Participation, Childcare
Nick Sherry – Small Business
Warren Snowdon – Veterans Affairs minister

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Nicola Roxon – Health and Ageing
Jenny Macklin – Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Anthony Albanese – Infrastructure and Transport
Stephen Conroy – Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Kim Carr – Innovation, Industry and Science

New Ministers
Bill Shorten – Assistant Treasurer; Superannuation
Mark Butler – Ageing
Jason Clare – Defence Procurement
Gary Gray – Special Minister of State

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-picks-wong-for-finance/story-fn59niix-1225918409399

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 5:28 pm
What on earth are “human services” and “social inclusion” and why do they require a government ministry? Orwell must be saying “now, why didn’t I think of that”?

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 5:29 pm
Has Sara Hansen-Young been given given Tarot Card Reading?

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 5:29 pm
JC: stand up to him? She was his best mimic. Watch any of her interviews or press conferences. She had his speech patterns, vocab and mannerisms down cold.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 5:30 pm
Oh jeez

Peter Garrett – Schools, Early Childhood, Youth

WTF is this moron doing in the cabinet?

Like Midas in reverse everything Lurch touches turns to shit.

The freaking moron has even destroyed the art market in Australia as a result of his intervention after his Lurch/Rudd insulation fiasco ended up killing 5 people and burning down 5 houses with more to come.

Art dealers and even artists themselves were saying that his (dumb) idea of introducing royalty payments on art sold in the secondary market has been destroyed because of Lurch as no one know WTF to do now.

Lets see if the youth suicide rate takes a huge jump during his time as minister.

He’s like I’d imagine a bald Anglo version of Manuel out of Faulty Towers to be.

I can’t believe they stuck this idiot in the cabinet again to cause rack and ruin to the country.

At the rate they’re going the back bench will look more competent than this rabble of a front bench.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:38 pm
Interesting that no-one was dropped or demoted (not even Garrett). It’s hard to say that she should not disturb a winning team…
I guess she can’t afford to upset anyone?

ken n

11 Sep 10 at 5:39 pm
Patton… Penny is a smart gal. She was just in the wrong portfolio… in the sense that portfolio should never exist.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:39 pm
It seems Rudd will now be inside the tent pissing all over the three ring circus.

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 5:41 pm
Ev’s right JC, Wong is a female clone of Rudd. You’re mis-overestimating her qualities.

dover_beach

11 Sep 10 at 5:43 pm
JC

I was taking about KKKomrade Tanya.

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 5:43 pm
It’s no surprise that Wong and Rudd are similar. By anyone’s estimation Rudd could take out the title of “Men who look like wizened old lesbians”.

Infidel Tiger

11 Sep 10 at 5:46 pm
Ken…

I think Gillrudd is playing an April fools joke on us in September.

Upsetting Lurch? WTF?

In a just world he’d be jailed for incompetence.

In fact he should have been placed under house arrest to protect the population from that twit as he should be allowed outta the house.

I can’t believe this nincompoop has not only been kept on the front bench but it looks like he’s been promoted.

—————-
FFS, Rudd gets rolled and he’s given a senior position in front bench. The twit is an international menace having destroyed some of our most important relationships so he’s allowed to do it again?

Oyna Windsor and Oakenshitt. Great work fellas. give us some more of your great ideas.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:46 pm
Kevin Rudd – Foreign Affairs

Damn, better keep those F111′s flying.

Bill Shorten – Assistant Treasurer; Superannuation

He gets paid off for being an asshole.

Peter Garrett – Schools, Early Childhood, Youth

At least he will be able to spend time with his intellectual equals.

John H.

11 Sep 10 at 5:53 pm
Patton

Oh Yea, Tanya.

Is Gillrudd having us on? Is this some sorta joke? It has to be.

So the government that lost its way, to use her words, not only limps back but it also promotes or leaves in the same positions the exact same idiots that got us into the mess in the fist place.

F me. I’m not kidding when I say (again) the back bench line up is more competent than this collection of nitwits.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 5:55 pm
DB

I’m not “totally mis overestimating her abilities when the reference point is this front bench.

In the land of the blind the one eyed gal is queen, as they say.

Jc..

11 Sep 10 at 6:01 pm
This is the sweetest defeat of all.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 6:02 pm
DB

I’m not “totally mis overestimating her” abilities when the reference point is this front bench.

In the land of the blind the one eyed gal is queen, as they say.

Jc..

11 Sep 10 at 6:02 pm
No, JC, you quipped about her standing up to Rudd. The reality is she was his understudy.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 6:02 pm
Ev

Dude ,

You win. This is an argument I don’t feel comfortable taking the other side

Jc..

11 Sep 10 at 6:05 pm
LOL.

Anyway, thank the flying tea pot gods that Dennis Richardson is secretary of DFAT. They’ll need a bureaucratic genius to counteract KR’s excesses and grandiose ideas with nil follow-through.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 6:09 pm
I’m sorta surprised she didn’t offer the esteemed Andrew (Andy) Leigh the ministry of Public Sector Employment and early Retirement seeing he campaigned for that sector, not that he needs to campaign in that seat as it’s basically a labor appointment.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 6:11 pm
My, what a government this is. It’s like they genuinely believe the last term wasn’t bad enough and that they could do much worse if they really put their minds to it. Why is Lurch getting all of the youth-related portfolios? There’s a man guaranteed to scare the crap out of young children. And what the hell is a “Minister for Jobs” and how is that different from a “Minister for Employment Participation”?

Clowns, all of them.

Michael Fisk

11 Sep 10 at 6:13 pm
No, Leigh needs to be made “Minister for Countering Conservative ABC Bias”. It’s definitely one of the more serious portfolios in this government.

Michael Fisk

11 Sep 10 at 6:14 pm
So let me get this right. This was a government that lost its way and she rehires the same idiots. I’m freaking lost of words… and not only does she rehire the same morons but she offered Oakenshitt a cabinet position.

I guess offering Oakenshitt a cabinet seat stands to reason seeing she’s focusing on hiring anti-talent.

In fact it’s the anti-cabinet…. the sort of cabinet you’d dream up in a nightmare and wake up in a cold sweat hugging the misses just to know you’re safe and it was only a dream.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 6:17 pm
No, Leigh needs to be made “Minister for Countering Conservative ABC Bias”. It’s definitely one of the more serious portfolios in this government.

lol.. You could give Andy Liegh double potfolios.

Minister for Anti right-wing ABC bias + Public Sector Employment Growth and Early-Retirement.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 6:20 pm
Why is Lurch getting all of the youth-related portfolios?

Teen suicides aren’t high enough, Fisk. Lurch was given the nod to see what he can do in that area and sort work with Tony Burke – Sustainable Population plus Communities, Environment and Water.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 6:23 pm
Isn’t that portfolio already held by Loud Denouncers Kollectiv over at LP?

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 6:24 pm
Gawdalmighty. “Stabs” Shorten as Asst Treasurer?
Don’t go on holiday, Woine. Better still don’t even leave your office at weekends.

Pedro the Ignorant

11 Sep 10 at 6:35 pm
The best thing Peter Garrett could do for the youth of Australia is quit politics and go back to singing. He was a far better musician, and kids need something better to listen to than Justin Beiber.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 6:44 pm
Most lame spin of the week:

FDB runs interference for anti-Pearson fanaticism at Larvatus Prodeo:

That you can’t get over this event (someone in comments using politically incorrect language of all things!!! For shame!!! etc etc faux-outrage for 3 solid years) shows the kinda guy you are CL. And it ain’t a pretty sight.

Lefty code: ‘It’s not racism when we do it.’

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 6:50 pm
Yobbo;

Are you deaf and blind by chance? I mean that in a nice way.

Dude he was a horrible singer and his dancing was like the death throws of the beast in Alien Predator.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 6:56 pm
There is just no way this ministry can possibly be running the government for the next three years.

Never mind what we voters think of Rudd. There would not be an embassy in Canberra that has not dissected in minute detail all the sorry details that came out after the AWU-apparatchiks knifed him. I won’t re-hash the litany of pathologies that could keep a battery of shrinks employed.

What does his appointment to Foreign Affairs say ? ‘Here – rest of the world. You have the nutball – hopefully he will be in a plane every week for the rest of the government’s incumbancy !’

How the hell can the diplomatic world look at this as anything but palming a manifest failure off ? We have started insulting our neighbours and that’s just in making the announcement.

This cannot last.

Myrddin Seren

11 Sep 10 at 7:03 pm
Did I read that correctly, above?

Penny Wong is finance minister?

I wonder if she and Gillard will get together to hammer out a family tax package that responds to the pressures on Mums and Dads.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 7:32 pm
JC midnight oil are one of Australia’s greatest ever bands, despite their politics.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 7:34 pm
They were popular, but I’m not sure I agree they were one of the greatest Aussie bands ever.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 7:36 pm
Keep that faux-outrage going CL – it’s a sure-fire winner!

Maybe then nobody will notice what an arse-clown you look like, after suggesting that LP gives two-fifths of a shit what you reckon about a 3-year-old comment, and being wrong on basic facts that took me ten seconds to sort out.

Maybe.

FDB

11 Sep 10 at 7:39 pm
“They were popular, but I’m not sure I agree they were one of the greatest Aussie bands ever.”

Who then? What’s your list which omits them?

FDB

11 Sep 10 at 7:40 pm
FDB, you really are a poisonous, dishonest, character-less individual. Nobody has ever accused me of being a racist – least of all against Aborigines, whose welfare has always concerned me a great deal. So I regard it as an infamy when somebody at a site billing itself as the online home of the non-conservative mainstream vilifies an Aborigine as a race-traitor, a “coconut.” How long ago it occurred is irrelevant. (Lefties still rave on about what Big Bad Bolta supposedly did to poor widdle Wilkie way back when). In fact, the survival of the “coconut” sliming for so long is telling given the notoriously hair-triggered delete-finger of KiMark & Co. For some reason, they not only let that one go but stood by the sentiment.

Moreover, Steve was discussing blog discourse and cited Larvatus Prodeo as the home of civility. My point was that there are worse things than the kind of language you and Bird use in thread forums (not excluding the c-word).

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 7:57 pm
“I wonder if she and Gillard will get together to hammer out a family tax package that responds to the pressures on Mums and Dads.”

Makes about as much sense as a priest talking about marriage, doesn’t it? When will people realise that one can only think or talk about things one has had personal experience with?

/s

Jarrah

11 Sep 10 at 7:57 pm
Makes about as much sense as a priest talking about marriage, doesn’t it?

Exactly. Which is why the Catholic Church employs married couples to prepare the engaged for marriage.

Catholic card fail.

On the upside, Jarrah, thanks for agreeing with me for a change.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 8:34 pm
Heartbreak for the Western left:

Report: Castro says Cuban model doesn’t work.

Bright man.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 8:36 pm
“JC midnight oil are one of Australia’s greatest ever bands, despite their politics.”

They were fucking shit. They might have been popular, but so was Rudd.

AC/DC is Australia’s greatest ever rock band.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 8:42 pm
AC/DC, INXS, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Australian Crawl.

Those are the top 5 by any objective measure, you could maybe make a case for Hunters+Collectors and Crowded House but you’d be a poof if you did.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 8:45 pm
Agree with all you write except of course that Midnight Oil sucked harder than oral sex night at Albury hotel.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 8:49 pm
You also forgot the Saints and Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Oh and the Warumpi Band.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 8:50 pm
As an aside, I recall that Midnight Oil were immensely popular with the mouth breathers at my high school. As were the Choir Boys, Bon Jovi and other totally shit bands. The rugger buggers loved that crap.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 8:52 pm
“Catholic card fail.”

Why are you obsessed with seeing Catholic-bashing everywhere? Priests exist in many religions.

Besides, you must have missed the /s. I think it’s fine for someone who’s never married and can’t get married to officiate at marriages, or to make pronouncements on what marriage is (does that ring a bell?). Because I don’t make snide references about people’s circumstances and insinuate that might disqualify them from being able to think about and act upon areas outside their personal experience, as if they didn’t have a brain to consider anything beyond it. I leave that to you.

Jarrah

11 Sep 10 at 9:07 pm
You also forgot the Saints and Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. Oh and the Warumpi Band.

2 of those bands only ever had 1 hit song and Paul Kelly is a solo act.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 9:17 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jV3sC0fFAU&

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 9:24 pm
Robert McClelland – Attorney-General
Simon Crean – Regional Australia
Stephen Smith – Defence
Craig Emerson – Trade
Martin Ferguson – Resources, Energy and Tourism

Good.

The rest are shit.

.

11 Sep 10 at 9:45 pm
What the fuck would a guy who’s lived his entire life in Melbourne and Canberra and been on the union payroll most of his life know about Regional Australia.

As a matter of fact the entire Labor party should disqualify themselves from this position since the Labor party is absolutely a party solely dedicated to city issues. If they were honest they would just abolish the position since they will do fuck all for regional Australia in their time in power.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 9:57 pm
What about the Colored Girls and the Dots?

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 10:05 pm
And the colored girls go doo do doo do doo do do doo

Peter Patton

11 Sep 10 at 10:06 pm
Session musicians hired to play with him…different people each time.

Yobbo

11 Sep 10 at 10:07 pm
“What the fuck would a guy who’s lived his entire life in Melbourne and Canberra and been on the union payroll most of his life know about Regional Australia.”

He’s not a complete and utter deadshit like Bowen per se.

.

11 Sep 10 at 10:14 pm
Who then? What’s your list which omits them?

Greatest bands ever?

Bee gees, Little river band, Men at work, Ac Dc. Oz Crawl,

The first two were super bands, Milton.

Lurch couldn’t even dance to the beat without looking like a scare out out of some scream teen move. He’s always been an imbecile.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 10:23 pm
FDB asks:

“Who then? What’s your list which omits them?”

Greatest bands ever?

Bee gees, Little river band, Men at work, Ac Dc. Oz Crawl,

The first two were super bands with worldwide recognition, Milton.

Lurch couldn’t even dance to any beat without looking like a scarecrow out of some teen scream move. He’s always been an imbecile.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 10:24 pm
AC/DC, INXS, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Australian Crawl.

I’d agree with that list, in that order. ACDC and INXS are way, way beyond anything else that’s come out of Australia.

you could maybe make a case for Hunters+Collectors and Crowded House but you’d be a poof if you did.

You could add Air Supply, John Farnham, and Kylie Minogue in that category. Always had a soft spot for Johnny Farnham after he was erased from the history of Australian music by the ABC.

daddy dave

11 Sep 10 at 10:42 pm
oops JC has some quality additions to the list. May have to reconsider my endorsement of Yobbo’s top five.

daddy dave

11 Sep 10 at 10:44 pm
One of the greatest nights of football for a long, LONG time. At the SFS, Roosters v Tigers goes to 100 minutes of golden-point time. Canberra v Panthers goes down to the wire 24-22 – and featured one of the most athletic corner tries of all time by Sandor Earl.

And while this NRL showcase was unfolding, the Wallabies led the All Blacks comfortably for most of the game before – AGAIN – allowing themselves to be overtaken in the second half. The laws of the game again demonstrated why Union struggles. At one stage, advantage (NZ) was played for eight phases of maul-launched snipes at the tryline without being judged accrued. Ridiculous. And when Australia looked like setting up a memorable last-minute victory via field goal, the referee again stuffed up the game with an anal-retentive call on a ruck infringement.

Wow. Great night of football.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 10:47 pm
JC

Still hanging your argument against stimulus spending on a regression?

sdfc

11 Sep 10 at 10:49 pm
Are you still ripping the floor boards up to to use as fire wood, SDFC?

JC

11 Sep 10 at 10:51 pm
We don’t have floor boards in Perth JC, we have concrete pads.

sdfc

11 Sep 10 at 10:53 pm
Yea Cold chisel too.. forgot. They were the best band ever.

Midnight oil were just a bunch of wankers in comparison to those bands and lurch was always a freaking moron. He didn’t sing, he screamed and convulsed around the stage like he had a seizure.

JC

11 Sep 10 at 10:54 pm
AC/DC is Australia’s greatest ever rock band.

Now you’re talkin, Ev.

Back in Black with Brian Johnson was also the greatest come-back from potential oblivion since Mick Taylor saved the Stones.

The Young boys are far smarter than the poor old Farriss brothers.

Incidentally, how lame is the AFL?

This lame:

INXS to warm up crowd at AFL Grand Final.

Earth to Kirk and the Farris family: it’s over. Get on with your lives.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 10:54 pm
You’re itching for some sorta argument,SDFC. I can tell. What’s on your mind. Did you just come off The Krugs blog, read and memorized what his wife wrote and want to pass it on thinking we’ll swallow that crapology?

JC

11 Sep 10 at 10:56 pm
INX should have given it away when Hutchens died.

sdfc

11 Sep 10 at 10:56 pm
Why are you obsessed with seeing Catholic-bashing everywhere? Priests exist in many religions.

I’m not, Jarrah. Now you’re playing the switcheroo card. I correctly called you for playing the Catholic card in a discussion that hadn’t involved religion. You were referring to Catholic priests of the Latin Rite – who don’t marry. You were NOT referring to ministers of other religions or (obviously) married Christian priests. Don’t say you were because it would be, almost axiomatically, bullshit.

I pointed out that this wasn’t much of a retort (even with the /s safety net) because counselling and preparation by married couples is the norm in the Catholic Church.

Don’t be so tetchy, Jarrah. Calm down.

C.L.

11 Sep 10 at 11:01 pm
Catallaxy and sometimes John Quiggin’s blog are the only blogs I visit and I rarely read Krugman.

sdfc

11 Sep 10 at 11:07 pm
Hey, SDFC. The American public seem to think stimulus is a great idea. So much so that almost 70% of the people polled hate it.

But I guess it’s just bad marketing and the dreaded Fox news that has caused those numbers to be skewed.

lol

JC

11 Sep 10 at 11:12 pm
2 of those bands only ever had 1 hit song and Paul Kelly is a solo act.

So what? Plenty of GREAT solo acts in rock and roll, brother. The Jimi Hendrix experience was great because of Jimi, who was a genius, not Noel Redding’s shithouse bass (which Jimi often overdubbed and re-did when Noel went home) or Mitch Mitchell’s overrated pseudo jazz drum rave ups. That’s why Jimi sounded like Jimi no matter who he played with – even on the Band of Gypsies LP.

CL – damn straight it was an amazing comeback. I always suspected they got the lyrics from Bon’s song book, though the Young brothers deny it. The fact is the lyrics on Back in Black were as witty as the early Bon lyrics (with the Youngs always writing the hooks) and they were never that good again.

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 11:47 pm
Oh, and Yobbo, if being great was defined by hit songs, I suppose Shadduppa Your Face is up there for you?

Ev630

11 Sep 10 at 11:48 pm
“So what? Plenty of GREAT solo acts in rock and roll, brother.”

Yes, but I did say “5 greatest bands”, and Paul Kelly is not a band. If it makes you feel better he is Australia’s greatest folk/rock singer/songwriter.

Yobbo

12 Sep 10 at 12:06 am
“JC

Still hanging your argument against stimulus spending on a regression?”

Yeah right sfdc, now you’re spinning quality research, which is peer reviewed, quantitative, time series analaysis as *desperate*, comapred to your ludicrous connect the dots version of macro analysis, totally ignoring the lending to Government black hole and the increase in hidden unemployment which outweighed Rudd’s (temporary mind you) jobs created (created at $358 000 per job, unamortised).

.

12 Sep 10 at 12:16 am
“Yeah right sfdc, now you’re spinning quality research, which is peer reviewed, quantitative, time series analaysis as *desperate*,”

He’s worse than Homer. Homer bullshits about he stuff he says he reads and later after some here reads it we find out that’s not what the author was saying.

SDFC claims he reads the links and then says it agrees with him when they do no such thing or in this case that it was desperate.

If he keeps spinning his head’s going to fall off.

JC

12 Sep 10 at 12:21 am
Just read the Minister Line up,someone’s taking the piss right?

tal

12 Sep 10 at 12:27 am
Relax, Tal. The nation’s finances are in the hands of the woman who oversaw the Copenhagen venture.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 12:32 am
It seems the Ministry for Social Inclusion is also the Ministry for Self Esteem.

http://www.socialinclusion.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 12:34 am
Lord love a duck Lad I’m back on my blood pressure pills.Lurch in classrooms!!!!!!!!! Oh the poor children.

tal

12 Sep 10 at 12:34 am
#

Just read the Minister Line up,someone’s taking the piss right?

Yea, joolia is trying some sorta comedy routine thinking it April.

JC

12 Sep 10 at 12:34 am
Joe send them a current calender will ya

tal

12 Sep 10 at 12:36 am
What the hell is social inclusion?What.I mean really, What the hell is going on?

tal

12 Sep 10 at 12:38 am
It means basically being nice to LP’s betaboys if they start crying.

JC

12 Sep 10 at 12:44 am
Oh OK how?

tal

12 Sep 10 at 12:46 am
It’s gets worse. This dude is a total nutball.

He’s starts screaming too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMgyi57s-A4&feature=player_embedded#!

JC

12 Sep 10 at 1:01 am
Sandor Earl’s miracle corner try versus the Raiders is already up on YouTube. Take a look:

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

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 1:08 am
We now have a Minister for Social Inclusion? Why not a Minister for Self-Esteem?

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 1:53 am
It’s pleasing to see that someone has burned the Koran, while several more are planning to do so:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/017320.html

We must burn the Koran at once!

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 3:54 am
Stan writes:

I deleted the copy of the Koran from my Kindle. Is that like only burning half of the physical book or something?

lol

brb, unliking the Koran on Facebook.

Yobbo

12 Sep 10 at 4:06 am
The Koran has been burned!

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/man-burns-koran-pages-at-site-of-controversial-new-york-city-mosque/story-e6frfku0-1225919022334

We must burn this wicked book immediately.

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 4:59 am
A HATE-filled protester

Is the NYT even a real newspaper any more?

Yobbo

12 Sep 10 at 5:34 am
Burning books for political gain is always unwise.

Sinclair Davidson

12 Sep 10 at 7:06 am
Interestng that Crean gets the regional Australia portfolio. I wonder if it was created for Oakeshot?

I think this is the equivalent of putting Crean out to pasture. I doubt he is happy with it. I had the misfortune of having him as a minister for primary industries when he was sinbinned by Hawkie for supporting Keating in his first attempt at knifing Bob. He did not want to be there, and knew he could not cut it following on from the very popular John Kerin. The result was making life hell for many staff and public servants, for little gain.

Stirling examples of his time as PI minister is following the advice of one Ross Garnaut and implementing new, hopelessly niaive and overly bureaucratic wool industry structure and listening to the same turkey to restructure dairy marketing arrangements, ultimately giving Vic dairyfarmers a leg up to the detriment of their interstate rivals.

I would imagine the main job of the Minister for Regional Australia will be rehashing Programs to make it look like La Gillardine has created $10b in new money forregional Australia yet still manage a negligible impact on the budget.

Entropy

12 Sep 10 at 7:37 am
Make that rehashing old Programs. While mostly good, sometimes the autospeller on the old iPhone can be abit overzealous.

Entropy

12 Sep 10 at 7:43 am
Rebadging. Rebadging.

Entropy

12 Sep 10 at 7:45 am
Video of the koran burning:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/09/burning-koran-at-ground-zero.html#readfurther

boy on a bike

12 Sep 10 at 9:35 am
I think you guys are forgetting a couple of hard rocking bands by the name of Air Supply and The Little River Band.

Infidel Tiger

12 Sep 10 at 9:41 am
“Nobody has ever accused me of being a racist – least of all against Aborigines, whose welfare has always concerned me a great deal.”

I wish I could say the same, but you accuse me of it regularly.

It’s completely irrelevant though, as I have certainly never accused you of it, and the discussion is about your accusations of racism – remember?

“In fact, the survival of the “coconut” sliming for so long is telling given the notoriously hair-triggered delete-finger of KiMark & Co.”

First, the ‘deletion’ of the post was evidence for your oddball claims.

Now, its non-deletion is evidence for same.

In conclusion, you are a fruitcake.

FDB

12 Sep 10 at 9:57 am
“A HATE-filled protester…”

The NYT actually printed that?

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 9:59 am
Cold Chisel for my money at #1.

Midnight Oil’s Aussie-ness was always a bit too self-conscious for me – AC/DC, INXS, Aussie Crawl and Chisel were all quintessentially Australian, but pulled it off with a bit more swagger and less navel-gazing. IMHO.

FDB

12 Sep 10 at 10:05 am
When and where did I accuse you of being a racist, FDB, you dishonest, perpetually angry clown?

Although your militance on the question appears to indicate that you too believe Aborigines disobedient to white leftists are fair game.

Mark Bahnisch – renowned for banning people at the drop of a trilby – allowed a commenter to use a grostesquely racist epithet to slime Noel Pearson. The word used was “coconut.”

Contrary to your latest spin, I never said the deletion of this infamy constituted racism, weirdo. I merely remarked upon its deletion. What I marked for comparative purposes in my exchange with Steve was the editorial support at LP for this racist infamy.

Steve was talking about the kind of language used by you and Bird in Catallaxy forums.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:08 am
It begins and ends with AC/DC. I’ve got their latest album Black Ice and it rocks. They’re the only rock band I can think of that hasn’t lost anything with age. Even mega bands like U2 are just tribute bands to their own former glory. ANd can you imagine buying a new Stones album?

Infidel Tiger

12 Sep 10 at 10:09 am
Good god you’re pissweak and boring CL.

I don’t keep a dossier of your tripe for future reference, and obviously you’ll never admit to being the serial accuser and slimer-of-thers that everyone knows you to be, so forget it.

You’re a really nice man, and I take back my mild observation that you regularly call others including me racist.

FDB

12 Sep 10 at 10:13 am
Where on the list would you place your own Ted Mulry Gang tribute band, FDB?

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:14 am
Yeah, I’m so boring, FDB, that you’re notorious for trolling every comment I write like some kind of wild-eyed stalking loony.

You’re renowned for being character-less and cowardly but I thought that even you might draw the line at attacking Aborigines.

But no. You defend it, you weakling. It’s easy to see why you’re now living with a cat.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:19 am
“You’re renowned”

Awesome!

“for being character-less and cowardly”

Dammit. Well, it beats obscurity I guess.

“but I thought that even you might draw the line at attacking Aborigines.”

And so I do. Why, are you suggesting that I attack aborigines? Unless you include yelling “you’re shit” at Travis Varcoe the other night, I’m pretty sure that’s false. Oh wait… I did physically intervene along with a couple of other blokes to eject a man of aboriginal from a train once, who was chroming in front of school children.

Perhaps I can see where this is heading now. Any ‘attack’ at all on an Aborigine by a white leftist is racism, right? It follows that any such ‘attack’ on a website claiming to be non-racist is ten times worse than what goes on in openly racist gutters like Bolt’s, or random insult-pits like Catallaxy.

“But no. You defend it, you weakling.”

Do I? Goodness me. That doesn’t sound like something I’d do. Parhaps you’re.. I dunno… lying?

“It’s easy to see why you’re now living with a cat.”

You’ve lost me. People who attack aborigines and defend racism live with cats?

FDB

12 Sep 10 at 10:34 am
Are you married, CL?

Jarrah

12 Sep 10 at 11:03 am
“random insult-pits like Catallaxy”

Glad to see you realise we’re not racist, but have a “robust” comments section.

On the other hand, I don’t know why some at LP lower themselves with anger at Pearson etc for not toeing the ALP line. It’s awful and they’ll just drive more people away.

I dunno. Lingiari is a fiefdom.

.

12 Sep 10 at 11:16 am
This issues with Pearson were spelt out by Chris Graham ni a recent article, to which I linked here. Basically, Pearson has gone from an advocate of Aborigines, to calling for the most punitive and interventionist measures against them. He’s a hypocrite, because whilst he calls for these measures, he doesn’t want them in his own community. He’s a fool, as the measures, apart from being morally repulsive, also don’t ‘work’. Finally, he’s hitched his wagon to the low-rent Coalition, whose luminaries include ‘Ironbar’ Tuckey, best known for beating the shit out of an Aboriginal youth.
In short, Pearson is little more than a standard News Ltd hack (with pretensions of ‘radical centrism’) and it is other Aborigines, not the LP left, who most thoroughly repudiate his constant right-wing shilling.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 11:22 am
CL “Remember the outrage when the cops dropped by that Bill Henson ‘art’ exhibition?”

Perhaps he could be commissioned to do some photos of a naked but defiant nine year old girl urinating on the Koran: “Aisha’s Revenge”.

Timothy Can

12 Sep 10 at 11:25 am
“best known for beating the shit out of an Aboriginal youth.”

I bet the guy was a promising honours student as well.

Support of the intervention is misguided. Sure alw and order needs to be enforced. Treating people like children will not engender normalisation (if that can be achieved in the more traditional, more safe and stable societies up there, which are far removed from Australian culture than the troubled remote communities). I still want the Greens to explain why their position on Northern Rivers etc is empowering and not punitive and interventionist.

.

12 Sep 10 at 11:26 am
THR = racist.

See? This is easy!

Thanks CL, for clarifying my moral universe into the greasy ghee through which you daily slither.

FDB

12 Sep 10 at 11:29 am
Still talking about me, FDB?

You really are a disturbed, sad person.

And to think I was one of few people who offered you sympathy earlier in the year when you told us you’d been dumped. The sympathy remains – though I can now see why it happened. You’re perpetually angry.

Any ‘attack’ at all on an Aborigine by a white leftist is racism, right?

When it’s the word “coconut” – which means he’s a race traitor and a bad exemplar of blackness (as judged by the pale, white bread LP readership) – yes, it is, you immoral worm.

…openly racist gutters like Bolt’s…

Ah yes, the LP squad’s all-purpose boogy monster: ANDREW BOLT!!

If he’s guilty of a racist epithet used against an Aborigine, I’ll happily condemn it too.

Now, can I have a link so I can do that?

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 11:40 am
How’s the cat, by the way, FDB?

Have you strangled it yet?

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 11:41 am
LP’s recent thread on disobedient Abo, Noel Pearson:

“Well, that’s exactly what I’d expect this prick to do. he so beneath contempt I can’t be bothered commenting further.”

- Paul Burns

“…the Mangosuthu Buthelezi of Australian politics.”

- Paul Norton on Wesley Aird

“It’s a pity that Pearson has become ‘the’ voice of indigenous Australia. Many indigenous people loathe him a refer to him as the Cane Toad.”

- Fine, using the cover of what indigenous people allegedly think

“My koori mate reckons Pearson is dickhead.”

- Dave, using the cover of what indigenous people allegedly think

“Noel Pearson, the tame blackfella so beloved by the lying rodent, is so obsessed with his own political career that he has long abandoned the very people he purports to represent as he persues self interest. That he is paraded as the oppositions sage on matters indigenous simply proves that the liebrals have no interest in indigenous affairs apart from providing yet another one of their flunkys with a cushy job.”

- Robbo too hates the disobedient Pearson

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 11:57 am
C.L.,
1. I agree with you on Pearson – if they want to attack him, like when you attack any other person, it should be about their arguments.
2. With you, it is about your arguments. You routinely distort, at best, other people’s views to try to make whatever point you are trying to make.

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 12:02 pm
Watched Insiders this morning. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife there. Gerard Henderson was on with Annabelle Crab and she was totally dismissive of him or at least trying but failing to land a punch.

Henderson writes this media column and really got stuck into her and the left-wing garbage going on at the ABC’s Drum

JC

12 Sep 10 at 12:27 pm
Nice try, Andrew. You always come in as ‘third man in’ trying to get revenge for some past embarrassement. Today, you’re obviously still miffed about your bungling of the Obama childhood Muslim question. I don’t attack anyone, by the way, unless they attack me first. So you’re being dishonest. But then, that’s what you do.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 1:40 pm
LP’s latte lefties on an Abo they don’t like: coconut, Uncle Tom, prick, dickhead, cane toad, tame blackfella.

I now ask for links to where Andrew Bolt used similar language against a particular racial group.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 1:43 pm
Big scoop at The Age.

Outrage over Big Tobacco campaign.

Documents leaked to The Sydney Morning Herald show the tobacco industry is funding the campaign to stop plain packaging being introduced.

Further, it is employing the public relations firm to run the campaign, approving who will do media interviews and managing the strategy for lobbying government.

‘Health groups’ have called for a Tehran-style banning of the ads.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 1:55 pm
Many indigenous people loathe him a refer to him as the Cane Toad

Is that why you’re always licking him CL?

Adrien

12 Sep 10 at 2:04 pm
The LP-approved phrase for my defence of the man would probably be “nigger-lover,” Adrien.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 2:17 pm
Brilliant new strategy by Obama to win back the hearts and minds of middle America:

… the Obama White House has taken the first steps in decades to move away from a strict lock-‘em-up mentality on crime – easing sentences for crack cocaine possession, launching a top-to-bottom review of sentencing policies and even sounding open to reviewing guidelines that call for lengthy prison terms for people convicted of child pornography offenses.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42004.html

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 2:20 pm
Not only did somebody burn the Koran outside the Ground Zero Victory Mosque, but another group tore pages from the Koran at the front the White House. In addition, we have two Larry Auster commentators burning Korans. Here are some pictures of a Koran-B-Q:

http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2010/09/stogie-burns-koran-photos.html

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 2:49 pm
Another Koran-burning party took place in Tennessee.

http://www.wsmv.com/news/24972042/detail.html

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 3:02 pm
And the Westboro Baptist Church made good on their pledge to burn the Koran. However, in a possible sop to Obama and the Democrats, WBC also burned the American flag.

http://www.godhatesfags.com

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 3:05 pm
No, C.L. – no embarrassment there for me. What you said was a fact is not a proven fact, just an assumption on your part. When you said I support capital punishment you were wrong. I am trying to think of one where you were right.
Nope – I can’t. But I am sure there must be one or two.

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 3:19 pm
I just do not have as much time or inclination to sit here all day and night posting comments and wearing down everyone with endless blather.

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 3:22 pm
The LP-approved phrase for my defence of the man would probably be “nigger-lover,” Adrien.

Slander CL. And treason. You know Pearson’s a boong not a nigger. Where’s your ethnic sensitivity?

I love how racial slurs expose the inbreeding habits of those who invented them.

Adrien

12 Sep 10 at 3:31 pm
Here is the video of the Ground Zero koran burner:

http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2010/09/man-burns-koran-at-ground-zero-today.html

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 3:35 pm
THR

The issue that the white middle class Chris Graham highlighted, was that Aborigines – and other dark-skinned people – who do not take their talking points from white middle-class university Trots, are in fact self-loathing Uncle Toms, coconuts, and/or Bennelongs.

Hence we understand the 21st century policy irrelevance of said white middle-class university Trots, and the complete disdain with which they are held by er, er, actual Aborigines?

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 3:38 pm
It goes far beyond Noel Pearson nowadays. Warren Mundine, Marcia Langton, Wesley Airds, Sue Gordon, and on and on.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 3:43 pm
Excellent speech by Geert Wilders at Ground Zero yesterday.

http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2010/09/geert-wilders-speech-at-ground-zero.html

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 3:54 pm
I think Cold Chisel is up there. A great Australian band. But AC/DC rock out with their cocks out and stormed the world. They are one of the world’s greatest rock bands, breaking records with sales.

Yobbo, Paul Kelly isn’t the only great rocker to use pick up bands. Remember Derek and the Dominoes? What about the Fabulous Thunderbirds? Actually I recall a recent post where you indicated you were born in the 90s or something, so perhaps not, eh?

But you can categorise Kelly anyway you want if it makes you feel better.

The rest of us will crank up “Before Too Long” and crack open a tinnie.

Ev630

12 Sep 10 at 4:11 pm
The issue that the white middle class Chris Graham highlighted, was that Aborigines – and other dark-skinned people – who do not take their talking points from white middle-class university Trots, are in fact self-loathing Uncle Toms, coconuts, and/or Bennelongs.

You’re still obsessed with skin colour, and think that you are somehow qualified to define Aboriginality based on melatonin levels.

In any case, why don’t you back up your slurs against Chris Graham? A single, sourced quote would do nicely.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 4:18 pm
No, you’re the ones who assume aborigines (and anyone with the same melatonin) should think the way you think.

Ev630

12 Sep 10 at 4:34 pm
Viz Aboriginal Australian Supermodels: there is one. I’m off to murder her boyfriend now.

Adrien

12 Sep 10 at 4:38 pm
No Andrew, re Obama and his boyhood, I had evidence for what I said.

You presented no evidence and then changed your story.

I can provide the links to you doing so, if you like.

When you said I support capital punishment you were wrong.

?

I just do not have as much time or inclination to sit here all day and night posting comments and wearing down everyone with endless blather.

Two in a row and a 100 percent thread concentration on me. Here’s a suggestion: try posting on a variety of topics and stop trying to save face for past anger episodes. Then maybe you too will have interlocutors on-thread rather than people scrolling past the veritable brandname of boring, ‘Andrew Reynolds.’

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 5:05 pm
OMG thia is hilarioua

http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2010/09/this-is-a-guide-for-how-you-should-not-deliver-a-political-speech.html#comments

jtfsoon

12 Sep 10 at 5:06 pm
My name is Phil Davidson! What a moron.

Adrien

12 Sep 10 at 5:12 pm
Currency Lad there are people who’ve doused themselves in petrol and are gonna light a match next time Obama’s Jihadist primary school is mentioned.

Adrien

12 Sep 10 at 5:13 pm
Scary stuff at LP picking up on Laura Tingle’s Fin piece on the ALP’s need to do something about News Corp.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/09/10/tingle-on-friday-labor-must-decide-what-to-do-with-news-limited/

In the comments, suggestions include:
setting up an ABC paper which could be shut down after it has put News out of business.
canceling News’s corporate registration
boycotting News for government advertising
break up News Corp
name and shame companies that advertise in News publications

Though to be fair, some commenters suggested that the government should tread carefully on this kind of thing…

The whole thread is worth reading. The attacks on the ABC from the right pale in comparison with this stuff from the left.

ken n

12 Sep 10 at 5:22 pm
Laura Tingle has become their latest swami. Or should that be Ma Sheilah?

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 5:25 pm
ken n

It never occurs to the screeching harpies that they should just stop using LP as another portal for News Corp distribution. Then again, if they ignored News Corp, the blog would die.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 5:37 pm
Content warning Steve…

It is fucking hilarious that Brown fails to see that his own piss weak opinions fly in the face of what he “sees itself as the determinant of democracy in Australia”. Given that the overwhelming majority rejects his crusade of higher electricity costs for all, shorter showers to clean thyself, etc will give a better future to our children to which all must capitulate right now. That said, it is highly ironic that he be worried about our children.

DavidJ

12 Sep 10 at 6:04 pm
Adrien,
Promise?
.
C.L.,
You presented it as a fact. Clearly, it is at least contentious and therefore not a fact. Is that simple enough logic for you or do you need it in Dick and Dora language?
Oh – and I apologise for stoking what appears to be a tendency towards conversational narcissism on your part. Perhaps we can again talk about you in our next thread?

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 6:31 pm
I said there was evidence Obama was a Muslim as a child – something you evidently regard as deeply shameful.

A document. Evidence.

To which you responded:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

To which, I say again:

Do you have any evidence it was an assumption?

Do you have proof he didn’t care about religion at all?

No. You don’t.

You then changed your thesis:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

For this too, of course, you have no evidence.

Perhaps we can again talk about you in our next thread?

I am your favourite topic of thread discussion, Andrew. Not my narcissism. Your obsession.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 8:01 pm
No, C.L., you said it was a fact. It quite plainly is at least contested – and is denied by the person himself, as I linked to. That is the evidence I have.
Sorry, but you are wrong. It is not a fact – it is an assumption on your part.

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 8:13 pm
Fair dinkum, dont tell me CL has fallen for this Obama-is-a-muslim bullshit.

He must have two willies, you don’t get that silly playing with the one.

rog

12 Sep 10 at 8:44 pm
I had no idea so many people were burning the Koran on 9/11! About two dozen recorded events in fact. Here is a useful compilation of all of yesterday’s Koran-burning videos.

http://escapingmediocrity.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/korans-burned-on-91110/

This is an excellent, positive development for humanity.

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 8:44 pm
It is not an assumption, Andrew. The evidence shows that Obama was a Muslim as a boy – oddly, something you regard as deeply shameful. Why, I don’t know.

I have asked you repeatedly to present evidence for your ever-morphing counter-theories but so far to no avail.

Theory #1:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

To which, I say again:

Do you have any evidence it was an assumption?

Do you have proof he didn’t care about religion at all?

No. You don’t.

You then changed your thesis.

Theory #2:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

For this too, of course, you have no evidence.

Amusingly, the moral panic from you and others about Obama the Muslim boy child began with my link to an Ann Coulter column in which she pointed out, inter alia, that Obama is NOT a Muslim.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 8:52 pm
Fisk, some words of wisdom from Rog:

Jeeeesus dont you guys get the picture?

Because Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace your warmongering intolerance is offensive to Islam.

Dont-offend-islam.

Hear hear! Good one, Rog.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 9:03 pm
LP commenter says the US “asking for September 11 for more than 70 years”.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/09/11/saturday-salon-17/#comment-235038

Yobbo

12 Sep 10 at 9:09 pm
Very interesting post at Chicago Boyz:

Palin and the Left’s Status-Anxiety.

The following excerpt seems relevant to our wannabe media-banning stormtroopers at Larvatus Prodeo:

Leftism at its heart holds that a small percentage of humans have a vastly superior understanding of everything compared to ordinary people. The point of leftism is to empower these superior individuals to impose their superior understanding upon society by the force of the state. Leftists must be viewed by themselves and others as superior human beings if they are to have a claim to power and status.

Back to what’s driving the Palin Derangement Syndrome:

It might seem that leftist elites would have little concern for a loss of status, but in the last 40 years society and political culture have changed a lot. Prior to the ’60s, the left could point to the real and imagined successes of the technocratic progressive era to justify their status. They could claim that they saved the country from the Great Depression, fought WWII and contributed to the post-war prosperity. America’s great cities were peaceful and prosperous under the benign rule of Democratic party machines. People voted with their feet, migrating from what we call today red areas to leftwing blue areas.

Times changed, but the left remained not only stuck in the ’50s but moved even farther left by mimicking the European left. After the ’60s, the left had few successes to point to. The Great Society failed, the ’70s were an overall train wreck and the once great Democratic cities of the Northeast collapsed. People voted with their feet again but this time migrating from blue areas to red areas. In this process the left lost its meritorious claim to status.

Since they have few meritorious indicators of a personal and group claim to status remaining, leftists are forced to fall back on the same standards employed by the European upper classes. They try to restrict status not by merit but by conformity to their own life pattern. They demand that people go to the right elitist schools. They demand that people live in certain communities. They demand that people have the right recreational interests. They demand that people enjoy uniform kinds of art and music. They demand that people have the proper modes of speech, accent and allusion. They demand that people have the right religious beliefs. And so on.

On this basis Palin is a nightmare: She went to a state college. She lives in the “backwoods”. She likes hunting, fishing and sports. She likes country music and representational art. She doesn’t have the right accent. She doesn’t dress appropriately. She’s a Pentecostal instead of atheist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, etc.

Palin’s success stabs them in the heart of their anxiety. If Palin can be a successful political leader, what does that say about the leftists’ claims of intellectual and moral superiority? If people don’t just instantly assume that leftists are smarter and better than everyone else, why would people trust a leftist government to make so many decisions about the people’s live, e.g., medical care?

That is why leftists see Palin as a genuine and significant threat of unusual magnitude. In the emotional thinking of leftists, she is a personal threat to everything each individual leftist has attained in life. They feel a sincere, visceral sense of danger about her because she attacks the very core of their egos. They feel the same hatred towards Palin that the European upper classes felt towards the upstart middle-class. They feel the same hatred that poor whites felt towards non-whites. They feel that way for the same reasons. If she succeeds, worse, if she is right, then they become nobodies.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 9:09 pm
What I particularly like about the Koran-burning controversy is how it has effected such a stark reversal of what the Left has traditionally imagined itself to be. Now you have the once “radical” “in your face” “edgy” Left sounding like a bunch of 1950s conservatives – “You’re insulting religious tradition and undermining the velly fabric of our society!!!” (/crusty toff)

The Left is now undeniably on the side of reaction and atavism.

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 9:11 pm
It is not an assumption, Andrew. The evidence shows that Obama was a Muslim as a boy – oddly, something you regard as deeply shameful. Why, I don’t know.

I don’t find it shameful. I find it irrelevant.

But I find people who focus on it as a means to criticise Obama risible.

Obama is a dunce and a lightweight. We should all focus on THAT.

Ev630

12 Sep 10 at 9:16 pm
But I find people who focus on it as a means to criticise Obama risible.

nah… it’s all on the table. Especially for politicians who write biographies.

daddy dave

12 Sep 10 at 9:21 pm
The Left is now undeniably on the side of reaction and atavism.

And the Right, with its love of book-burning and national identity, its moving closer and closer to the Reich.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:21 pm
LP commenter says the US “asking for September 11 for more than 70 years”.

It’s a crude way of putting it, but it’s undeniably true. On the Wednesday morning after the 9/11 attacks, a conservative colleague of mine remarked that, tragic as the attacks were, the US ‘had it coming’. It’s surprising that Chileans weren’t behind such an attack. Or Guatemalans. Or Colombians. Or Filipinos. Or Vietnamese. Or Greeks.

The fact remains, the US has tortured and murdered so many people in the past few decades that Al Qaeda, Saddam and the Taliban look like part-time amateurs. So whilst US citizens obviously do not deserve to be bombed, it’s not surprising that the US is a target for attack. What’s surprising is that, in spite of such an attack, not a single lesson has been learnt, and US foreign policy remains unchanged, in it’s fundamentals.

(As an aside, I hope we can reach left-right agreement that anybody who believes that ’9/11 changed everything’ is a confirmed retard.)

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:25 pm
Jeez THR, what happened to you guys? Once so daring and OUT THERE, now you all sound like bunch of 19th Century Presbytarians.

Take a chill pill, dude. It’s performance art.

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 9:27 pm
THR

Just because one is not a leftist does not make a Nazi. By your definition, there is no ‘Right’ in Australia, and I largely agree. So why don’t you address actual existing non-leftism in this country, rather than projecting your own anxieties onto a cartoon?

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 9:28 pm
Just because one is not a leftist does not make a Nazi.

My god you are stupid, Patton. Have another fluffy duck and try to remember the links between book-burning and the far-right, M’kay?

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:29 pm
Obama is a dunce and a lightweight. We should all focus on THAT.

Agreed.

The Left is now undeniably on the side of reaction and atavism.

Yeah, it is interesting, Fisk. They have resurrected blasphemy as a social crime – and they’d like to make it an actual crime. In fact, they partially have in the arena of “human rights” commissions etc.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 9:30 pm
THR, you rootless cosmopolitan you. You and all middle-class white people of inner Melbourne, eh?

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 9:31 pm
Take a chill pill, dude. It’s performance art.

So the violent grunting of the illiterate is ‘performance art’? If the Right wishes to cede ‘culture’ to the Left, more power to them.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:31 pm
Daddy Dave – I’d forgotten Obama’s risible autobiographies.

I hereby reverse my opinion.

Ev630

12 Sep 10 at 9:31 pm
THR

But according to you there is no link. The one is merely a synonym for the other.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 9:33 pm
So the violent grunting of the illiterate is ‘performance art’?

No, I don’t consider Hamas to be particularly artistic.

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 9:34 pm
It’s surprising that Chileans weren’t behind such an attack. Or Guatemalans. Or Colombians. Or Filipinos. Or Vietnamese. Or Greeks.

The lefties in these countries would be flat out organising a Fokker Friendship to fly into an abandoned barn. Even the Viet Cong terrorists would be hard pressed to stay off the Bolivian marching powder.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 9:37 pm
Even the Viet Cong terrorists would be hard pressed to stay off the Bolivian marching powder.

Maybe. They nonetheless defeated a ‘superpower’, however.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:39 pm
So, C.L., do you maintain what you said earlier, “[t]hatObama was in fact a Muslim is a fact”?
A fact remember – not that there is some evidence of it, but a solid, rolled gold “fact”.
If so, then you are a fool. If not, then I was correct all along.
Which is it?

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 9:39 pm
So the violent grunting of the illiterate is ‘performance art’

It’s (a) not violent (b) involves no grunting (c) has symbolic meaning beyond the literal representation and (d) is entertaining.
= art.

daddy dave

12 Sep 10 at 9:48 pm
It’s (a) not violent (b) involves no grunting (c) has symbolic meaning beyond the literal representation and (d) is entertaining.
= art.

Yeah, but when it comes to far-right audiences, the same could be said of dogshit.

So, I’ll keep my Kafka, Kandinsky and Liszt, and Fisky can keep his dogshit.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 9:54 pm
Again with the “far-Right” vapidity.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 9:57 pm
Ken .

It’s a very funny thread. LP is just a estrogen soaked site filled with nasty hens and nancy boys so of course they would be asking that Murdoch’s papers be muzzled.

Sinc’s “about Catallaxy” I thought has always explained it well.

Leftists….
“They live in world where disagreement with their ideals can only be due to corruption or stupidity.”

The drones at LP wouldn’t be able to understand that the Oz. That’s why they want it closed down.

JC

12 Sep 10 at 9:59 pm
Maybe. They nonetheless defeated a ‘superpower’, however.

Nah. The superpower got bored and left, sadly.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:00 pm
Nah. The superpower got bored and left, sadly.

Yes, rather hastily, and by helicopter from the roof, IIRC.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 10:07 pm
Andrew, the documentary evidence suggests Obama the boy child was indeed a Muslim. Don’t panic about this – it’s not something to be worried about.

I have asked you to present evidence for your (morphing) counter-theories but so far to no avail.

Look it at this way: you claimed Edmund Campion was a “spy” with less evidence than exists to argue Obama was a boy Muslim.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:07 pm
Yes, they all left from the roof, THR.

In a chopper.

Just like the country’s inhabitants then left the approaching holocaust on a single boat.

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:09 pm
C.L.,
So you have gone from “fact” to “suggests”. Thanks – you were wrong.
.
Adrien,
You can come back now – we are done.

Andrew Reynolds

12 Sep 10 at 10:14 pm
No, THR, you seem to have this confused with Leftist audiences and Piss Christ. Whatever happened to our Avant Garde?

Michael Fisk

12 Sep 10 at 10:26 pm
What “documentary evidence”?

Daniel Pipes?

Silly as a two bob watch

rog

12 Sep 10 at 10:28 pm
Daniel Pipes says he has “surveyed evidence” which “suggests…”and then spends the next few years banging on and on and on about it..

..like a motherless calf.

rog

12 Sep 10 at 10:30 pm
..like a motherless calf.

Are you talking about your whale slaughtering business Rog?

Infidel Tiger

12 Sep 10 at 10:32 pm
Whatever happened to our Avant Garde?

It’s the same as always, Fisk. The frontrunners are people like Christos Tsiolkas, or Arvo Part. The mouthbreathers are burning books, and agitating for war. Let me know when Scorsese does a film about how the US ‘won’ in Iraq in 2004.

THR

12 Sep 10 at 10:35 pm
No Andrew, I was right. I have evidence to show Obama was a Muslim boy. You offered two theories – both with no evidence, let alone documentary.

When I chided you for morphing your theories you claimed the second was merely a “further clarification” of the first – which was plainly absurd. It was, in fact, an outright abandonment of Theory #1.

Theory #1:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

Theory #2:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:37 pm
In the spirit of this thread, here’s a relevant link:

http://www.regretsy.com/2010/09/10/the-mother-of-all-9-11-posts/

THR

12 Sep 10 at 10:45 pm
“What is really bizarre is this failing by the left to acknowledge that the global jihad against the west exists. This is compounded by the fact that there is copious evidence that this jihad started before Iraq yet the condemnation of any effort to protect against this (non existing) Jihad has been relentless. Its no wonder the left are collectively viewed as being traitorous.”

- Rog hates lefties, Muzzies, Club Troppo, 2 October 2006).

C.L.

12 Sep 10 at 10:50 pm
You will need a lot of smoke to cover this CL

Fresh child sex abuse allegations rock Catholic Church ahead of Pope’s UK visit

pick a day, any day and google ‘catholic sex’ and narrow it down to 24 hours (otherwise there is just too much)

rog

12 Sep 10 at 11:09 pm
It’s the same as always, Fisk. The frontrunners are people like Christos Tsiolkas

ROFLMAO. While I don’t mind Christos’ writing, come on, he’s anything but avant garde. More boiler plate 1970s marxist.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 11:13 pm
With the benefit of hindsight I can now see that Iraq was, and still is, a disaster and no argument can justify the waste and misery in human life.

rog

12 Sep 10 at 11:14 pm
Unless it kept/keeps the Ruskies and/or the Chinese from taking over.

Peter Patton

12 Sep 10 at 11:22 pm
“- Rog hates lefties, Muzzies, Club Troppo, 2 October 2006).”

“This Lady is not for turning”, says Wodge.

JC

12 Sep 10 at 11:38 pm
“- Rog hates lefties, Muzzies, Club Troppo, 2 October 2006).”

Ya gotta admire the dedication of someone who keeps files on his online opponents. I can’t imagine my care factor getting that high.

Jarrah

12 Sep 10 at 11:54 pm
Jarrah:

It’s very easy with Wodge. He plastered countless mostly inane comments at numerous places and then one Friday stopped posting right wing stuff and just started posting as a left winger the following Monday.

No problem with that, as anyone can have a sex change and marry a Doctor. However Wodgie just started attacking anyone who didn’t share his Monday version of the world. In other words she became a very nasty, venomous little trannie over a weekend.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 12:02 am
No, C.L. You said it was a fact. You now agree that there is not enough evidence to show it is a fact. Thanks – it was all I was demonstrating. No need to say any more. We are done.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 12:04 am
Good one, Rog. Jarrah couldn’t have done better playing the Catholic card. (In fact, that’s literally true – see above). That’s a pretty clear admission that you found the Troppo link humiliating.

Rightly so.

Here’s that Time magazine piece on sexual abuse from earlier in the year:

Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males.*

In other remarkable news, Jarrah is unaware of Google Advanced and how it works. Thinks people keep filing cabinets next to their ‘typing machines.’

*Jarrah, I remembered the article and found it with Google. No carrier pigeons.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 12:20 am
Andrew – to your horror – there is indeed documentary evidence that Obama the boy child was a Muslim.

I have asked you repeatedly to present evidence for your ever-morphing counter-theories but so far to no avail.

Theory #1:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

To which, I say again:

Do you have any evidence it was an assumption?

Do you have proof he didn’t care about religion at all?

No. You don’t.

You then changed your thesis.

Theory #2:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

For this too, of course, you have no evidence.

When I chided you for morphing your theories you claimed (dishonestly) that the second was merely a “further clarification” of the first. It was, in fact, an outright abandonment of Theory #1.

So you have form for capitulating on this already.

But look, as I said – and others have tried vainly to convince you – Barry Soetoro’s religion in boyhood is irrelevant.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 12:27 am
“Prime Minister” Gillard’s “government” putting minds at ease:

Nervous response to Peter Garrett’s promotion.

Wilkie gives industry the jitters.

And in Kevin Rudd news, he really is putting away the tucker now that he doesn’t have an abused maid fixing him chicken and salad at all hours and altitudes. If his coat bursts, that button could have the US Ambassador’s eye out.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 1:26 am
That must be a photo of Rudd mapping out his vision for the future: “See that? The Lodge. She’s keeping it warm for me.”

Ev630

13 Sep 10 at 1:33 am
Think about it for a second. The little turd is announced as the foreign minister, goes for a walk around the lake and the cameras and various film crews also happen to be there at the exact time to take shots and film the US ambassador and of him strolling around the lake.

He’s truly freaking unbelievable.
Completely shameless and with a dozen screws loose.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 1:39 am
Isn’t it MARVELLOUS!

Ev630

13 Sep 10 at 1:52 am
Sensible demand by Netanyahu, because it forces Palestinian negotiators to reveal their true nature: despite that there are about two dozen Arab states and at least as many Muslim ones, they refuse to accept the existence of a SINGLE Jewish state and are determined to destroy it. Their only reason for engaging in “negotiations” is to destroy Israel by diplomatic means if possible.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/recognise-israel-as-jewish-state-says-pm/story-e6frfku0-1225920006298

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 2:36 am
C.L.,
I will just note that you are not repeating that it is a fact and leave it at that.
Have a good evening.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 2:41 am
This is what happens to people who are unfortunate to live in a majority Islamic country:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/christian-church-leaders-stabbed-assaulted-in-indonesia/story-e6frfku0-1225920040503

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 2:47 am
You keep saying that you’re leaving the topic, Andrew – the topic being your belief that a Muslim childhood is a shameful thing – but your 100 percent moral panic re Islam on this thread is in tact.

“Islam” being the word entered into Barry Soetoro’s childhood school enrolment form in the field entitled “Religion.”

So yes, it’s a fact that Obama was a Muslim in boyhood.

Now, I have asked you repeatedly to present evidence for your counter-theories but so far to no avail.

Theory #1:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

To which, I say again:

Do you have any evidence it was an assumption?

Do you have proof he didn’t care about religion at all?

No. You don’t.

You then changed your thesis.

Theory #2:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

For this too, of course, you have no evidence.

When I chided you for morphing your theories you claimed (dishonestly) that the second was merely a “further clarification” of the first. It was, in fact, an outright abandonment of Theory #1.

One last time: Barry Soetoro’s religion in boyhood is irrelevant. Why don’t you leave him alone and just concentrate on his lousy presidency instead?

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 2:59 am
Great moments in Rog…

A gushing Rog celebrates the victory of George W. Bush, warns fellow right wing death beasts of the travails ahead using the moderate conceptual framework for which he was famous:

“Dont think that the lefties are beat; once they get over their rejection they will be very very angry and we are in for a psycho war that will make Iraq a desirable destination.

“Its going to be wall to wall celebs directed by Moore script by Pilger casting by Arundhati Roy stunts by Saddam FX by Bin Laden subtitles by Chirac finance by Arafat.”

- Rog, Tim Blair’s, November 4, 2004.*

*Powered by CL’s filing cabinet.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:00 am
Another milestone for Barack Hoover:

US poverty on track to post record gain in 2009.

WASHINGTON – The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency — are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings.

Onya, Baz!

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:09 am
“Its going to be wall to wall celebs directed by Moore script by Pilger casting by Arundhati Roy stunts by Saddam FX by Bin Laden subtitles by Chirac finance by Arafat.”

Right, Wodge’s saying that anyone who opposes George Bush was really in bed with a bunch of random people who hate each other’s guts. Very sophisticated analyst, our Wodge.

Do you still think that Pilger is in cahoots with both Chirac and Bin Laden, Wodgie?

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 3:42 am
Here’s an interesting proposal for micro-economic reform:

Comment from: rog March 30th, 2006 at 8:33 pm

I wish that all the beaches and all the waterways were private property, they would then achieve some value.

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 3:59 am
Steady on, CL. He’s not saying it’s shameful. (Not that I have seen, anyway).

Ev630

13 Sep 10 at 4:11 am
“(In fact, that’s literally true – see above)”

Stop being tetchy hypersensitive. Especially since I said I had no problem with people with no experience in an area having something to say about it. Unlike you, which is something we should bear in mind the next time you have anything to say about… well, almost anything.

Unless you want to retract your snide insinuation about Gillard and Wong?

“found it with Google”

I stand corrected. You’re not modelling yourself on the Stasi, but on Echelon.

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 7:27 am
So yes, it’s a fact that Obama was a Muslim in boyhood.

Nominally so. It’s rather like the people who tick a denomination box at census time, although it has no practical import in their day-to-day lives.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 9:36 am
correction, I did not make myself clear. The ‘fact’ is that he was nominally attached to Islam. beyond that, whether it was more than that or not, can only be speculation either way.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 9:38 am
Good column from Tim Blair with a timely reminder on the warmie carnage wrought by Abbott: Turnbull, Rudd, Wong and Garrett – all demolished.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:43 am
C.L.,

Many people are worried about climate change. However, they don’t want industry to be shut down in order to deal with it.

It’s a case of they trust the scientific community but aren’t buying the deindustrialisation that deep Greens want, nor do they accept such a policy requires even a small drop in their living standards.

I think the public are showing marvellous judgment in regards to these issues.

.

13 Sep 10 at 9:48 am
Jarrah, I simply you caught you out playing the Catholic card and in a very dumb, embarrassing way. Married couples prepare engaged Catholics, not priests.

Fail.

It’s that simple.

Unless you want to retract your snide insinuation about Gillard and Wong?

It’s not an ‘insinuation’ – ‘snide’ or otherwise – that they’re both unmarried women without children. It’s a fact. It’s perfectly reasonable to point out that, hypothetically, if the two of them brainstormed for a family-friendly budget, they’d be flying blind.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:51 am
Here’s one C.L – cut spending back to pre Rudd levels and scrap fuel excise and raise the TFT at least equal to the dole.

I don’t even have kids yet!

.

13 Sep 10 at 9:56 am
… aren’t buying the deindustrialisation that deep Greens want, nor do they accept such a policy requires even a small drop in their living standards.

In times of real crisis in the past, Australians accepted sacrifices, rationing and all sorts of privations. That they’re not willing to endure any of these things at all to combat “climate change” shows that, in truth, they couldn’t care less.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 10:06 am
They say they do. Stated vs revealed preferences I guess.

.

13 Sep 10 at 10:27 am
“Married couples prepare engaged Catholics, not priests.

Fail. It’s that simple.”

Who said anything about preparation? I said “talking about”, “officiate”, and “make pronouncements on”. You are trying to claim I said something I didn’t. Classic CL twisting.

“flying blind”

Why? Because only people with direct experience with x can reflect upon and come to conclusions about policies about x? Your own logic suggests you shouldn’t be talking about, at a guess, 90% of your subject material.

You’ve painted yourself into a dumb, embarrassing corner with this one.

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 10:55 am
I think so. Look, I think people are mostly concerned about a clean environment, good fisheries and ressources management, toxic pollution, good management of waterways etc. These have all fallen victim – as worthwhile and practical policy areas – to the warmening cult.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 11:26 am
Agreed.

.

13 Sep 10 at 11:29 am
Utterly shameless:

Crean vows end to pork-barrel for the regions.

“We’ve got to get away from pork-barrelling . . . this sense that you only hand out [~~broadband~~] stuff around election time,” Mr Crean said.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 11:31 am
Trying to figure out why my comment is in moderation. No links, no swears, no obvious spam words.

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 11:44 am
“An Auditor-General’s report issued just nine days before the 2007 election found 72.5 per cent of the grants issued under the $410 million program went to Coalition seats.”

How many Nationals seats are regional? ALP?

.

13 Sep 10 at 11:44 am
What’s more important is the implementation of a rule based policy.

.

13 Sep 10 at 11:44 am
C.L.,
Interesting to see you have now switched back to “fact” from saying that there is “…documentary evidence that Obama the boy child was a Muslim”.
It looks like you are the one with the moral panic about being wrong.
Now, again, why do you take it as “fact” when the only evidence you have is a document written by a third party to get him into school? Why do you not accept the word of the person himself as at least making it clear that it is contestable?
I have advanced a couple of reasons why I do not regard this as a fact, merely an assumption, yet you, apparently out of fear of losing yet another discussion, change your story back again.
Just so that you are clear on my argument, as you seem confused (don’t worry – I will make it reasonably straight forward and simple, so there is a chance you might understand it):
1. In Indonesia at the time to be an atheist or an agnostic amounted to a crime – and a serious one. To get into school you needed to give a religion – any one of the 5 I mentioned earlier would do.
2. So his step-father had to put a religion on the form (leaving it blank was not an option – see 1. above).
3. The evidence is that the step-father was at the most a nominal Muslim, not observant, but if asked would have given his religion as “Muslim” – again, see one above.
4. Given that he could not leave the field blank, put “atheist”, “don’t know” or “don’t care”) the natural thing for him to do would be to put “Islam” in the “Agama” field.
5. As a result, I put little to no weight on the contents of that form.
Come on – for it to be a solid, rolled gold “fact” as you put it surely you have better evidence than that.
What you have presented might not even be admissible as evidence, much less establish a case.
Surely you have more than that if you are classifying it is a “fact”? Or are we just going to put up with you rabbiting on for a while trying to wear me down with yet more verbiage?

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 12:05 pm
Is Obama a Muslim? No.

He is the member of a racist black nationalist “Christian” church.

He should be pilloried for this and this alone.

.

13 Sep 10 at 12:24 pm
Verbiage? After that essay? One hundred percent of your comments on this thread are about Obama’s religion.

Andrew, there is documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy. That’s a fact.

This is nothing to be scandalised by. Lay off the Islamophobia.

You have no evidence for any of your increasingly confusing and verbose theories.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 12:26 pm
C.L.,

Do you really assign your parents nomination as your relgiion?

“I was baptised Catholic”

“I am Catholic”

Can be completely different.

Like I’ve demonstrated, he’s a member of a “Christian” hate group.

.

13 Sep 10 at 12:30 pm
Is Obama a Muslim? No.

Nobody has said that he is, Dot.

He is the member of a racist black nationalist “Christian” church.

No he isn’t. He threw Wright under the bus for making loony anti-semitic comments. Which is to say, Obama was comfortable with conspiracy theories and anti-semitism for 20 years but it when it became a problem on the campaign trail he suddenly bolted. He has no regular church. I also suspect that his purported Christan initiation at the hands of ‘Christian minister’ Wright was sacramentally dubious.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 12:34 pm
Wow. My comment has gone from “awaiting moderation” to deletion. Is that a bug, or a slip of the moderator’s mouse?

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 12:37 pm
Dot, when my parents enrolled me with the Sisters in grade 1, they would have filled out some paperwork…

Religion: Catholic.

Likewise for young Barry Soetoro:

Religion: Islam.

Why are people concerned about this? It’s bizarre.

The Druids don’t treat Rowen Williams like this just because he used to be a Christian.

Come on, people. Give Obama a break.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 12:39 pm
“Which is to say, Obama was comfortable with conspiracy theories and anti-semitism for 20 years but it when it became a problem on the campaign trail he suddenly bolted. ”

Thankyou. The likes of Tillman should have been less sanguine about Ron Paul’s tepid advocacy of far right wingers on selected issues.

.

13 Sep 10 at 12:41 pm
I think so. Look, I think people are mostly concerned about a clean environment, good fisheries and ressources management, toxic pollution, good management of waterways etc. These have all fallen victim – as worthwhile and practical policy areas – to the warmening cult.

Excellent point CL but it is becoming rather late in the day. I’ve been trying to warn people about this crap for decades.
\
http://www.science20.com/mouse_farm/medicating_megacities#comment-48998

…
Second, urban environments today are physiologically inflammatory beyond belief, their brew of fumes, crowding, germs and bad food wreaking all kinds of internal damage and prompting no end of lifelong medical problems. As Dr Marc Reidl, a specialist in respiratory disease at UCLA puts it, “Mega city life is an unprecedented insult to the immune system.”

———

John H.

13 Sep 10 at 12:43 pm
The likes of Tillman should have been less sanguine about Ron Paul’s tepid advocacy of far right wingers on selected issues.

Can you rephrase that pls, as I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 1:00 pm
Sorry, C.L., but you are the one that is concerned about this, saying that a form filled in by a step-father (under the conditions I noted above, with which you have not disagreed) renders it a sold fact that Obama, in his childhood, was a Muslim.
As I have said, in this you are wrong. That form alone does not and cannot make it a fact that he was a Muslim.
If you want to obsess about it and claim yet again that it is a fact, I cannot stop you. All I can do is point out that you are yet again wrong and hope that you can see this.
You did shift your ground, but once I pointed out that this would mean you were wrong in the first instance you shifted back. All I can assume from this is that you are terrified of admitting to being wrong. Surely that is not the case.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 1:00 pm
I also suspect that his purported Christan initiation at the hands of ‘Christian minister’ Wright was sacramentally dubious.

Riiiiiiight……

So the Incoherency Lad’s position is:

1. If someone says on an Indonesian form that you are Muslim, then case closed – you are a Muslim, despite any personal beliefs or qualifications, and there’s no point in denying it.

2. On the other hand, any self-identification as a Christian is “sacramentally dubious” unless the Bishop of Rome (or CL, in his capacity as the Mr Ratzinger’s duly appointed delegate) gives it the tick of approval.

What a self-righteous twit.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 1:05 pm
Reynolds, just accept that CL has arrogated for himself authority to determine everyone else’s true beliefs.

Because CL has assumed this authority, he is actually well qualified to say what everybody thinks, and in fact if you think you think something, you should probably check with CL first, because CL may have formed the view (which is conclusive for all purposes) that you actually think something different.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 1:07 pm
Fellas…

I wouldn’t be worried about about Hopeychange being a muzz.

In fact I can’t understand why anyone’s concerned with what was on his birth certificate. I’d be asking questions about his relationship with “The Rev”. Wright.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 1:09 pm
I’m with JC.

.

13 Sep 10 at 1:11 pm
I wouldn’t even worry about that JC. If I did have such concerns I’d be screaming blue murder about the infiltration of fundamentalist pre-millenialist christianity into the GOP. It don’t matter, what matters is if their religious affiliations impact on their political judgement and policy making.

John H.

13 Sep 10 at 1:15 pm
Second attempt.

“Married couples prepare engaged Catholics, not priests. Fail. It’s that simple.”

Who said anything about preparation? I wrote “talking about”, “officiate”, and “make pronouncements on”. So you’re trying to twist my words, but failing. Classic CL.

“flying blind”

Why? Because no-one without direct experience of x must refrain from thinking about and talking about x? By that logic, you shouldn’t be commenting on, at a guess, about 90% of your subject material.

You’ve painted yourself into a dumb, embarrassing corner. No wonder you’re tetchy about it.

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 1:34 pm
Jarrah, you played the Catholic card in order to smite me for having a mild go at the unmarried Gillard and Wong preparing a family-friendly budget. You apparently object to the new “government” being mocked in any way. Unfortunately for you, married couples rather than priests prepare engaged couples in the Catholic Church. When I pointed this out, you embarrassedly re-spun your comment by saying you were in fact referring to priests of all denominations and even religions. This was, of course, dishonest nonsense. You’ve beclowned yourself.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 1:42 pm
Sorry, C.L., but you are the one that is concerned about this.

I’m not in the least concerned that Obama was a Muslim as a boy, Andrew. You’re apparently scandalised by it – which is why 100 percent of your comments on this thread about Islam and Obama.

100 percent.

Aren’t you even faintly embarrassed by that?

There is documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy. That’s a fact. This is nothing to be scandalised by. You have no evidence for any of your increasingly complex and verbose theories.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 1:46 pm
“If I did have such concerns I’d be screaming blue murder about the infiltration of fundamentalist pre-millenialist christianity into the GOP. It don’t matter, what matters is if their religious affiliations impact on their political judgement and policy making.”

Well, I think you can make the case that somebody who believes Adam had a pet dinosaur might struggle with rationality more generally. Believing stupid things is evidence of being prone to believing other stupid things.

pedro

13 Sep 10 at 1:49 pm
“the Catholic card ”

Again with the twisting. I never mentioned Catholicism. You’re just on a hair trigger due to others badgering you about it, I understand. But do try to deal with the argument as presented, there’s a dear fellow.

“You apparently object to the new “government” being mocked in any way. ”

It’s truly a special talent you have of reading minds. I state very clearly why I objected, and it had nothing to do with Labor, but the validity of the opinions of the childless on children/families. You wilfully ignore this fact, and prefer to go gallivanting off into la-la land where everything is about you and your prejudices.

“married couples rather than priests prepare engaged couples in the Catholic Church.”

That’s great. Irrelevant, but great. Good on them. But of course, it ignores the point, because to engage on the point would show you to be an utter hypocrite.

And just to deal with your “priest=Catholic” sideshow: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=priest

*cue further irrelevancies from CL*

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 1:50 pm
You see, Reynolds?

CL knows that:

1. Obama was a secret Muslim, although he denies it.
2. You are scandalised by that fact, although you deny it.

So just accept that CL knows. In fact, he even knows shit that isn’t true, that’s how much he knows. Deal with it.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 1:51 pm
JC & dot,
I am not (and have never) been concerned whether Obama is a Muslim. For all I care he could believe that God is a little piece of green putty. Whether he is right or wrong on that is (IMHO) between him and God.
What I am talking about is evidentiary standards. A few commenters here (not the least of which is C.L.) have a strong tendency to mis-state evidence to try to build a convincing case – and even lie about the nature of that evidence.
Where I believe this has happened and I have the time to pursue it I will point it out and then see whether the relevant commenter can either justify their position, come up with further evidence or admit error and move on.
Where none of these happen and the discussion interests me I will pursue it. I have done it on many occasions and I will continue to do it. The long threads with Bird over FRB was a result of several of us doing the same thing.
On occasions I may also make similar mistakes. Where I do, please point them out and I hope I will have the guts to admit error.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 1:53 pm
It’s truly a special talent you have of reading minds.

As I said, CL is psychic. Deal with it.

gallivanting off into la-la land where everything is about you and your prejudices

And he has a narcissistic paraphilia with extreme masochistic overtones.

What a naughty little kinkster he is!

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 1:54 pm
On the other hand, any self-identification as a Christian is “sacramentally dubious” unless the Bishop of Rome (or CL, in his capacity as the Mr Ratzinger’s duly appointed delegate) gives it the tick of approval.

The ignorance of the Bill Buckley expert continues to astound. What I meant is the mainstream brethren of churches generally accept one another’s baptisms as valid (excepting some full-immersion Baptists) provided the forms and words of the initiation are orthodox. Considering Jeremiah Wright is a heterdox, racist fruitcake, I do question the validity of the sacrament but I cannot know for sure.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 1:58 pm
As I said, CL is psychic. Deal with it.

I’m picking up some vision now – I see a man in his undies surfing the web on his accidentaly expensive imported iPad. He’s trying to find – this is unclear – an illegal statue perhaps? Name is Billman, Dillman, Pillock – can’t quite make it out…

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 2:03 pm
“Unfortunately for you, married couples rather than priests prepare engaged couples in the Catholic Church.”

What are you talking about CL? Are there secret herbs and spices involved?

steve from brisbane

13 Sep 10 at 2:04 pm
nice anti-powerpoint rant by Judy Sloan
I find I am getting more luddite with age and appreciate this

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/save-us-from-death-by-powerpoint/comments-e6frg8zx-1225919886416

jtfsoon

13 Sep 10 at 2:05 pm
Ah riiiight.

So Obama’s not really a Christian because he hasn’t presented evidence that CL regards as satisfactory regarding the validity of the sacrament.

CL, I think Bird had a few threads at his place that were along similar lines.

Why don’t you go peddle your claptrap there?

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 2:06 pm
C.L.,
On the subject of embarrassment, aren’t you embarrassed that you have made over 60 comments on this thread? And, on the “Obama was a Mulim” thing, more comments than me?
No? Move on then and actually try to answer the questions or concede error.
BTW – I note yet another shift in your opinion – it has gone from a “fact” (argued about for a long time) to there being evidence of it, back to being a “fact” and now back to there being evidence of it.
Which is it? Is it a fact that he was a Muslim (your positions 1 and 3 and argued forcefully over) or that there is some evidence of it (positions 2 and 4 – and only mentioned twice)?

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 2:06 pm
Me:

Penny Wong is finance minister?

I wonder if she and Gillard will get together to hammer out a family tax package that responds to the pressures on Mums and Dads.

Jarrah:

Makes about as much sense as a priest talking about marriage, doesn’t it? When will people realise that one can only think or talk about things one has had personal experience with?

Me:

Exactly. Which is why the Catholic Church employs married couples to prepare the engaged for marriage.

Jarrah’s Oops moment:

Why are you obsessed with seeing Catholic-bashing everywhere? Priests exist in many religions.

—————————————————-

Jarrah was in fact referring to a branch of priests who, famously, do not and cannot marry. That is, Catholic priests of the Latin Rite.

He now claims he may have been talking about Hindu bachelors.

Spin of Skanke Ho proportions.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 2:08 pm
CL, I think Bird had a few threads at his place that were along similar lines.

I don’t read Bird’s blog, Tillman.

You spend days at a time there.

I dare say you share some views on ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ given the reason for your banning here by Sinclair.

But if you’re arguing that Jeremiah Wright isn’t a heterdox, racist fruitcake, perhaps you could explain why Obama dumped him.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 2:11 pm
I am not (and have never) been concerned whether Obama is a Muslim.

Which is why a frantic 100 percent of Andrew’s comments here are dedicated to ‘disproving’ what he regards as the scandal of Obama being a boy Muslim.

Evidence exists that Obama was a Muslim as a child.

A document. Evidence.

To which you responded:

“Just an assumption made decades ago by a step-father who really seems not to have cared about religion at all.”

To which, I say again:

Do you have any evidence it was an assumption?

Do you have proof he didn’t care about religion at all?

No. You don’t.

You then changed your thesis:

“I suspect it was so that he got free schooling that he was listed as an Indonesian citizen on the form – the ‘Islam’ on it was probably for the same reason.”

For this too, of course, you have no evidence.

Andrew, stop the Islamophobia. It’s unbecoming.

His honour: ‘what have you got?’
Me: an official document.
Andrew: the following exhibits, Your Honour:

Exhibit A: Assumption
Exhibit B: Seems
Exhibit C: Suspicion
Exhibit D: Probably

His Honour: I find for CL and award costs against Andrew, whom I declare to be a vexatious litigant.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 2:21 pm
“Spin of Skanke Ho proportions.”

That’s completely outrageous and out of line, CL.
The now legendary ‘Skan Ke Ho’ incident stands alone and unchallenged as the most egregious piece of spin in the history of the Ozblogosphere. I’ve in fact proposed that it be catalogued as such by the National Library of Australia.

Geoff Honnor

13 Sep 10 at 2:32 pm
FFS. People tick whichever ‘Religion’ box will avoid the most red tape. Malcolm Turnbull was an atheist methodist, and Lucy Hughes a catholic, yet they got married by a CofE vicar in a C of E church.

Who cares?

Peter Patton

13 Sep 10 at 2:34 pm
That reminds me, has anyone seen Homer. Where is the reprobate.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 2:38 pm
I think we are all sick of the topic. Can we argue over whether Edmund Campion was a spy instead? That would be just as relevant to anything

jtfsoon

13 Sep 10 at 2:39 pm
I thought Turnbull as nominally Catholic.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 2:40 pm
JC
Homer made a brief appearance as ‘the Dong’, sorry ‘the Don’ and then slinked away again last week.

jtfsoon

13 Sep 10 at 2:40 pm
Goeff:

There’s just one little curve ball in all that. I think homer believes his own spin on the Skanke ho incident. In fact I have no doubt in my mind the idiot believes what he says. That’s the scary part.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 2:42 pm
Did he? I missed that. So is he more changing his web name to the more appropriate “the Dong” then instead of the present stupid one? I can only hope so.

Hey Homer are you now “the Dong” around these parts because if you are “schlong” instead of Dong is more appropriate. Even Schlock would work for you.

Where are you you dope. Stop the hiding as we can hear breathing all over the site.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 2:47 pm
Shorter CL: “Look over there! Religion, religion, religion! Don’t worry about my hypocrisy, someone brought up religion!”

Jarrah

13 Sep 10 at 2:47 pm
C.L.,
You may have missed it, so I will point it out again. You stated he was formerly a Muslim – claiming that as a fact. I pointed out that the evidence you were using was at best circumstantial (i.e. I focussed on the evidence) and then offered a few reasons why that document cannot sustain an argument that it is a fact that he was a Muslim.
As several times before, it is your evidentiary standards I am taking issue with.
Now, which position are you taking now? If you say that there is some (albeit unconvincing and with several valid counter arguments, not least the position of Obama himself) evidence that he was a Muslim (i.e. your positions 2 and 4) I would agree with you. If you again claim that he was a Muslim (i.e. that it was a fact – your positions 1 and 3) I would disagree with you and point out that your evidence, as so far presented, is insufficient to prove that.
As it happens, I doubt he was a Muslim. To be a Muslim you need to make the profession of faith (you know, similar to the process of becoming a Christian that you were concerned about above), something that so far you have presented no evidence that he has done. So, like your doubt about Wright’s process, I have doubts about any claim that you might make about him being a Muslim.
That, though, is not the point I was trying to make. Your apparent lack of concern about the nature of the evidence was the point.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 2:48 pm
Homer even thinks that the Nazis tried deficit spending in 1933 thereby avoiding the depression.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 2:48 pm
Can we argue over whether Edmund Campion was a spy instead?

Spy! Come on, he entered the country in disguise and attempted to turn people’s allegience to a foreign power. Note to CL: I’m not making a value judgement about whether that was the right thing to do!!!!

But Campion’s old hat. The more pressing question is, who was Shakespeare? I’m am Oxfordian myself.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 2:51 pm
JC

he is NOW; after his methodist upbringing and CofE marriage.

Peter Patton

13 Sep 10 at 2:55 pm
All choppers are bastards…

Peter Patton

13 Sep 10 at 2:55 pm
DD,
Apart from anything else, De Vere had been to Italy and therefore would not have made the geographic howlers that were made in the Plays. Count me as a Stratfordian.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 3:03 pm
Can we argue over whether Edmund Campion was a spy instead?

Actually, it’s interesting you should say that, Jason. Andrew claimed definitively that he was a spy without any evidence. That’s why I pointed out yesterday that this belief of Andrew’s, re Campion, is sustained by less evidence than exists to show that Obama was a Muslim in boyhood. Yet he’s dogmatic on the one and exercised with sceptical outrage on the other.

An odd inconsistency.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:18 pm
There’s just one little curve ball in all that. I think homer believes his own spin on the Skanke ho incident.

And that’s probably the difference between him and Jarrah. Jarrah knows he’s gilding the lilly.

Which is worse, really.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:21 pm
Andrew, your essays are getting longer and longer and more and more complicated and confusing.

There is official documetary evidence that young Obama was a Muslim.

That’s a fact.

You have no evidence for your theories.

None.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:25 pm
C.L.,
I have not said he was, or was not, definitely a spy. I do not have the evidence (but then, neither do you) either way. Personally, I believe he was guilty of the crimes of which he was charged (and I also feel it not credible that he was not), but at this remove I think it unlikely that any further evidence will ever come up to prove it to modern standards one way or another.
The chances (for example) of the Vatican archives turning up orders to him to act as a spy (which would be the killer evidence) are (IMHO) unlikely, even if it does (still) exist.
Again, though, what is at issue is your cavalier disregard for the facts and the way you treat evidence – not whether he was, or was not, a spy or a traitor.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 3:35 pm
C.L.,
I would agree that there is some evidence for it, as I have already said. I do not find that evidence credible, for the reasons I have already stated.
It looks like you now agree with me (yet again) that while there is evidence it is not enough to establish it as a fact – your position 2 and 4 (with which I agree) but not your initial and third position (that it is a fact) with which I disagree.
Now, just to be clear – do you regard it as a fact that he was, in childhood, a Muslim, or do you merely think that there is some evidence for that position?

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 3:39 pm
BTW – I am sorry if I am confusing you C.L. The use of logic and rules based evidence can be tricky for those that are not aware of them or are not used to them. Keep up, though, and you may learn something.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 3:42 pm
Dave, Campion went to England to preach to the faithful – they being overwhelmingly Catholic. He was not sent to “spy” unless you’re seriously claiming that he was sending intelligence abroad on the state of the cellars and barns in which he said Mass. He was a man of sincere religious conviction. Elizabeth certainly thought so – she was probably his greatest admirer before she went bananas. His and his party’s imminent arrival in England was known about before they arrived. They were expected. They knew this but went anyway.

————————————-

Andrew debunks himself for me:

I have not said he was, or was not, definitely a spy… Personally, I believe he was guilty of the crimes of which he was charged…

He was charged with being a spy.

Re Obama, it is a fact that he was a Muslim in boyhood. No evidence striking down the official documentary evidence has been presented by you, Andrew. You have twice changed your story and your exegesis of events grows increasingly complicated – a sure sign of desperation.

Why you find Obama’s boyhood religion scandalous is a mystery.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 3:59 pm
Logical Andrew and his rules-based evidence:

“I have not said he was, or was not, definitely a spy… Personally, I believe he was guilty of the crimes of which he was charged…”

So you have not said he was a spy but you’re saying he was a spy.

Ergo: you believe Campion was a spy despite admitting that no evidence exists for this weird claim.

But you deny Obama the boy was a Muslim despite the existence of official documentary evidence.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 4:03 pm
So, C.L., you go back to positions 1 and 3 (making this also position 5) – that he was, in fact, a Muslim and drop positions 2 and 4, that all we have is some evidence of that. Do you really think the evidence you have given is enough to say that he had actually made the profession of faith and become a Muslim or do you think that you were right with position 2 and 4 – that all we have is some (IMHO not credible) evidence of that?
.
C.L.,
If you can find me saying that he was definitely and incontrovertibly a traitor and / or a spy then I would be the first to concede that I was wrong at the time as I have always said that we cannot be sure. As I believe I said at the time, though, and repeated above, we do not have enough evidence either way.
IIRC at the time I said that I would find it not credible that he did not mention that his boss had called for the overthrow of Elizabeth. That is all.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 4:09 pm
http://www.news.com.au/national/lawyer-alex-stewart-smokes-pages-from-the-koran-and-bible-and-says-we-should-get-over-book-burning/story-e6frfkvr-1225919970728

Yesterday, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Patel, slammed the video.

“I think it’s highly offensive that he has done this to two of the holiest books in the world,” Mr Patel said.

“It does not in any way add any value to trying to promote world peace and the consideration of different views – especially when there are heightened tensions around the anniversary of September 11 and the Eid el Fitr (end of Ramadan) celebrations.”

Get over it, you stupid bearded git. We will burn your book with impunity.

MIchael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 4:14 pm
Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh gets stuck into the Krug.

It seems these days The Krug is like Rodney Dangerfield. He just gets no respect.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/10/krugman-the-doctor-i-meant-to

Rodney Krugman now says “ain’t it good we’re turning into Japan?.”

He’s absolutely fucking shameless. With this level of intellectual dishonesty he must be now on his way to his second Nobel.

JC

13 Sep 10 at 4:19 pm
C.L.,
…and you believe he was not a spy (i.e. you are believing that absence of evidence constitutes evidence of absence, a logical fallacy) despite there being no evidence that that he definitely was not a spy.
Given you are the one promoting the logical fallacy I am more comfortable with my position (that he may have been a spy and / or a traitor but at this remove and in the absence of evidence we cannot be sure) than with your belief that he definitely was not a spy and / or a traitor.
.
See? Apply the rules of logic and it is not difficult to get to my position on these issues. Using the rules of logic makes it (IMHO) impossible to get to yours.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 4:20 pm
Dave, Campion went to England to preach to the faithful – they being overwhelmingly Catholic. He was not sent to “spy” unless you’re seriously claiming that he was sending intelligence abroad on the state of the cellars and barns in which he said Mass.

Fools rush in, as they say…

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 4:26 pm
He was charged with being a spy.

Are you saying he was charged under an illegal statute?

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 4:27 pm
What religion box did Campion’s dad tick when they first went to the UK on a tourist visa?

I think that would be a key piece of evidence, and we should all withhold comment until we track it down.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 4:29 pm
Let me know when Scorsese does a film about how the US ‘won’ in Iraq in 2004.

I think Stallone has the option on that one. Rambo V: Hunt Down Saddam. Scorsese isn’t much known for making American agit-prop.

Adrien

13 Sep 10 at 4:41 pm
Adrien,
Rambo beat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during their invasion in the 1980s. Saddam would have been a cinch.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 4:44 pm
Dave, Campion was not a fool. Elizabeth certainly didn’t think so – which is why she tortured him and made offers of silver and gold if he’d repudiate the Catholic Church. Which, of course, he wouldn’t do.

Andrew, Obama the boy was a Muslim. There is official documentary evidence for this.

This is not scandalous or anything to worry about.

Stop going Westboro on us about this.

You have presented no evidence to support any of your several counter-theories – which grow lengthier and more baroque by the hour.

In a rather embarrassing lapse of your self-proclaimed “logic,” you admit there is no evidence that Campion was a “spy” (though you do raise a Vatican conspiracy theory regarding this) but you passionately believe it anyway. On the other hand, there is official documentary evidence that the boy Barry Soetoro was a Muslim but you reject that with Exhibits A-D: Assumption, Seems, Suspicion and Probably.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 5:07 pm
Economist, Richard Tol really lets fly at the IPCC for being dishonest. He has a go at the Vice Chairman of the IPCC and draws blood.

This one also leaves a mark.

http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/2010/09/richard-tol-challenges-assertion-by.html

JC

13 Sep 10 at 5:11 pm
“…there being no evidence that that he definitely was not a spy.”

Thanks Andrew for introducing the North Korean jurisprudential yardstick.

Very convincing.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 5:12 pm
Ok, so deficiencies in the evidence introduced against Campion some 400 years ago proves B. Hussein Obama-Soetoro is a Muslim usurper.

Got it. Thanks.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 5:12 pm
proves B. Hussein Obama-Soetoro is a Muslim usurper.

CL is not arguing that and has explicitly repudiated that position.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 5:30 pm
FYI

I have always despised Deep Pork Chops(Deepak Chopra). He used his professional status as a doctor to bullshit the gullible and in the process has become very rich and famous. I also have huge problems with Dawkins, and the second link reveals exactly why. For myself, Frank, Glen, and febbal all this is very much coals to Newcastle but far too many have sucked in by Dawkins and Chopra. Get smart!

Have a look at the comments of Steve Davies. Man after my own heart, labels Dawkins as a “buffoon”.

Neat eh? Dawkins takes down Chopra and on the same day another post on S. Blogs takes down Dawkins.

http://www.science20.com/cool-links/richard_dawkins_lets_deepak_chopra_take_down_himself

http://www.science20.com/rationally_speaking/demise_genetic_blueprint_metaphor

John H.

13 Sep 10 at 5:38 pm
Fight Fight

tal

13 Sep 10 at 5:48 pm
CL is not arguing that and has explicitly repudiated that position

Thanks so much for clarifying that, Dadddy Dave. Because I obviously meant it as a literal, irony free suggestion, 100% devoid of any sarcastic comment whatsoever.

So thanks for pointing me in the direction of CL’s explicit repudiation of something or another.

I find your clarification extremely helpful, and it greatly enhances my understanding of CL’s well-considered, thoughtful, nuanced and eminently supportable position that young Obama was a secret Muslim.

So gold star, DD, for making a really positive contribution and helping to move this forward.

Really, I can’t begin to express how helpful I found your comment and I am sure I am not alone in expressing my gratitude.

In fact, I don’t think it’s presumptuous for me to say that I speak on behalf of the Australian blogosphere generally when I say, “bravo and well done, Daddy Dave!!!”

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 5:51 pm
So gold star, DD, for making a really positive contribution and helping to move this forward.

You’re welcome, Tillman. Anything to help. I find that irony and sarcasm are often a source of intractable disagreements and so I sometimes deliberately ignore it for this reason. Nothing like straight talk to cut through.

But you’re being sarcastic only because I nipped your little trolling exercise in the bud and spoiled your fun.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 5:54 pm
“Fight Fight”

which of the preceding 350 odd comments is that in reference to?

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 5:57 pm
I depise Deepak Chopra for thinking of that whole wheez before I did !

Peter Patton

13 Sep 10 at 6:03 pm
I find that irony and sarcasm are often a source of intractable disagreements

No you’re lying. Where’s the evidence?

But you’re being sarcastic only because I nipped your little trolling exercise in the bud and spoiled your fun.

Yes you did!! You did nip my little trolling exercise in the bud. You did spoil my fun.

Naughty Daddy Dave! Don’t be mean to Tillman. Naughty.

Tillman

13 Sep 10 at 6:10 pm
John H’s link Tillman

tal

13 Sep 10 at 6:17 pm
Policeman being interviewed on WIN news Canberra: “The day we start treating arrests as success is when we are not thinking broadly enough.”

The triumph of muddle-headed thinking.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 6:33 pm
Currency Lad – What do you think of Tariq Ramadan?

Is he the avatar of modern Enlightened Islam os an agit-prop channel beaming propaganda into weak left-liberal minds?

Adrien

13 Sep 10 at 7:10 pm
I’m going offline for a while. Personal reasons. See y’all sometime.

daddy dave

13 Sep 10 at 7:18 pm
Fascinating logic there, C.L. I point out that it is impossible to be sure one way or another (in either case) on the basis of the scanty evidence one way or another.
Given the lack of evidence, I resort to argument and discuss possibilities and probabilities, making it plain that the evidence I bring to the table is circumstantial but possibly persuasive – and IMHO enough to show that there is at worst substantial doubt as to the position you are taking.
.
You, OTOH, are absolutely positive in both cases and try to elevate your opinion to the status of solid, rolled gold “fact”, resorting to hyperbole, sarcasm and attempts to (metaphorically of course) bludgeon your argument through. Can you even understand how wrong this is?
Perhaps I should have used the word “illogic” in my opening sentence.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 7:22 pm
JC, that’s a great post by Tol. Hope he makes a real splash on AR5 WG2.

dover_beach

13 Sep 10 at 8:26 pm
Australian Story on Ch 2.

Michael Ware, Australian war correspondent.

Stunning tonight. Next week – Battle of Fallujah.

Highly recommended.

Myrddin Seren

13 Sep 10 at 8:45 pm
find your clarification extremely helpful, and it greatly enhances my understanding of CL’s well-considered, thoughtful, nuanced and eminently supportable position that young Obama was a secret Muslim.

It was so secret that “Islam” was entered into an official document by his family.

But it matters not a whit that Obama was a boyhood Muslim. Only a true fruitcake would bother trying (desperately) to disprove it because of some deep-seated Islamaphobic aversion to his colourful life journey.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:10 pm
“…there being no evidence that that he definitely was not a spy.”

Andrew, would you care to withdraw this somewhat chilling North Korean jurisprudential yardstick?

I mean, you’re touting your “logic” as Gibralta-like so I just wondered if you truly want to be associated with the legal philosophy Kim Jong Il and friends.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:16 pm
Currency Lad – What do you think of Tariq Ramadan?

I’ve never heard of him, Adrien.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:17 pm
Camille Paglia tears Lady GaGa and her brainless fans a new one:

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/magazine/article389697.ece

Brutal.

Infidel Tiger

13 Sep 10 at 9:34 pm
Well, I guess this would have to be the logical terminus for environmentalism:

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:42 pm
Disturbing. Universities aren’t what they used to be. Seems all those hippies from the 70s have become The Censorious & Uptight Establishment:

A Queensland university lawyer who videoed himself apparently smoking joints made with pages of the Bible and the Koran, has gone on leave.

Alex Stewart, a research lawyer with Queensland University of Technology (QUT), met with management on Monday after his YouTube video made national headlines.

In the clip, entitled Bible or Koran – which burns best?, the professed atheist says burning religious books is no big deal and people need to get over it.

QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake says the university does not support the destruction of religious books.

“The university is obviously extremely, extremely unhappy and disappointed that this sort of incident should occur,” Professor Coaldrake told reporters in Sydney on Monday.

“It may have occurred in the individual’s private time or on a weekend – it doesn’t matter.

Wow.

Of course, had this dude only smoked a bible bong, Coaldrake would been defending him from right-wing Christianist zealots who need to respect the right to free speech and privacy etc.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 9:51 pm
C.L.,
I see nothing to withdraw. The man is long dead and he was convicted in a court of law of several offences against his lawful sovereign.
I’m sorry if you take an academic discussion personally, but I cannot help that.
Now, are you going to use that as an excuse to avoid the point or are you going to address the argument I have put forward?

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 9:56 pm
Coaldrake needs smoking. Useless eater.

Timothy Can

13 Sep 10 at 9:58 pm
“… there being no evidence that he definitely was not a spy.”

“I see nothing to withdraw.”

Well, that’s very sad because you’re now espousing the same evidentiary standard as Pol Pot.

Documentary evidence exists that Obama was a boy Muslim. You have presented no evidence for any of your many counter theories.

Let’s move on now, shall we?

There are many other interesting topics of conversation that don’t involve a bizarre moral panic about the past religious affiliation of an innocent boy.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 10:04 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11282038

Yobbo

13 Sep 10 at 10:11 pm
It’s an epic Leftist Reversal, CL: from bra-burning radicals to crusty old reactionaries. Daring they ain’t.

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 10:50 pm
But that’s the Left for you: the new reactionary establishment.

Michael Fisk

13 Sep 10 at 10:51 pm
Imagine the outrage if that QUT “research lawyer” had been smoking tobacco.

Paul Williams

13 Sep 10 at 11:05 pm
So – you have come back to “documentary evidence” from “fact”, C.L. If you manage to stay there this time you will now be right, back from your several turns into error with the statement about it being a fact.
Looks like you are trying to avoid the point on Campion (yet again) by retreating into what looks like faked outrage with the idea that he was lawfully convicted of a recognised crime.
Shame that you retreat like that, but I can tolerate that. It is just intellectually dishonest.

Andrew Reynolds

13 Sep 10 at 11:17 pm
“…he was convicted in a court of law of several offences against his lawful sovereign discussion…”

Campion, the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

He had already shown his talents as a speaker at the funeral of Amy Robsart in 1560; and when Sir Thomas White, the founder of the college, was buried in 1564, the Latin oration fell to the lot of Campion. Two years later he welcomed Queen Elizabeth to the university, and won a regard, which the queen preserved until the end….

Committed to the Tower, he was examined in the presence of Elizabeth, who asked him if he acknowledged her to be really queen of England, and on his replying straightly in the affirmative, she made him offers, not only of life but of wealth and dignities, on conditions which his conscience could not allow. He was kept a long time in prison, twice racked by order of the council, and every effort was made to shake his constancy. Despite the effect of a false rumour of retraction and a forged confession, his adversaries in despair summoned him to four public conferences (1st, 18th, 23rd and 27th of September), and although still suffering, and allowed neither time nor books for preparation, he bore himself so easily and readily that he won the admiration of most of the audience. Racked again on the 31st of October, he was indicted at Westminster that he with others had conspired at Rome and Reims to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the queen. On the 20th of November he was brought in guilty before Lord Chief Justice Wray; and in reply to him said: “If our religion do make traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the queen had.” He received the sentence of the traitor’s death with the Te Deum laudamus, and, after spending his last days in pious exercises, was led with two companions to Tyburn (1st of December 1581) and suffered the barbarous penalty. Of all the Jesuit missionaries who suffered for their allegiance to the ancient religion, Campion stands the highest. His life and his aspirations were pure, his zeal true and his loyalty unquestionable. He was beatified by Leo XIII. in 1886.

Despite Campion’s high reputation in all sane quarters (even protestant), Andrew claims – without evidence (it’s possibly being hidden in the Vatican, he implies above) – that he was a licitly condemned and executed “spy” and criminal – which he was not. His trial and treatment were an infamous disgrace.

But on something where we actually do have documentary evidence – namely, little Barry Soetoro’s Muslim faith – Andrew pretends we don’t because of the shame of it.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 11:37 pm
Andrew: Obama was a Muslim as a boy. That is a fact.

We have official documentary evidence of this.

So far – in a bizarre and increasingly confusing foray – you have presented no evidence for your ever-changing theories.

I don’t think I’m alone in being surprised that an alleged libertarian sophisticate like you is scandalised by Obama’s perfectly innocent past.

Then there is this, which deserves to be an infamous indictment of your worldview:

Campion is condemned because…

“… there being no evidence that he definitely was not a spy.”

So we started off with my link to an Ann Coulter column whose argument was, inter alia, that Obama was NOT a Muslim and we end with you intellectually defecting to Pyongyang. On the way, you also claimed that a Vatican conspiracy does or would keep “evidence” of Campion’s “spy” mission a secret. It’s always like Ian Paisley meets Dan Brown with you.

C.L.

13 Sep 10 at 11:49 pm
Mark

Yeah right sfdc, now you’re spinning quality research, which is peer reviewed, quantitative, time series analaysis as *desperate*, comapred to your ludicrous connect the dots version of macro analysis, totally ignoring the lending to Government black hole and the increase in hidden unemployment which outweighed Rudd’s (temporary mind you) jobs created (created at $358 000 per job, unamortised).

Sorry to prick your religious belief in the infallibility of regression analysis but even the authors of the paper acknowledge the causality issues inherent in making sweeping generalisations based on regression analysis.

Hilarious connect the dots macro analysis? You mean relying on actual data?

Those with some idea of the real issues facing Australia are concerned with the huge stock of household debt rather than jumping at shadows over the relatively low level of Commonwealth Government debt.

You need to get up to speed with the actual dynamics of the labour market rather than relying on the rubbish you might read in the opinion pages. The labour market has behaved as it does in every downturn since at least 1978. The labour under-utilisation rate peaked at 13.7%, lower than not only that of the early 80s and early 90s recessions but also lower than the slow-down early this decade when it peaked at 14.5%. Even with the labour participation rate remaining at close to record highs.

Nice little $358k per jobs calculation, but it ignores the cost of lost income, ignores the cost of bankruptcy and ignores the cost of financial crisis.

You might think that is not an issue that should be up for consideration but with household debt at 160% of disposable income its a very real possibility that a substantial rise in unemployment will put stress on the banking system. And was the major reason we came through the crisis (so far) with minimal damage to the financial system is that the rise in unemployment was kept to a minimum.

In case you weren’t aware, the impact of the stimulus is supposed to be temporary.

sdfc

14 Sep 10 at 12:20 am
Bugger, stuffed up the italics. Just to be clear my bit starts at the second paragraph.

sdfc

14 Sep 10 at 12:22 am
These people are freaking crazy. Those that voted for them need to be sectioned off.

“THE Greens have threatened to use their historic alliance with Labor to stop billions of dollars of planned uranium projects from securing government approval, in the first sign of the party’s push for greater influence over government policy.”

JC

14 Sep 10 at 1:05 am
Re: Tariq Ramadan – great book that he features in called “The Flight of the Intellectuals”. Highly recommend it.

Ev630

14 Sep 10 at 1:07 am
JC, this alliance is the gift that keeps on giving.

Ev630

14 Sep 10 at 1:08 am
EV

They’re debating this stuff amongst themselves now.. out in public. How long is this going to last?

JC

14 Sep 10 at 1:16 am
It needs to last just long enough for a majority to realise they are a fucking liability but not long enough to do any lasting damage to the economy. May be a fine line for some of the dullards who are on the electoral roll.

Ev630

14 Sep 10 at 1:17 am
JC, I still think your theory is bang-on. Let the public have the Green agenda and let them have it good and hard.

I wish the Bobster all the best with his many wacky ideas. Go Bob!

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 1:31 am
I agree, CL. As I said, this is the gift that keeps on giving.

Bring on the school of hard knocks for the fuck-knuckles who voted these clowns in.

Ev630

14 Sep 10 at 1:36 am
Yep, CL. It’s like a festering sore that won’t go away. This way it will teach the public a good lesson once and for all.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 2:25 am
One hopes that now the Greens are being given influence they will lose a lot of votes from the ‘plague on both your houses’ types whose true interest in the environment is an inch deep.

Rococo Liberal

14 Sep 10 at 8:51 am
I’m not sure which are more insufferable, sincere Greens or the ‘plague on both your houses’ type?

dover_beach

14 Sep 10 at 9:28 am
So, CL, we are back to “fact” again are we? Now I think that is the 6th or 7th change of position. Can you please decide whether it is a fact or merely something about which we have one form (and a questionable one at that) giving some evidence of that.
It is not established as a fact, CL.
.
Campion, again. Let’s be clear here (once again, as you seem determined to not understand) I happen to believe that he would have been faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, as (I presume) you claim he was being. Great.
At the time, the RC Pope was telling everyone that Elizabeth had been deposed (by him) and excommunicated. Now, you may believe that he did not mention that fact (I presume you accept that the Bull of excommunication and deposition had been written – that is established) but I do not. Neither of us have evidence of that and, I doubt that if there was any evidence in the Vatican archives (I have no idea if any such evidence exists or ever exists) it will ever come to light.
So – to boil it down – neither of us has any evidence whether he did tell others that his boss had declared Elizabeth a deposed heretic. You seem to be claiming he did not. I do not find this position credible, but I accept that is your position.
Is there really anything else to say?
.
On Obama – all you have is a document that, as I have previously said, I do not find credible and for the reasons I gave. You seem to take that as conclusive evidence. To be frank, I would scoff at the idea of that being conclusive.
Now, Obama may have been a Muslim in his childhood and learnt the Koran by rote. The document you have linked to, though, likewise gives no evidence of that. All it is evidence of is that his step-father wrote “Islam” in the “Agama” field on a form. There are several reasons why he may have done that, only one of which was that Obama was a Muslim.
It is not IMHO enough to establish it as a “fact” that Obama was a Muslim.
It is also no evidence that he was not a Muslim.
Again – it does not establish it as a “fact” that he was a Muslim. In that, you are simply wrong.
Deal with it.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 10:14 am
UK teen banned for life from US for sending abusive email to Obama. Gee, Bird has written worse

http://www.smh.com.au/world/teen-banned-from-us-after-drunken-email-20100914-159ph.html

jtfsoon

14 Sep 10 at 10:27 am
CL

Has it occurred to you that there may be differing standards of evidence available for Campion and Obama given that Campion died nearly 500 years ago and Obama is the current US president?

Probably not, since you are so deluded that you also think that US federal judges run show trials, and that Gen Mattis of the USMC has conspired with Cindy Sheehan to stage a “Code Pink” style railroading of exactly one US Marine for war crimes he did not commit in Haditha.

You also hilariously deny the existence of the ancient concept of the “illegal statute”, despite it having been recognised by legal commentators for centuries.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 10:37 am
C.L., Tillman,

What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?

.

14 Sep 10 at 10:39 am
Yea Bird has done worse. I the FBI is not doing its job here. If the teen is a problem. Bird is 100 times worse.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 10:39 am
“C.L., Tillman,

What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?”

Steve?

Rococo Liberal

14 Sep 10 at 10:43 am
Help me out here RL. I’m not a lawyer.

.

14 Sep 10 at 10:45 am
What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?

Surely, it can’t be both.

dover_beach

14 Sep 10 at 10:57 am
I dunno.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=ultra+vires+and+hence+void&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Apparently it’s a phrase in use.

.

14 Sep 10 at 10:59 am
Looks like nuke-halting Green Scott Ludlam attends to his own Wiki page.

Senator Scott Ludlam BA Design, GradDip Policy Studies

So he’s an interior decorator or something?

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 11:03 am
Have we established if Campion was a Muslim, and Obama a spy yet?

Steve Edney

14 Sep 10 at 11:08 am
“What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?”

I don’t know a single term – if a law is ultra vires (beyond the power of the legislature, probably because of the constitution) then is is void.

Ken Nielsen

14 Sep 10 at 11:08 am
Andrew. Thanks for your latest lengthy essay on a topic that obviously scandalises you: Obama the little boy was a Muslim.

For which there is official documentary evidence.

There is no evidence for your many, increasingly confusing theories.

Regarding Campion, you’ve posited a bizarre North Korean jurisprudential standard, falsely claimed he was an enemy of ‘Queen’ Elizabeth, untruthfully said he was a “spy” and raised the possibility of a Vatican conspiracy to hide the truth of his mission to spy on the priest holes, cellars and barns of England.

You really are a clown.

Incidentally, the phrase “RC pope” is a redundancy unless you’re discussing the Coptic Church.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 11:11 am
dot, my point is if an action occurs beyond the scope of a statue and is thus deemed ultra vires, the action, not the statute is void. When you originally raised the issue you suggested that a statute can be both void and ultra vires which is impossible. If a statute is void you don’t need to worry about whether this or that occurred beyond the scope of its powers since the statute itself has no power. If a statute is not void, then the question may arise as to this or that action being ultra vires.

dover_beach

14 Sep 10 at 11:12 am
Actually, come to think of it, a statute may be ultra vires and thus void where it exceeds the jurisdiction that a constitution delimits, i.e. where the Cwlth passed a statute that is listed in the Constitution as solely within the jurisdiction of the States.

dover_beach

14 Sep 10 at 11:18 am
“What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?”

I don’t know a single term – if a law is ultra vires (beyond the power of the legislature, probably because of the constitution) then is is void.

Correct. It is, in those circumstances, an illegal statute.

Only CL seems to have trouble grasping this.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 11:19 am
Tillman, you hilariously claimed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (2002) was an “illegal statute.”

It’s actually the law still in the United States.

Passed on the voices in the House and unamimously in the Senate, its purpose is to prevent babies accidentally born alive after botched abortions from being left to die on sinks or thrown into medical rubbish bins.

It was vehemently opposed by a young “Christian” politician and former “law professor” in Illinois called Barack Obama.

Nice guy.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 11:21 am
Tillman, you hilariously claimed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (2002) was an “illegal statute.”

Nope. Never happened.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 11:25 am
Send in the Rudd to emulate Malcolm Fraser:

Successors jockeying for position as the health of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe begins to fail.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 11:33 am
He never said that troops in Afghanistan were “just air-raiding villages.”

- Tillman

On his BAIPA bungle:

Never happened.

It’s a stroke of luck for you that Catallaxy’s crash prevents me from proving what a dishonest cretin you are, isn’t it Tillman?

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 11:51 am
C.L.,
The topic does not scandalise me – I am just using it to see if you are capable of understanding what evidence is. So far, and given the evidence on this thread, I doubt it, but like with Graeme I am happy to continue to try to educate you – or at least conclusively demonstrate that you either are a complete ignoramus or a liar.
Now – Why do you believe that a document signed by a third party constitutes not merely evidence, but conclusive evidence, which it must for you to determine it is a fact? For the reasons given several times above I have doubts as to its correctness, but you seem to have no doubts. Why is this?
.
2. Your use of the scare quotes about Queen Elizabeth perfectly illustrates my point – the RC Church did not (and by th elook of it still does not) regard her as the legitimate queen of England. It is therefore (IMHO) perfectly justifiable to believe (yes, I have no direct evidence – but then neither do you) that Campion, in England on the RC Church’s business, was actually letting people know that the RC Pope had presumed to excommunicate and depose her as a heretic.
Why do you believe that he would not have been saying that, particularly when you use the scare quotes about her title?
.
Just as information – I use the RC in front of Pope for that reason. It eliminates ambiguity.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 12:14 pm
Queen Liz was the Queen because she killed all rivals.

Monarchy isn’t legitimate. Why fight over it?

The Papacy was no better than any other medieval tyrant until 1789.

Thank the fates for a) Washignton, b) Bastille day c) The Reform Act d) Peter Lalor

.

14 Sep 10 at 12:38 pm
Dot,
I am not fighting over it. C.L. seems to want to make an issue of Campion’s innocence. Given it happened over 400 years ago, I do not care one way or another, as with Obama’s religion as a child. As I said, what I am looking at is C.L.’s ability to process evidence.
Given he comments so much here I thought testing the veracity of what he says is important. So far it does not look good.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 12:43 pm
It’s a stroke of luck for you that Catallaxy’s crash prevents me from proving what a dishonest cretin you are, isn’t it Tillman?

Really, CL? Don’t you think you have enough credibility around here by now that everyone should take your word for it? hahahahahahahahahahahahaa duplicitous moron.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 1:16 pm
“Actually, come to think of it, a statute may be ultra vires and thus void where it exceeds the jurisdiction that a constitution delimits, i.e. where the Cwlth passed a statute that is listed in the Constitution as solely within the jurisdiction of the States”

Yes DB, that is where I think I first saw the phrase being used.

.

14 Sep 10 at 1:23 pm
Tillman, you said BAIPA was an “illegal statute”. It is in fact the law of the United States and has been since 2002. Everyone who has been around Catallaxy for a while knows this is true and that we discussed it at length. You scrambled angrily to save the situation for yourself. Alas, your beclowning was like Maverick’s flat spin: unrecoverable, headed out to sea, ultimately ditched and breaking the neck of a goose. That bird being you.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 1:38 pm
C.L.,
Unless you can explain either of your positions using logic, reason and something like the rules of evidence I would guess that you would be joining Tillman out there.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 1:42 pm
Andrew, thanks for your new, lengthy essay on the Obama Muslim scandal and popes.

We have official documentary evidence that Obama was a boy Muslim.

You have presented no evidence for your many, varied and verbose theories.

It is therefore (IMHO) perfectly justifiable to believe (yes, I have no direct evidence – but then neither do you) that Campion [was a spy]…

When you say, “neither do you,” what you mean is there is no evidence that Campion was not a spy. Your North Korean jurisprudence again.

So let’s summarise:

Sans evidence, you believe Campion was a spy.

Ignoring evidence, you believe Obama was never a Muslim.

Thanks for again demonstrating your bizarre double standards.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 1:46 pm
109. When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.

pedro

14 Sep 10 at 1:50 pm
No, C.L., again you ignore what I have said about either. For neither do we have enough evidence to conclusively demonstrate either way. You seem to believe that you have conclusive evidence for both. What is that evidence, please? SO far you have no evidence on Campion and only a dubious document on Obama.
If you simply agree that we do not have conclusive evidence either way then you will be correct. So far you are oscillating on Obama and unstated (AFAICS) on Campion.
So, once again, how do you come to a definite conclusion on either?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 1:56 pm
Andrew:

We have official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim in boyhood.

Try and calm down about this. He was only a child.
You have presented no evidence for your complex (and changeable) ensemble of counter-theories.

We have evidence that Campion’s ‘trial’ was an infamous disgrace – as historians agree – and that it presented no evidence for the charges. (Had the “Queen” done so – presented real evidence – I presume you would by now have cited it).

You choose to believe he was a “spy” despite having no evidence to that effect. (You say above that some may exist but is or will be covered up a Vatican conspiracy). You’re free to believe these peculiar things.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 2:04 pm
You seem to believe that you have conclusive evidence for both. What is that evidence, please? So far you have no evidence on Campion and only a dubious document on Obama.
Can you seriously claim to conclude, beyond a shadow of a doubt, on either matter?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 2:13 pm
You’re asking me for evidence that Campion was not a spy?

We also have no evidence that you’re not a Morrocan drug smuggler. So the authorities will be perfectly within their rights to execute you.

And how can you use the word “dubious” given that the trial process in which you have so much confidence regarding Campion involved a forged confession?

Hopeless, appalling double standards.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 2:21 pm
Tillman, you said BAIPA was an “illegal statute”.

To the best of my recollection that never happened, and I certainly wouldn’t take your word for it.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 2:24 pm
We have official documentary evidence that Obama was a boy Muslim.

Yeah, well I have a pretty substantial stack of evidence suggesting you are an adult dickhead.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 2:26 pm
C.L.,
Again, how can you conclude, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Obama was a boyhood Muslim and that Campion was innocent?
I have not concluded either way on either, as I have said all the way through that I do not believe there is enough evidence either way.
You appear to believe that Obama was definitely a Muslim as a child (i.e. that it is a fact) and that Campion was definitely innocent.
How do you come to either conclusion?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 2:29 pm
Tillman, you described the BAIPA as an “illegal statute” without really knowing what is was. I informed you that you’d declared illegal a still operative law of the United States. You then scrambled to assert that while it may still be law, it was probably contrary to Roe and was therefore in a state of currently operative but imminently illegal limbo. It has, in fact, been the law for several years and hasn’t even looked like being challenged by anyone. NARAL supported it, ffs, you dumb bozo.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 3:08 pm
Pedro

What was the significance of your reference to sec 109 of the Constitution?

Everyone

A stutue is either valid or invalid. It may be invalid for a number of reasons. If it is invalid it will have no effect. Saying that it is ‘illegal’ is not really corect juristically. Any attempt to enforce it would be illegal, but the staute itself can commit no act, so I don’t think you can call an involid statute illegal.

Rococo Liberal

14 Sep 10 at 3:11 pm
Andrew, you say Campion was a licitly executed spy despite there being no evidence. Your attempt to mount a North Korean legal argument that Campion (or his advocates) must prove that he is not guilty is an appalling indictment of your intellect and your modernity.

On the other hand, you say Obama wasn’t a boyhood Muslim despite the existence of evidence.

Double standards.

No way out for you. You’ve talked yourself into another train wreck.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 3:12 pm
you described the BAIPA as an “illegal statute” without really knowing what is was. I informed you that you’d declared illegal a still operative law of the United States. You then scrambled to assert that while it may still be law, it was probably contrary to Roe and was therefore in a state of currently operative but imminently illegal limbo. It has, in fact, been the law for several years and hasn’t even looked like being challenged by anyone.

CL, the only accurate part of your long-winded exegesis of this controversy is your statement that I didn’t know that much about BAIPA.

I readily concede, as I always have done, that I can’t match your enthusiasm when it comes to abortion crankery and that I simply don’t have your expert level knowledge of the ins and outs (so to speak) of every last piece of abortion related legislation.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 3:15 pm
Saying that it is ‘illegal’ is not really corect juristically. Any attempt to enforce it would be illegal, but the staute itself can commit no act, so I don’t think you can call an involid statute illegal.

Your point is well taken, but be that as it may “illegal statute” is an ancient and well-recognised turn of phrase, and certainly good enough for an off-hand comment at the ‘Cat, and more than good enough to inspire thousands of (hilarious) words from the Incoherency Lad.

Tillman

14 Sep 10 at 3:17 pm
No, C.L., I said he was convicted according to the standards of the time – which he was. This does not comply with modern standards, or come even close to them.
Now, moving on, I have never said that he was justly convicted, only lawfully convicted. There is a big difference between the two – which is what (at least in part) this discussion we are having is about.
As you seem certain that he was in fact innocent, what evidence do you have, if any? If none, how do you come to the conclusion that it is certain he did not do as the then RC Pope was doing and calling Elizabeth a deposed heretic?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 3:25 pm
I am sorry I mentioned Campion. what else can we revisit? Saint Bartholomew’s day massacre?

jtfsoon

14 Sep 10 at 3:54 pm
This “rock chopper” jibe makes me chuckle. The recusant poms were generally filthy rich. The ones I know are/were skilled labour or professionals.

.

14 Sep 10 at 4:04 pm
Jason,
Was that the massacre of French Huguenots that the then RC Pope had a big celebratory Mass for?
Don’t feel too bad. C.L. was the first to on this thread.
I will be fascinated to see if he can answer the questions. So far he seems to be desperately wriggling. His introduction of Campion shows he knew that early on.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 4:06 pm
Good bloody choice, although he she have got treasury.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-to-apppoint-malcolm-turnbull-as-shadow-communications-spokesman/story-fn59niix-1225922529830

JC

14 Sep 10 at 4:32 pm
This.. Should be illegal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1311524/MTV-Video-Music-Awards-Cher-turns-time-familiar-costume.html

JC

14 Sep 10 at 4:34 pm
AR/CL

Not quite having the 263 years it would take to retrace this stoush, since when did the Vatican/Pope have legal authority over national monarchs?

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 4:52 pm
Well that’s a load of guilt off my mind …

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/action_video_games_train_brains_faster_decisions_no_loss_accuracy

John H.

14 Sep 10 at 5:02 pm
JC

She really does render one speechless. It’s not surprising that her daughter is now her son.

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

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 5:26 pm
RL, someone was discussing void statutes and getting confused about ultra vires and stuff. A statute can be constitutionally ultra vires and, if passed by a state, it can be invalid under section 109. I don’t think it could be anything else (other than not acutally a statute because of a defect in process). Ultra vires is just a wanky way of saying invalid. Illegal does seem silly, from a black letter PoV, but otherwise is a perfectly understandable term.

pedro

14 Sep 10 at 6:02 pm
Peter,
I would say never, CL might say always – but you would have to ask him.
Looks like he has given up, though.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 6:23 pm
Is it just me or does this blogozistan server really, really suck?

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 6:24 pm
The site is also crashing for me at times, with a ‘gateway error’ message.

THR

14 Sep 10 at 6:26 pm
I am on firefox and it is doing it. Same browser for you guys?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 6:27 pm
I’m on Explorer at the moment.

THR

14 Sep 10 at 6:32 pm
I’m on google chrome.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 6:44 pm
That’s them all. Did the browser crash or you just could not get to the site?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 6:47 pm
It happens all the time.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 6:48 pm
Wouldn’t happen with the NBN.

Infidel Tiger

14 Sep 10 at 6:53 pm
No crash, just the gateway error. It happens irrespective of browser (I’ve tried Safari too, but have no up-to-date copy of Netscape to properly exhaust the testing).

FDB

14 Sep 10 at 6:58 pm
It happens on other blogs too. And I can assure you that the ONLY connection between this blog and said ‘other’ blogs is the bloody server!

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 7:08 pm
I readily concede, as I always have done, that I can’t match your enthusiasm when it comes to abortion crankery and that I simply don’t have your expert level knowledge of the ins and outs (so to speak) of every last piece of abortion related legislation.

So you’re saying I’m right and you were wrong.

Thanks.

But that discussion wasn’t about “abortion”. This again shows how inept you are. That discussion was about a highly popular Bush administration law that made it mandatory for babies born alive after failed abortions to be given life-saving medical attention. Previously, numerous such cases ended with still living babies being left to die in sinks or thrown directly into medical rubbish bins. Not only is it not “illegal” as you so hilariously claimed, it has never even looked like being challenged since it was passed unanimously in the Senate and signed into law by President Bush in 2002.

You describe this law to save babies’ lives as “crankery” – which tells everyone what a lowlife you truly are.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 7:11 pm
Andrew, you believe that Campion was a “spy” while:

a) admitting there is no evidence that he was;
b) advocating a North Korean jurisprudential standard whereby his advocates must prove he wasn’t a spy;
c) lying about your previous definitiveness regarding your belief that he was, as a matter of fact, a spy;
d) claiming he was “lawfully” executed according to the norms of the time – which he was not. The “confession” associated with his trial process is now known by historians to have been a forgery – an offence then as now.

I introduced Campion precisely because I knew your well-known anti-Catholic fanaticism would lead you to stick to your mendacious claim about him being a “spy” despite not being able to cite any evidence that he was. This had an obvious comparative utility in relation to your bizarre Obama gymnastics – where, conversely, you imperiously reject evidence as unimportant.

So let’s summarise again:

Sans evidence, you believe Campion was a spy.

Ignoring evidence, you believe Obama was never a Muslim.

Thanks for again demonstrating your truly weird double standards.

If you want to also discuss mass killings, you could have the honesty to mention the tens of thousands knocked off by syphilitic serial killer in pantaloons, Henry VIII, “Queen” Elizabeth herself and the sterling work done by mass murderer Oliver Cromwell.

The important thing to remember, though, is that we won. Catholics are now the largest denominational group in England. The “church of England,” on the other hand, is headed by a Druid who supports Sharia law and a royal who talks to plants and once expressed the desire to be a tampon.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 7:29 pm
What do you call a statute which is void and ultra vires?”

Nothing. If its void it’s not a statute. If it’s ultra vires, it’s void.

Adrien

14 Sep 10 at 7:43 pm
Ah, but there is ultra vires ‘void’ and void ab initio. Innit?

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 7:46 pm
C.L.,
I repeat myself over and over and you keep bringing up the same, tired old rubbish.
1. Of course my position on Campion is sans evidence, as is yours. I do not think it is beyond the pale to think that he would have been doing as his boss was and telling people that Elizabeth had been deposed and excommunicated. So far, you have not voiced an opinion on this, as I said.
Perhaps, it would be not too much to ask, why you think he would not have happened to mention that the sovereign (perhaps only de facto, as you may insist) was a heretic?
2. On Obama – again and again I say that I simply find your evidence, such as it is, to be not terribly persuasive. There are compelling grounds to suggest why it may not be accurate and good grounds (not least the opinion of the man himself) to suspect that it is not accurate.
Again, why do you believe that this document is completely conclusive evidence that he was?
.
So – if you want to move away from endlessly repeating the rubbish that makes it quite plain that you are running scared from this argument, perhaps you can answer the two questions. I will even make it simpler for you:
1. Why do you believe that it is unlikely that Campion would not have mentioned that his boss had presumed to depose and excommunicate Elizabeth?
2. Why do you believe that the evidence you have presented of Obama’s childhood religious beliefs to be conclusive evidence of those beliefs?
.
Note, please, the differing standards of evidence here. One conclusive (on Obama, as that is the argument you have made) and one unlikely – as there is a paucity of evidence either way.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 7:52 pm
Dot, “rock choppers” isn’t a jibe. It’s a badge of honour, like Rats of Tobruk. You’ll find that it was assigned to predominantly Irish Catholics earlier in Australian history because the initials of the sobriquet matched the manual work being done.

As I remarked here recently, its interesting that the government once regarded as the most Catholic in Australian history, the Hawke-Keating government, was the one that did so much (though this has been exaggerated) to dismantle old protestant Australia’s anti-libertarian economic rust bucket. That the rock choppers weren’t in on the deal in numbers – at least not in manufacturing or preponderantly in pastoral enterprise – may help to explain their more calculating indifference to the Big End of Town in the old regime. (The tariff and subsidy Centerlinks like the Melbourne Club, for example). Add the Movement’s role in destroying communism in the unions – recently acknowledged by Bob Carr – and it’s arguable that Catholics re-built the joint after decades of protestant-dominated dole-bludging.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 7:54 pm
All choppers are bastards.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 8:06 pm
And now we have a Taff for PM. Crikee!

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 8:07 pm
Jonah,
That was showing how C.L. is definitely not the pot calling the kettle back when he (falsely, but that seems not to matter to him) of displaying a “well-known anti-Catholic fanaticism”.
*guffaw*

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 8:07 pm
Jarrah, the old Settlement’s tariffs, subsidies, SMAs and various other hand-outs = dole-bludging.

Just a turn of phrase. Don’t panic.

Andrew, sans evidence, you believe Campion was a spy and you now falsely claim that he was “lawfully” dealt with (forged confession etc).

Ignoring evidence, you believe Obama was never a Muslim.

This is a problematic double standard which no amount of essaying seems likely to iron out – despite a filibuster from you that would make Castro proud.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 8:29 pm
Jonah, rather.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 8:29 pm
C.L.,
You are repeating the same old rubbish again. Perhaps you could answer the questions asked or explain why you find it too difficult to do so.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 8:38 pm
Jonah

Indeed, compare the global impact of Catholic Spanish vs. Protestant English imperialism.

Nuff said.

p.s. All choppers are bastards.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 8:59 pm
I must admit that Jonah’s ‘exhibits’ do provide an interesting perspective that I’ve never considered before.

Michael Sutcliffe

14 Sep 10 at 9:08 pm
Janah

Which countries do you think are improvised in southern Europe that are predominately catholic?

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/lu.html

Luxembourg is the richest per capita country in the world and predominantly Catholic. 87%

Europe appears even mostly agglomerating around the 32 to 35k in per capita income. Britain is down the list actually and well below Ireland 34k vs 41k

The poorer states in the US were always south of the mason Dixon.

Outside of a couple of the established protestant churches which are basically disintegrating the rest are fucking nuts. Where is the majesty you’re seeing, bro because I don’t see it.

Pull your chest in, Jonah you bozo.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 9:10 pm
MS

If one wished to be particularly churlish in a heated debate about the consequences of English colonization on the Aborigines, one might retort, “quit your whingeing or we’ll go back in time, and give the Spanish a go.”

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 9:13 pm
The Catholics have better food and wine. Can anybody imagine Protestant tapas? It’d be pickled herring with boiled potatoes, served with soda water.

THR

14 Sep 10 at 9:17 pm
Michael S

He refers to JFK as a socialist whore. And you find that interesting? Whereas FDB, LBJ and Carter were all capitalist pigs? Carter is the worst prez in modern US history not counting this one because his time isn’t up.

JFK wasn’t a socialist. In fact JFK was the first prez after socialist whore protestant FDR that actually lowered rates.

This is a truly ridiculous discussion and all because Jonah seems to have some sorta self esteem issues and thinks that the religion you’re born into somehow is important.

I’ve always found it amusing more than anything else when people try to cling to their DNA or related background to suggest superiority. It’s like the red neck skin heads trying to suggest they’re somehow superior and it’s laughable.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 9:18 pm
I don’t think I’m equipped to argue matters of religion in this sense. I’m just interested in the perspective that the Catholics (who I generally respect) didn’t seem to have the same success in South America as non-Catholic Christian cultures did elsewhere. Also the idea of considering Belgium like we consider East and West Germany or North and South Korea. Just interesting is all.

Michael Sutcliffe

14 Sep 10 at 9:23 pm
Is it Catholics or simply the Spanish and Portuguese who were fucking awful and left terrible institutions?

The Germans and Dutch were no freaking better either to be honest and the Belgian were murderous fuckheads.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 9:26 pm
Andrew:

Yes Jonah, I’m familiar with that rusty, trusty old argument. Interesting that you forgot to mention Northern Ireland – the most culturally protestant place on earth and a backward toilet. Also US Dixie, a museum piece of in-bred loafers.

Look, I just think it’s interesting that Australia’s protestant-dominated political economy was driven to the point of ruin and that Catholics played such an important role in initiating the reforms that brought it back from the brink. I’d rate Santamaria’s work as perhaps the greatest liberty-defending campaign in our political history. Protestants didn’t feature in its work.

Moreover, Weber’s thesis didn’t seem to fit Australia’s mostly protestant manufacturers and industrialists – who were eseentially welfare addicts. Equally interesting is the prominence now of Catholics in the Liberal Party: Nelson, Turnbull, Abbott, Hockey, Robb, Pyne etc.

Just interesting stuff and, as I said above, arguable.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 9:31 pm
JC

Catholicism.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 9:31 pm
Oops,

Andrew: the only question that needs answering is this:

Sans evidence, you believe Campion was a spy and you now falsely claim that he was “lawfully” dealt with (forged confession etc).

Ignoring evidence, you believe Obama was never a Muslim.

The question:

Will you now concede that you’ve created another train wreck?

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 9:33 pm
Jonah with the boner over Catholicism made several observations and everyone of them is fucked up.

He confuses religion with other important factors at play.

Exhibit One:

New World countries settled mainly by protestants – Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada

New World countries settled mainly by Catholics- Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador

The first four are success stories while the latter four- and twenty others I could name- are corrupt and impoverished hellholes.

That has fuck all to do with religion.

The poor white trash economies of Western Europe are the PIIGS economies, only one of which isn’t Catholic, namely Greece.

Ummm nearly all the important European countries have debt over 80%. Even Germany’s debt is around 80% and Britain’s is about the same.

Portuguese and Spanish debt is 65 and 80 respectively.

Italy has 120% of GDP bit is not considered a debt problem at this stage trading with the core and its bond rates are close to France which also has a debt to GDP ratio of around 80%.

The problem for those others that were highlighted during the last sovereign debt crisis was their bond maturity pattern was very short term and therefore extremely vulnerable.

It wasn’t debt per se but debt maturity because for the most part.

This one was the stupidest of them all.

Protestant presidents of the USA include the majestic George W Bush. On the other hand, the Catholics gave us the socialist whore JFK.

And on and on and on it goes.

The superiority and majesty of Protestantism and the evil corruption of the Papists is a readily observable fact.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 9:37 pm
Excellent move from Abbo:

Turnbull given communications portfolio and special brief to target the NBN.

Conroy versus Turnbull.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 9:40 pm
JC,
I think “Jonah” is just taking the piss and trolling.
.
C.L.,
I take it, then, that you are scared of answering the questions. I have answered all of your several times – and, for completeness, and as I am generally polite in answering questions, no, I do not.
Run along, then C.L. – I have taken your argument apart. Don’t worry – you can still come back and answer the questions if you can.

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 9:42 pm
Andrew, whenever you create a train wreck you write little essay-ettes and start demanding answers to questions. You studiously ignore or swamp with a torrent of words your own egregious errors and contradictions. For example, Campion’s trial process was not lawful, no evidence was presented against him and the Vatican is not engaged in a conspiracy to hide his secret mission to spy on English barns and cellars. You also directly lied when you claimed that you’d never said definitively that he was a spy. You certainly did – in a thread that no longer exists.

Simple matter:

We have official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy.

You have presented no evidence for your array of confusing theories.

Campion: no evidence against him.

Your conclusion: what the hell, guilty.

An inconsistency that you simply can’t salvage and you only have yourself to blame.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 9:49 pm
I assume you don’t mean B.A. Santamaria, who ran a vocal fourth column campaign on behalf of the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini leading up to WWII.

No, I meant Ardie Santamaria – who ran a vocal pro-Hitler union on the Australian docks during the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 10:00 pm
Incidentally, the teenaged Santamaria didn’t run a campaign “on behalf of” Benito Mussolini. He thought the Douche united the country efficaciously after the fiasco of the 11 governments (he wrote a highly praised thesis on the topic) but he abandoned the Italian dictator absolutely when he moved inexorably towards Hitler. These sorts of calculations were common at the time. Australian politicians on both sides of the House praised Hitler; the Allies in toto supped with Stalin. England signed the Stresa Front agreement with Mussolini and France in 1935.

Santamaria almost single-handedly – leadership-wise, for he had thousands of co-workers – destroyed the influence of communists in Australian trade unions and the Australian Labor Party. It was the greatest liberty-defending political campaign ever waged in this country.

C.L.

14 Sep 10 at 10:13 pm
The Uniting Church was says Jonah.

JC

14 Sep 10 at 11:08 pm
FDR also praised Mussolini. We don’t hear much about that.

Michael Fisk

14 Sep 10 at 11:20 pm
C.L.,
If you are so confident of your positions on these issues, why can you not answer the questions I have posed? Surely they should be trivial for you.
Of course, if you cannot answer them, then I have to assume you realise that any answer to them will either make you look ridiculous or wrong.
I can’t see any third option, but, as always, I am happy to be corrected.
Just to be helpful, I will repeat them:
.
1. Why do you believe that it is unlikely that Campion would not have mentioned that his boss had presumed to depose and excommunicate Elizabeth?
2. Why do you believe that the evidence you have presented of Obama’s childhood religious beliefs to be conclusive evidence of those beliefs?

Andrew Reynolds

14 Sep 10 at 11:36 pm
I have to say that given the conditions of the time, I don’t quite understand the bile directed towards Mussolini. Before Hitler started making him offers he could not refuse that is.

Peter Patton

14 Sep 10 at 11:43 pm
He certainly made excellent progress in the areas of public transportation management.

Yobbo

15 Sep 10 at 12:01 am
He certainly made excellent progress in the areas of public transportation management.

So leftwingers ought to love the big bald idiot as they’re always peddling public transport and especially fast rail like it was Xmas.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:08 am
“He certainly made excellent progress in the areas of public transportation management.”

So leftwingers ought to love the big bald idiot as they’re always peddling public transport and especially fast rail like it was Xmas.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:09 am
Not to mention the spanking hot uniforms.

Michael Fisk

15 Sep 10 at 12:09 am
No, I’m being serious. My history is a bit vague after Galileo, but from I have picked up, he seemed like he was a quite a mover and shaker during those troubled times.

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 12:11 am
JC,
Don’t feed the troll.
.
C.L.,
In a conciliatory note – I would have to agree with you on Santamaria. While I would disagree with his social views (and they were mercilessly lampooned by comedians like Gillies) he did some very fine work through the 1950s and 1960s in breaking up the some of the communist domination of many industrial unions.
He also did a great job helping keep the ALP effectively out of power for a long time.
This country owes him and the Groupers a lot.
Many were fooled by Mussolini – including, I think, Mussolini himself.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 12:12 am
Don’t knock. At least this stimulus spending didn’t kill anyone or 200 houses down.

“Feds Spent $800,000 of Economic Stimulus on African Genital-Washing Program”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198

Hey, but it had a multiplier. The African genital washing program had a Keynesian multiplier of at 3:1 and grew 267 new jobs.

Fme.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:13 am
oops or burn 200…

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:15 am
According to numerous reports…

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 12:28 am
Something about Jonah’s tone sounds a little familiar…

Michael Fisk

15 Sep 10 at 12:34 am
Churchill was also rather fond of Mussolini for a time.

THR

15 Sep 10 at 12:41 am
Jeez, that’s a bit harsh about that guy getting banned from the US. I’ll have to be very careful not to call Obama a bit of a cunt then.

Dangph

15 Sep 10 at 12:44 am
Okee dokee. I shall put that particular reference on my Must Read list!

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 12:55 am
From what I understand he was much more a Get the Commies guy than a Get the Jews/Racial Minorities guy, right?

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 12:57 am
yep, don’t piss off US Immigration. EVER.

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 1:09 am
I have it on good authority that Jonah is a fucktard. This is based on numerous reports.

Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 1:48 am
Dangph,
I would be fascinated to see what he actually said. You normally only get that sort of treatment for threatening a President’s life – or at least, that is what I thought.
We will all have to watch our Ps and Qs – particularly as I will be in LA on Saturday.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 2:01 am
Churchill was also rather fond of Mussolini for a time.

You should check out Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.

Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 2:07 am
Andrew, thanks for your latest (though getting briefer) essays on Muslims and popes etc.

We have official documentary evidence that Obama the boy was a Muslim.

You reject that evidence.

On the other hand, you continue to claim that Edmund Campion was a “spy” even though no evidence was produced at his “trial,” none has been brought forth by you (because it doesn’t exist), his treatment was unlawful (involving, amongst many other enormities, a forged “confession”), that the Vatican is overseeing an ongoing conspiracy to hide the non-existent evidence and that a North Korean model of jurisprudence (where advocates for an accused man must prove his innocence) is your preference in evidenciary matters.

With respect to your somewhat baroque series of morphing theories regarding Obama, you have produced no evidence to sustain them.

I hadn’t really noticed your questions but I find it equally bizarre that you a) claim to know what Campion said during the illegal interrogations and other ‘conferences’; and b) you appear to think Campion should have been executed because of what the pope believed. Rudolph Hess wasn’t even treated that way, pursuant to that rather strange logic. No serious historian doubts that Campion’s mission was entirely religious.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:15 am
According to numerous reports, BA Santamaria’s father Joe (Giuseppe) displayed a portrait of himself on the living-room wall in which he goosestepped about the place in fascist blackshirt paraphernalia.

Yes, we all noticed these “numerous reports.”

Chuckle.

Tell us more about this goose-stepping picture.

Sounds like the old bloke thought Duce had saved the country – many did at the time.

It’s much harder for lefties by the thousands to explain why they still goose-step around their bedsits before a portrait of fascist murderer, child killer and torturer Che Gueverra.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:25 am
Don’t forget Il Duce was a leftie originally. He just hitched his star to what he guessed was the winning form of totalitarianism.

These lefties and fascists are all opportunistic hypocritical scum.

Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 2:29 am
BTW, Jonah Goldberg is not the chap we have posting here. A far smarter cookie.

Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 2:32 am
American Kevin:

Barack Obama to release children’s book.

The article mentions two other children’s books written by men who were or would become president. Their subject matter is a useful yardstick of America’s moral decline:

Theodore Roosevelt collaborated with Henry Cabot Lodge on “Hero Tales from American History,” released in 1895, before Roosevelt was president…

Jimmy Carter’s “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer” was published in 1995, more than a decade after he left office.

Bill Clinton’s Donny The Dolphin and The Dolphin Dames He Hit On was never released.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:55 am
“Hey, but it had a multiplier. The African genital washing program had a Keynesian multiplier of at 3:1 and grew 267 new jobs.

Fme.”

Don’t worry, the African nations have open economies so there can be leakage back to the US. These sorts of administrative and design problems are never valid attacks on Keynesian policy either…

.

15 Sep 10 at 7:48 am
EV60
Musso didn’t change from being a lefty, as facism is as left as communism. The means may have been different but the left wing result, totalitarianism, was the same.

The idea that Hitler and the facists were ‘right-wing’ was a lie spread by the commies, their competitors for the totalitarian vote. Commies and Nazis were competing for the same followers, hence their need to try and differentiate themselves. Don’t think of them as Tea vs Whisky, but Pepsi vs Coke, and then you will see why they both came for the same side of the political spectrum.

Rococo Liberal

15 Sep 10 at 9:54 am
‘Innocents’ protest against art show

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/innocents-protest-against-art-show/story-e6frg8n6-1225923003645

Pople’s exhibition, Bellini 21c, includes a work called Altarpiece in which the figures in the famous Bellini altarpiece in Venice are obscured by an image of a woman being penetrated from behind and having oral sex.

Mr Purves hit back at the protesters, and said they were “innocents who needed the protection of the Catholic Church”.

Courageously, Mr Perves said that; “If Rod Pople were to produce images mocking Islam, the gallery would refuse to exhibit them. We’re not in the business of stirring up the inherent racism of Australia’s suburban rednecks”, he said.

When the Australian asked Mr Pople if any Islamic images were being considered, he replied “F**king Islamophobe!” and terminated the interview.

Paul Williams

15 Sep 10 at 9:55 am
Check out the barbell this dude is throwing around. Warwick Brant – Australia’s strongest man:

Gold Coast man joins World’s Strongest Man competition in South Africa.

That’s not photoshopped.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:03 am
What would Pople say?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/token-muslim-hits-the-jackpot/story-e6frg8n6-1225922995483

.

15 Sep 10 at 10:05 am
Our courageous Western artists strike again, hey Paul?

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:06 am
Speaking of bravery:

Oakeshott cancels public meeting after threats.

Australian Federal Police are investigating threats made against Independent MP Rob Oakeshott ahead of a planned public meeting at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

The meeting, called by the local newspaper in Mr Oakeshott’s seat of Lyne, has been cancelled.

The MP says feelings are running high in some parts of his electorate after his deal with Labor to form a minority government.

He ignored his constituents’ massive anti-Labor majority, installed a government the country voted against and said he’d done so to ensure Abbott couldn’t win a run-off election.

And feelings are running high! You don’t say.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:12 am
Meant dumbbell, not barbell.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:15 am
Did someone threaten to boo Roberta Oakeshott? He’s a delicate little pansy.

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 10:44 am
even when I was still in junior high in Malaysia this remained a popular brand of toothpaste and was marketed under its original name ‘Darkie’ and had a picture of a smiling black man in top hat with white teeth on the tube.

I see they’ve now changed the name to Darlie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 10:45 am
How do you close italics?

Paul Williams

15 Sep 10 at 10:47 am
Just pointing out that the last two paragraphs of my post above were my own words, not quotes. Somehow the italics stayed on.

Paul Williams

15 Sep 10 at 10:49 am
someone after you stuffed up the italics Paul.

As JC isn’t here yet I guess we can’t blame him, except in spirit.

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 10:50 am
C.L.,
You are right – I find that evidence not fully convincing for the reasons given. Please give me any counter argument you may have.
On Campion (yet again) I say that I believe he was a faithful son of the RC Church – i.e. I find it simply not credible that he would not have mentioned the RC church’s policy on Elizabeth – one you repeated with the scare quotes above.
Why do you think it simply not credible that he would have mentioned it?
.
Again – please try reasoned argument. I do not know why you keep repeating the some old, (now very) tired talking points without actually engaging in the argument unless you do actually fear the consequences of doing so.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 11:04 am
Campion wasn’t a spy, he was a dissenter. He may have even been seditious (a very loose term back then) but who was he engaigng in espionage for?

Obama’s Dad said he was a Muslim to compelte some boilerplate paperwork. Obama’s last church was racist, black and nationalist.

Game over.

.

15 Sep 10 at 11:13 am
“I find it simply not credible that he would not have mentioned the RC church’s policy on Elizabeth.”

What on earth are you talking about?

There was no evidence produced at his trial, he was tortured several times (at the personal insistence of “Queen” Elizabeth), his ‘confession’ was forged, the story of his recantation of Catholicism was invented and he was dragged before no fewer than 8 ‘conferences’ of group interrogation. It’s pretty clear he didn’t tell them ANYTHING they wanted to hear as a pretext for execution.

That you would, in any case, regard as safe an execution after such treatment is astounding and bizarre. When you argue as you did above that evidence probably does exist but is being hidden by a Vatican conspiracy, it really is time to take a long hard look at yourself, Andrew.

With respect to the wider issue, we have official documentary evidence that Obama the boy was a Muslim.

He was a Muslim as a boy.

You have presented no evidence to support your ensemble of competing theories.

The Campion question was introduced by me to demonstrate your hypocrisy.

To wit:

Campion: no evidence whatsoever. Your verdict: he was a criminal.

Obama: documentary evidence exists. Your verdict: ignore it.

Now I know when you bungle things on this scale your usual strategy is to start acting like a socratic voice of reason asking questions of others and throwing up distractions but, sorry, you cannot recover from this huge double standard.

Edmund Campion was not a spy and is not seen as having been anything other than a courageous servant of the faithful by any reputable historian.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 11:29 am
C.L.,
Where, precisely, have I argued any of that. I have been very carefully saying at all points that I do not regard his trial as meeting anything like modern standards – i.e. it was unfair. The extent of the unfairness is irrelevant.
I have also made it plain that I am confident that there would be no evidence at the Vatican, but whether that is because none ever existed or not we cannot be sure.
If I have implied or said anything else anywhere I apologise and withdraw unreservedly. I doubt I have, but just to try to stop you fixating on the irrelevant, I am happy to do so.
Now that this is dealt with, can you please answer the actual questions, rather than the straw ones you have set up?
.
dot,
Correct – I have no argument with the above. Good to see you apparently disagree with C.L. that the “boilerplate paperwork” is conclusive evidence and that it is (presumably) not possible that Campion was engaging in what would have been seditious activity.
.
Now, C.L. – just to further clarify (and at the risk of making this too long for you – but your ability to misunderstand seems to know no bounds) I do not care about whether Obama was a Muslim or not and I know there is not enough evidence to convict Campion in a modern court. Please try to move on – but I expect another long scree on how bad I am to imagine you are wrong and then to, once again, fail to answer the questions or even justify why you will not.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 11:51 am
Oh – and I have no grounds to doubt that Campion was “a courageous servant of the [Roman Catholic] faithful” (insertion mine). The problem was that to be faithful to a RC Pope that was preaching deposition and excommunication was to be seditious in England at the time.
It was precisely because I believe that he was being “faithful” that is the issue here.
Why do you apparently think he was not being faithful and preaching the RC Pope’s message?

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 11:55 am
Commies and Nazis were competing for the same followers, hence their need to try and differentiate themselves.

But that is flatly contradicted by people who were there. The Nazis support base came from the middle class.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 12:01 pm
The idea that Hitler and the facists were ‘right-wing’ was a lie spread by the commies, their competitors for the totalitarian vote. Commies and Nazis were competing for the same followers, hence their need to try and differentiate themselves. Don’t think of them as Tea vs Whisky, but Pepsi vs Coke, and then you will see why they both came for the same side of the political spectrum

This is absolute rubbish, RL.

Hitler and Mussolini were considered ‘right’ by their peers as soon as they rose to power. This couldn’t have been otherwise, as both men campaigned on an explicitly anti-left platform, opposing trade unions, internationalism, and every aspect of socialism. It was for this reason that both men came to power in a coalition with conservatives. Moreover, the fascists/Nazis were not competing for the same audience, by an large. Hitler in particular appealed to the middle-classes, the self-employed, and to peasants, not to workers.

THR

15 Sep 10 at 12:02 pm
Yea Jase I think it was me, however I used the proper HTML code and it seems it can’t accept it without going haywire.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:08 pm
God almighty do we really have to revisit Luther vs the Popes here again and not on just one but two fronts?

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 12:09 pm
not to mention the perennial issue of ‘Was Hitler left wing’

Guys, the division is between totalitarians and non totalitarians. There is a non-totalitarian left.

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 12:10 pm
Jason,
If you want it to stop I know that if anyone (like you) showed me how I was wrong I would correct myself and this would stop straight away.
I hope and suspect that C.L. would do the same – but I believe I have been showing him he is wrong for threads longer than this one and he still keeps it up.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 12:15 pm
“Jonah” has been at it since late last evening. He sounds like Mad Mel because his evidential”exhibits” were 4 nil and only Mad Mel is incompetent enough to score zero. I can’t think of anyone else although it doesn’t sound him.

Jonah seems to be a proud protestant by the sounds of things, which means he either follows the druid or is mixed up in some new age nuts-oid born again sect that considers the pope the devil on earth.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:16 pm
“But that is flatly contradicted by people who were there. The Nazis support base came from the middle class.”

Commies? Australian Greens? Que?

.

15 Sep 10 at 12:27 pm
Andrew, I always know you’re slowly capitulating when you do your ‘answer the questions’ routine.

Campion: not a spy. No serious historian regards him as having been a spy. No serious historian regards him as having been anything other than a religious missionary. (Most Englishman were Catholics – though cowered by the Elizabehan gestapo).

Perhaps you could explain to us why “Queen” Elizabeth tried desperately to win him away from the True Faith with offers of worldy rewards, riches, titles and blandishments if he really had been out there calling for her death.

But I’m sure you won’t because you can’t.

Your conclusion: “lawfully convicted” (forged confession included).

Encycopaedia Brittanica:

Committed to the Tower, he was examined in the presence of Elizabeth, who asked him if he acknowledged her to be really queen of England, and on his replying straightly in the affirmative, she made him offers, not only of life but of wealth and dignities, on conditions which his conscience could not allow.

That is, she only wanted the man once called the “diamond of England” and the most imitated figure at Oxford to betray his faith. He wouldn’t and that is why she murdered him.

Why do you apparently think he was not being faithful and preaching the RC Pope’s message?

He was preaching the Gospel. Heard of it?

Again, by the way, “RC pope” is a rather strange redundancy unless you’re distinguishing him from the Coptic Pope. For our purposes, there is no other pope but the RC pope.

Now: please present evidence that Campion was a spy. Hundreds of years have transpired and many books written. Let’s see the evidence. I’ll make it easy for you. Just one certain proof of his spying will do.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 12:45 pm
Mussolini was just a run of the mill authoritarian dictator, like Franco until Hitler got him to take anti-Jewish policies seriously. The Italian army wasn’t particularly genocidal or bloodthirsty and for a time protected a lot of Jews in their camps.

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 12:46 pm
I’m not referring to the Mel, Jonah.
I’m referring to a lunatic that used to post here the same sort of crap you do and eventually was towed way by the moderator for being too mentally disturbed.

So fuck off and perhaps come back when your “exhibits” align with what you argue, you proud prot. LOl

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:47 pm
Don’t feed the troll.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 12:47 pm
Edmund Campion was “Shakespeare”:

http://www.shakespeareunmasked.com/works_cited.htm

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 12:50 pm
C.L.,
Thanks for your last comment – it seems you are starting to try to answer the questions, while covering it up a little.
So you think he disagreed with the RC Pope, and you as I presume from the use of the scare quotes, on who was the legitimate sovereign of England? Why do you think this?
If it solely from his testimony I think that fair enough and we can agree to disagree and the issue can be closed. If there is other evidence then I am happy to read it and you may convince me.
.
If you want to do the same for your evidence on Obama then we can also move on that issue.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 12:53 pm
Shakespeare was Shakespeare.

why is it so hard for people to believe that a sensible, level headed guy with a good head for business was also a genius dramatist?

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 12:53 pm
Andrew, you haven’t proved anything. You stuck your noggin into a discussion and debate between Ev and I. I think you do this for want of attention.

Once again:

There is official documentary evidence that boy Obama was a Muslim.

You have presented no evidence for your many and varied theories.

None.

Campion was introduced – successfully – to showcase your hypocrisy on evidence.

There is none against him.

Your conclusion: case proven.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 12:55 pm
Andrew: please present evidence that Campion was a spy. (Your original definitive claim, though sneakily watered down for this discussion). Hundreds of years have transpired and many books written. Let’s see the evidence. I’ll make it easy for you.

Just one certain proof of his spying will do.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 12:57 pm
If this interminable squabble has taught me anything it’s who Edmund Campion is and that it’s not hard to see why the Jews and Palestinians will never be friends.

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 12:58 pm
Jeez Louise.

Not even incumbents from the GOP are safe.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/14/hours-polls-close-gloves-come-delaware/

another Tea partier takes the primary.

You know, you could end up with a tea party prez candidate too.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 12:59 pm
Jason,

I think there are a number of things that distinguish Mussolini from standard right-wing dictators. I think fascism is more than merely conservatism + guns. And whilst the scale of their crimes was smaller, and whilst Italian chauvinism was based on culture, rather than crank biology, the fascists had much in common with the Nazis:

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

THR

15 Sep 10 at 1:03 pm
The purging of RINOs from the Republican Party has been swift and vicious.

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 1:04 pm
Mel Gibson is NOT a Catholic.

The split by the Anglicans was simply a defence to Habsburg meddling. The Church threw it’s lot in with them. Remember the saying “act like a King and be treated like one”. Well, they stopped doing that when they acted as errand boy for the overgrown Swiss German counts.

Heny VIII’s bloodbath started before the split too, as he was an unabalanced gent who alrady bumped off Edward Stafford.

Henry had an expensive taste for adventurism, which nearly broke the exchequer and also pissed off the Bourbons and Habsburgs as he keot on changing allegiances.

Howard or Bedford should have deposed of this loon early in the peace.

.

15 Sep 10 at 1:04 pm
C.L.,
I have not tried to prove anything beyond that there is legitimate doubt about your positions, about which you seem very, very sure.
On Obama, I have patiently and at great length explained why I do not feel your evidence is convincing.
On Campion I have patiently and at great length explained why I do not think his trial was up to modern standards (on this I agree with you) but also why I think that he may well have told people that his boss thought that Elizabeth a deposed heretic.
Why do you keep trying to think I am trying to prove Obama was not a Muslim and Campion was definitely a spy? I am not.
It was good to see you trying to move on in your previous comment, but your last one regressed. Can you please actually try to make an argument rather than trying to disprove positions I have not taken?

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 1:06 pm
The purging of RINOs from the Republican Party has been swift and vicious.

There really is a revolution going there.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 1:07 pm
Christie/Ryan/West 2012 please.

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 1:09 pm
Don’t feed the troll.

I feel I have to, Andrew. You’re looking a bit thin.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 1:11 pm
Mel Gibson is a Catholic.

Chuckle.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 1:12 pm
C.L.,
Just for information, as I know that Gibson is not in, shall we say, full agreement with the RC Church, is he one of the so-called “Traditionalists” that are no longer in communion with Rome? I assume so from your chuckle about calling him a Catholic and from recent divorce from his wife, something I believe is not accepted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
The wikipedia article on him, though, does not make it explicit.
I know some groups are still using the old latin mass and are still in communion, but I presume he is not one of them.
.
Please try and answer at least one of my questions on Campion and Obama as well as this one.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 1:49 pm
why is it so hard for people to believe that a sensible, level headed guy with a good head for business was also a genius dramatist?

He didn’t get any funding ergo he was not a serious writer. Ahem.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 1:50 pm
Dot Commies? Australian Greens? Que?

The Australian Greens are not relevant. Te Germany of the 20s and 30s was an unstable place governed by a weak liberal democracy for which there wasn’t much by way of cultural support.

Bolshevism tended to appeal more to the working class base. National socialism was an alternative for people who didn’t want to be over-run by Russians and lose their property. It was the same style of politics with its rallies and flags and colour-coded membership but the interests and principles it advocated were conservative: family, fatherland, patriotism etc.

The notion that Nazism and Communism can be reduced entirely to two different factions of the same thing glosses over the fact that many conservatives supported the Nazis enthusiastically. Here in Australia as well! Of course, some did not. Fritz Gerlich, for example. There was a corresponding anti-Bolshevik dissent on the Left by such people as Günther Anders and George Orwell.

Simply relegating the complexity of the situation to the mantra that the Nazis were an alternative left is refusing to understand and learn from what happened. The imposition of herd instinct and the banishment of dissenting views is something every political party or movement is at risk of. How many times has someone’s libertarianism been questioned here because of some view on fractional reserve or gun control? And this from an ideology that promotes individual self-determination.

I think what can be learned from totalitarian movements is not that lefties are all bad and righties are all good but that when you see certain tendencies such as the promotion of orthodoxy and hostility to individual viewpoints you should counter this. Even if, especially if, you agree with the majority in this case. Even when the individual dissenter is mistaken they should still to be protected because dissent itself is vital.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:03 pm
‘How many times has someone’s libertarianism been questioned here because of some view on fractional reserve ”

Trying to get back into Bird’s good books, Adrien?

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 2:06 pm
Hah!

I can get back to someplace I’ve never been.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:09 pm
That’s I can’t get back to… etc

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:10 pm
If you want to use a left right political axis, you have to be measuring a political quality. On the extreme right of the axis you have what Hobbes called the State of Nature, i.e. pure anarchy. On the left hand extreme you have totalirain control by government of all asopects of life.

How the government choses to control, and in whose name the control is exercised, or whether it is national or international socialism, or whether the proles rise up is completely irrelevant. If you are measuring a political phenomenon you must use descriptors that deal with purely political matters. The left right distinction is all about the amount of Government there is and nothing else.

There are people in all classes who believe that more government coercion is necessary. That is the basis of the leftist tendency. In the 1930s many lower middle class Germans of a who wanted the government to improve things radically thought that national socilaism was the answer. Whilst a lot of working class people who thought that teh government should radically improve things thought that international socialism was the answer. Both were seeking the answer to the same question. Both were in the same market, but their interests led them to different left wing causes, Nazism and communism. Thus a stylish lawyer and a bogan trader are both in the market for workwear. The lawyer wears expensive well cut Armani suits and the trader jeans and t shirts. Yet both are clothes wearers.

Rococo Liberal

15 Sep 10 at 2:12 pm
Andrew, once again:

Please present evidence that Campion was a spy. (Your original definitive claim, though sneakily watered down for this discussion). Hundreds of years have transpired and many books written. Let’s see the evidence. I’ll make it easy for you.

Just one certain proof of his spying will do.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:15 pm
The left right distinction is all about the amount of Government there is and nothing else

This is much the same as saying that the vegetarian-omnivore distinction is all about the amount garlic each one uses to accompany their dishes.

THR

15 Sep 10 at 2:16 pm
Comedy Gold – Oakeshott may accept position of Speaker!

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 2:16 pm
Here comes another election.

I hope Gillard holds good on her no-spin promise (n’uk). I suggest old-fashioned town meetings with your local member and cheap rotten tomatoes for $1.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:17 pm
I’m trying to work out whether I find this chick hot despite her wacky beliefs, or because of them.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/christine-odonnell-tonight-pulled-off.php

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:17 pm
If the GOP moderates are now worried about social issues, they have only themselves to blame with their prolifigate spending.

.

15 Sep 10 at 2:23 pm
C.L.,
I have already stated many times (many, many times) I have no further evidence. I am trying to make an argument based on logic, common sense and any knowledge we may have on the man and his circumstances, as neither of us have any further evidence.
Please try to keep up, there’s a good chap. Use logic, common sense and any knowledge you may have on the man and his circumstances.
If you can fault me on any of these, please let me know and I am happy to engage with you on this, as I have before and am continuing to do.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 2:23 pm
Jason, with editor and italics wrangler Sinclair away has anyone got administrative privileges at this bloody blog? It’s becoming impossible to separate the comments from the quotes etc.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:24 pm
Rococo – In your terms you can say that Nazi supporters and Bolshevik boosters are in the market for the same thing. And one would have to be very obtuse not to recognize that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia bore much more resemblance to each other than otherwise.

But the Left/Right dichotomy is a simple model used to map various views , interests and tendencies in a population. It is far from perfect. To simply define Nazis as left-wing runs straight over the experiences of those people who lived thru this. It also tends to deflect, a priori, any argument that right-wing political movements might have totalitarian tendencies. The retort becomes that by definition this is impossible because the Right don’t do that kind of thing.

The bitter lesson of Nazi Germany is that given the right circumstances most of us will do that kind of thing.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:24 pm
It would seem to me that if Benny and Liz can get together for a cup of tea, then even C.L. and Reynolds can put ancient bygones behind them:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/pope-benedict-xvi-seeks-to-ease-tensions-in-britain/story-e6frf7lf-1225923779154

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 2:25 pm
Tillman – people commenting on that forum thought that Ronald Reagan was “extremely risky” for America.

He was a stock standard conservative who was well spoken but with a barely delivered upon libertarian message.

They conflate that with a woman they portray as an anti masturbation campaigner.

Your friends can dig up muck, but they don’t know what they’re talking about half the time.

.

15 Sep 10 at 2:27 pm
Gonna miss Hitch.

http://www.slate.com/id/2267098/

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:29 pm
Andrew, it is the orthodox historiographical consensus that Campion was a profoundly sincere missionary. No serious historian regards him as having been a ‘spy’ – which was your original definitive claim. There is no evidence that he was, nor was there when he was murdered.

Could you answer this please, above?

Explain to us why Elizabeth tried desperately to win him away from the True Faith with offers of worldy rewards, riches, titles and blandishments if he really had been out there calling for her death.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:29 pm
Dotty, I just said the chick was hot.

If you get a boner for Reagan as well, then more power to you, but it’s nothing to do with my original comment.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:30 pm
With Hitch gone, who will take up the important work of railing against circumcision?

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:32 pm
CL – Did you respond to my inquiry viz Tariq Ramadan?

I haven’t read the guy or anything. I am genuinely interested in your views if any.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:34 pm
Tillman. I believe you’re attracted to a “hysterical” woman.

.

15 Sep 10 at 2:36 pm
Tillman
but she’s against masturbation AND contraception AND premarital sex.
so you can’t do anything about it unless you marry her

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 2:37 pm
CL
I’m not actually logged in in any admin capacity so I can’t do anything about the italics

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 2:38 pm
“but she’s against masturbation AND contraception AND premarital sex.
so you can’t do anything about it unless you marry her”

Well I think that’s what’s getting me agitated.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:38 pm
“a “hysterical” woman”

Isn’t that a tautology in strictly etymological terms?

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:39 pm
Got a sore neck from tilting my head to the right fifteen degrees so the italics disappear.

Maybe if I just put a couple matchbooks under the right hand side of the monitor….

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:40 pm
If you’re as anti-sex as she is it’s hardly surprising you’re hysterical.

Adrien

15 Sep 10 at 2:43 pm
C.L.,
As I have said earlier (and you seem to have missed) that if I ever did say anything about him being definitely a spy (a point I do not concede, but it is possible, so I am happy to deal with), I withdraw and apologise. I would have been wrong to say that he was definitely a spy. I am getting tired of repeating that, as I am sure others here are getting tired of seeing you say that to me. Please accept what I have said and move on.
As for Elizabeth’s motives – I have no definite evidence of what her motives were. As that is what you seem to want (certainty) I cannot provide that.
Now, can you answer the questions? I am tired of answering yours (ad nauseum) and receiving further misrepresentations of my argument back.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 2:43 pm
The GOP revolution eats its own.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/karl-rove-dukes-it-out-with-hannity-there-are-a-lot-of-nutty-things-odonnells-been-saying.php?ref=fpblg

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:44 pm
“I withdraw and apologise”

CL’s a Catholic, so that should be good enough for him.

Christine O’Donnell wouldn’t approve, however.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 2:49 pm
Adrien, yes I did reply!

I hadn’t heard of him. Googled him and I see he’s a sophisticated Swiss Muslim with an interest in cultural bridge-building – oui?

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:50 pm
Tillman
but she’s against masturbation

Well, that’s the end of that relationship before it even started.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 2:51 pm
Andrew, in a spirit of reconciliation, I acknowledge your withdrawal and apology for saying Campion was a spy. Which you certainly, definitively, did.

Odd claim, yours. Campion may have been calling for Betty’s head throughout England but after his capture she visits the Tower personally – offering cash, titles and all the goodies of the earthly city.

Why? Because she was desperate to ‘convert’ the “diamond of England” she had always admired as the veritable jewel in her own crown. When he refused (Christ-like), she viciously sought to extract from him some justification for her violence and corruption – a justification that never came forth (hence the multiple tortures, ‘conferences’ of interrogation and the false confession).

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 3:06 pm
I withdraw and apologise”

Isn’t that Catholic contraception?

THR

15 Sep 10 at 3:11 pm
“The GOP is losing its way with these people. A purge is now absolutely necessary”

Yes very good strategy, Jonah.

The GOP should make it crystal clear that Catholics – like Hispanics, Moslems, gays and dark-skinned people – are just not welcome in the party.

I think if they just do that, massive electoral success cannot follow far behind.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 3:13 pm
The definition of chutzpah by Karl Rove.

It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for.

What a fucking gall!

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 3:20 pm
Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!! What is wrong with this fricking server?

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 3:21 pm
Gun ownership in America at an all time high. High unmeployment. Economy in doldrums. Crime way down:

http://guncounter.bob-owens.com/2010/09/violent-crime-continues-to-plummet-as-gun-ownership-skyrockets/

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 3:26 pm
Tillman

Follow my rule if thumb. A hot chick can say whatever she likes and deserves to be voted in… More so if she advocates cutting the size of the deficit.

Jc..

15 Sep 10 at 3:34 pm
Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 3:41 pm
Muslim contraception, more likely, THR. Most common in West Asia, according to a 1990s survey.

But because that fact involves teh Muzzies, it’s officially exempted from comedic commentary.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 3:42 pm
Musso didn’t change from being a lefty, as facism is as left as communism. The means may have been different but the left wing result, totalitarianism, was the same.

RL, I know. That’s discussed in Goldberg’s book. The similarities between the hard right and the hard left far outweigh any differences. They are both religion-substitutes, for example.

Ev630

15 Sep 10 at 3:42 pm
The evidence is clear: more guns, less crime.

Michael Fisk

15 Sep 10 at 3:44 pm
Love handles save a woman’s life

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/love-handles-save-shot-woman-samantha-lynn-frazier/story-e6frfhk6-1225923330738

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 4:32 pm
Must have been either a pretty small caliber gun or those love handles were huge.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 4:35 pm
The “Bank Robberies and Traffic Violations Mitigation Act” has just passed the French Senate. Good.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/french-senate-passes-ban-on-veil-20100915-15b5x.html?autostart=1

Michael Fisk

15 Sep 10 at 4:35 pm
Where’s homer? Anyone know? I haven’t witnessed an infestation for ages and in fact have put the DDT spray away.

Homes, I know you’re reading this. This is no cue for to come back here. You know that, right?

JC

15 Sep 10 at 4:37 pm
C.L.,
I have little doubt that his full communion with the Church of England would have been a propaganda victory for Elizabeth at a time when England was beset on all sides by those seeking to depose or kill her. My earlier answer, though, was driven by your apparent desire for certainty of a type I cannot provide on that – so that is merely an opinion without evidence.
I remain interested, though, in why you think Campion would not have been preaching, or at least mentioning, Regnans in Excelsis. I honestly find this apparent position of yours puzzling. As a Jesuit and a priest whose loyalty to the RC Church I have no reason to doubt I would find it puzzling if he did not.
.
THR,
I would have thought that Roman Catholic contraception is, as it is for many Protestant denominations, not to enter in the first place.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 4:39 pm
Bank of Japan finally awakens from its sake slumber realizes that the Yen has strengthened to the point where the entire country could be out of work and begins to intervene in a possibly unsterilized.

Unsterilized means they will leave the Yen in the system thereby adding to the money supply.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 4:41 pm
Wackjob GOP/Tea Bagger candidate for Gov in NY explicitly channels Howard Beale:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/nyregion/15webnygov.html?hp

Gonna be interesting to see how this plays in November.

And the better this wackiness plays, the more buyer’s remorse there will be and the better the chances for Dems in the real contest i.e. 2012.

Overall, a very, very good night for the Democrats – as Karl Rove acknowledged.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 4:44 pm
God, guns, private property and low taxes are the paths to righteousness.

Too right!

Paul Williams

15 Sep 10 at 4:48 pm
The French senate voted 246 for, 1 against the burqa ban. Similar stats to US Congress vote on Iraq from memory…

Peter Patton

15 Sep 10 at 4:49 pm
Tillman
What exactly is wrong with Paladino? I’ll put a fiver on that he wins the governorship.

So what if he took a pit bull around the campaign trail? It adds a little color.

Dude, you need to expand your references to other than the NYTimes, as it’s like referencing Fatfax about Lib candidates.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 4:50 pm
Here’s the race you never mentioned or rather the NYTimes forgot to compare, Tillers.

……………..Elsewhere in New York, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY, who has been charged with multiple violations of House ethics rules, won his primary, battling back challenges from a crowded field of fellow Democrats.

Rangel was ahead of his closest competitor Adam Clayton Powell IV, a state legislator with a well-known political lineage in New York, by a 52 percent to 25 percent margin with nearly 70 percent of precincts reporting.’

It will be lucky if Charlie stays out jail over the next 2 years and yet the democrats had no problem with the biggest ethics buster in yonks.

Yep, it sure was a good day for the GOP.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 4:58 pm
“What exactly is wrong with Paladino?”

Mate, he’s a so-called fiscal conservative who wants to use public funds to exercise eminent domain over the so-called “ground zero mosque”.

If he succeeds, it’s a waste of public money.

But he won’t succeed because it would be plainly unconstitutional.

So he’s a hypocritical money-waster.

As a deficit hawk and a libertarian, how could you endorse this interfering, money-wasting nutjob?

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 4:58 pm
Yep, Rangel is pretty damn shameless/selfish.

You are right – he probably should be in jail (if the press regarding him is correct).

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 4:59 pm
“…..As a deficit hawk and a libertarian, how could you endorse this interfering, money-wasting nutjob?”

It’s the first time I heard of him was when you brought him up…

I thought Lazio would cruise it in but only received 30% of the vote!!!! I always thought lazio was shallow anyways.

Paladino is probably just politicking and wouldn’t worry too much about the Muzzie mosque swill he’s going on about, as that’s just red meat for the up-staters.

In any event there’s no chance it will ever be built because the building unions won’t allow it, as no card member will work there. So the political grandstanding is basically all hot air.

Look, If Cuomo gets in it will just be another same old same old in that chair.

They need the Governor that will cut the spending and take on the public sector unions in the state.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 5:06 pm
Tillers
I honestly don’t know what I ahppened to Charlie. Despite being Dem I always liked the dude.

Did he end up with a trophy wife that wanted more loot to spend? I can’t figure him out.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 5:09 pm
The troll is gone and I fixed up the italics. There were three offenders this time.

Sinclair Davidson

15 Sep 10 at 5:27 pm
Name and shame? I just hope one of them was not me.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 5:29 pm
The troll is gone

WTF? You banned CL? I never thought the day would come.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 5:32 pm
No.

What’s worse is that I have put the offending code into moderation, so one of the catallaxy authors must have let them put before checking why they were in moderation.

Sinclair Davidson

15 Sep 10 at 5:33 pm
LOL. No. Jonah / WASP is gone.

Sinclair Davidson

15 Sep 10 at 5:35 pm
Great piece by Reason Editor on what’s wrong with the IPCC process and what and why it needs to be changed as well the current fundamental weakness imbedded in the system.

The piece caught my eye because it had this comment

………”Pachauri is a pompous, arrogant man (with an awful haircut) who brooks no disagreement with the global warming orthodoxy and deserves to go. “

Worth reading

http://blogs.forbes.com/shikhadalmia/2010/09/10/the-global-warming-establishment-needs-more-than-cosmetic-fixes/?boxes=opinionschannellatest

JC

15 Sep 10 at 5:44 pm
Can’t we all just get along? Blog wars, what are they good for?

Chorus absolutely nothing!

JC

15 Sep 10 at 5:46 pm
Interesting comment from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100007519/china%E2%80%99s-young-officers-and-the-1930s-syndrome/

“…said Professor Huang Jing from the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

“The young officers are taking control of strategy and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. They are thinking what they can do, not what they should do. This is very dangerous.”

No argument from me on that score – brash, impetuous youth and a big dose of nationalism, dangerous cocktail.

But – if the crunch comes, public sentiment in China may not be so supportive. I think there is truth in E-P’s latter comments as the demographic timebomb ticks away:

“I remain hopeful that country with a one-child policy, an aging crunch from Hell, and a chronic dearth of young people, will show an enormous reluctance to support military adventurism. Losing an only child is especially cruel.”

Yup – that’s why worried parents drive their cotton wool kids to school these days instead of letting them brave the streets. War takes the pain of the loss to a new height.

And on a local note – into this strategic high wire act, we inject:

Lu Kewan – redux !

What could possibly go wrong ?

( I still say they should have inflicted Ruddie upon Defence ).

Myrddin Seren

15 Sep 10 at 5:51 pm
Talking about getting along. Our ABC had a segment in Foreign Correspondent last night about a group of chimps in the Congo or somewhere.

The fully registered ABC beta that ran with the piece was suggesting that this group of Chimps are different to other groups because it’s a matriarchal society where the fellas are just screw buddies for the females and have little to do, as the “families” are female run.

The ABC beta said they contrasted with other groups because there were less territorial fighting and it suggested that matriarchy was the cause for less violence.

Of course they didn’t elaborate on the fact that food and land was plentiful in this geographic area so there was less fighting among the chimps and the gorillas that occurred in other areas.

These people are shameless. It was the usual beat-up on males of course.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 5:57 pm
I think it might have been me Sinclair. I posted a comment a couple of days ago which went into moderation.

If it was me, sorry about that chief.

sdfc

15 Sep 10 at 5:58 pm
SDFC reminder

Key words in support of

the pink batts Lurch/Rudd insulation fiasco,

doubling up on school dunnies,

flinging cash to support genital washing programs in Africa and calling stimulus (no pun intended)

will get you immediately moderated for being a bigger idiot that Homer.

(SDFC think’s i lying about the genital washing stimulus program. But of course I’m not

……….“Feds Spent $800,000 of Economic Stimulus on African Genital-Washing Program”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:04 pm
“I remain hopeful that country with a one-child policy, an aging crunch from Hell, and a chronic dearth of young people, will show an enormous reluctance to support military adventurism. Losing an only child is especially cruel.”

It’s the gender disbalance from aborting all the girl babies that’s most likely to send China to war. They’ve raised a whole generation of spoilt brats who can’t get a root. Not going to end well.

Infidel Tiger

15 Sep 10 at 6:06 pm
SFDC

You’ve always claimed to be great at sourcing out statistics etc. to support your theory. dude, would you mind cranking up the stats and tell us what the multiplier was for the African genital washing program on US employment. I figured it created around 267 new and sustainable jobs.

Here’s the equation.

N * (C –t +M)/ H = J

N = number of genitals

C= number of genitals that were used

T = number of Genitals that weren’t used

H = total fiscal stimulus applied (which in this instance is not foreplay but the money directed).

J = number of jobs

I came up with 267 jobs, SDFC. can you check it out ans see if I’m right.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:15 pm
This isn’t good for labor as it puts the vote count at 75/74 and Tony Windsor can’t be relied on.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-coalition-consider-rob-oakeshott-for-speaker-role/story-fn59niix-1225924073051

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:23 pm
Got a credible source for that story JC?

I understand you’re an expert at washing your genitals. Over and over again.

sdfc

15 Sep 10 at 6:24 pm
Did you read the link?

Here:

……….”(CNSNews.com) – The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.

The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011″.

Would you refer The WSJ, SFDC? lol.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:28 pm
From the NIH itself, sfdc.

.

15 Sep 10 at 6:33 pm
Reason’s science writer travels to Montana to see windmills in action in an optimum windmill site and figures out like a lot of people, windmills look great but it’s a very expensive way to produced energy.

Conclusion, stop the subsidies and rorting and go to gas turbines, as these propellers won’t work efficiently

Someone tell that to the intellectual lioness of the Senate.. Christine Milne.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/14/wind-turbines-are-beautiful

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:35 pm
JC,
Yes, it is an odd one. I assume that Abbott has barred any of his people from taking the chair for that reason.
If anyone crosses the floor it will mean that Oakshott’s casting vote will not be needed and the relevant Bill will be lost.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 6:37 pm
Bird writes:

Don’t give me more than seven years at the top, since I have to assume that I’ll be corrupted like everyone else seems to have been corrupted.

Don’t you worry about that, Graeme.

jtfsoon

15 Sep 10 at 6:44 pm
Yeah right JC a “news source” that thinks there is a liberal bias in the media that undermines American values. Like I said got a credible source.

Let’s assume the report is right however (pun intended) 0.0001% of the stimulus spent on this project is damning indeed. Impeach the President give everyone a gun.

sdfc

15 Sep 10 at 6:54 pm
Andrew I may be wrong here, but I now recall they all agreed to pairing so 75/74 may be wrong as it still remains 76/74.

Didn’t they agree? If they did I wonder if Abbott has an escape by Oaskenshitt taking up the cudgel i it wasn’t specified.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 6:56 pm
SDFC:

I’m not asking you if you think the genital washing program is a material part of the stimulus spend. I was wondering if you agreed that it would create 267 sustainable jobs?

What the fuck is this supposed to mean? What are you talking about?

……..”Yeah right JC a “news source” that thinks there is a liberal bias in the media that undermines American values. Like I said got a credible source”.

Who the hell has raised anything to do with this, SDFC. Stop homerizing.

(Homerization: incoherent, incontestable gibberish swill).

JC

15 Sep 10 at 7:01 pm
JC,
I hope they did not agree to the pairing. If they did then the manager of opposition business should be, well, perhaps not shot but have his head examined.

Andrew Reynolds

15 Sep 10 at 7:19 pm
Andrew, Campion was preaching something called the Gospel. There was no evidence brought against Campion about the papal document you mentioned. Your feigned puzzlement is quite bizarre because the historiographical consensus is that he was falsely tried and that he was a pure missionary. Truthers arguing for a controlled demolition at the Twin Towers have more to work with than you do on the Diamond of England.

If you have some evidence against Campion, please share it because insinuations and mental wil-o-the-wisps don’t really count.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 8:05 pm
If he succeeds, it’s a waste of public money.

Coming from any supporter of Barack Obama, this observation sets a new standard for epic hypocrisy.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 8:08 pm
Obama bin Golfin’

tal

15 Sep 10 at 8:14 pm
JC

The reason your little news source was created was to right the imbalance caused by liberal bias in the media.

Yet you complain that others reference Fairfax. It really is piss funny.

sdfc

15 Sep 10 at 8:54 pm
Hey Tal.

You up with the latest?

Coitus interruptus, Muzzies, popes, Dan Brown conspiracies at the Vatican, Tillman declaring a great day for Democrats (they won all their own primaries!), Keynesian genital washing programs, an italics crisis – as Bill Lawry says, it’s all happening.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 9:39 pm
SDFC,

If you have anything to say other than post some homerization then don’t post.

What a truly pathetic comment.

I’ll ask again, do you agree with my ‘equation’, which suggests the part of Obama’s stimulus (not that sort) dealing the African genital washing program produced 267 jobs as I figure it must have a multiplier of at lest 3:1? Yes or no.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 9:39 pm
oops… dealing with…

JC

15 Sep 10 at 9:40 pm
SDFC:

As CL rightly calls it..

the correct title is the “Obama Keynesian Genital Washing Program Stimulus”.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 9:42 pm
“When the economy is flaccid, I wash my penis – what do you do, sir?”

- John Maynard Keynes

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 9:44 pm
(Oh no. Wodge will invariably see that and post it somewhere as some official comment by Keynes.)

JC

15 Sep 10 at 9:48 pm
CL sez:

I wash my penis

Hmmmm…. I’m starting to wish he’d keep to fart and poo jokes.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 9:55 pm
IT – time to go into the blow up doll business.

boy on a bike

15 Sep 10 at 9:58 pm
CL, its what I love about the Cat. Old arguments are just like old friends; I never tire of them.

dover_beach

15 Sep 10 at 10:05 pm
Yea DB.. they’re great.. The Nazis always seem to make the billing at least once a week.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 10:07 pm
Tillman, any late-breaking news on the triumphant victory of Democrats in the Democrat Party’s primaries?

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:07 pm
in the Democrat Party’s primaries

Never heard of it.

Tillman

15 Sep 10 at 10:23 pm
Well that didn’t take long:

Rudd reignites war of words over Security Council

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/15/3012918.htm?section=justin

“But it does not help the Australian national interest to have someone playing cute partisan politics on the home front on a question like this.”

The Office Psychopath in Chief is back !

Two words for Julia – one is “Freddie” and the other is “Krueger”……

Myrddin Seren

15 Sep 10 at 10:29 pm
I see Rudd is also on his way to Pakistan.

For the love of God, somebody stop him.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 10:53 pm
CL I have been busy with my social inclusion drive,and drinking Mojitos( in celebration of Cuba’s liberation)Who the hell is washing penis’s?Why can’t they wash their own? Joe did you mess the italics again?

tal

15 Sep 10 at 11:31 pm
Clinton-appointed Justice Breyer: ‘Hey, burning the Koran may be like yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.’

First Amendment protection for Koran burners is “not a foregone conclusion,” reports ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Last week we saw a Florida Pastor – with 30 members in his church – threaten to burn Korans which lead to riots and killings in Afghanistan. We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on “GMA” that he’s not prepared to conclude that — in the internet age — the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”

So: if you threaten to kill people and do actually kill people, the free speech that ’caused’ the killing may constitute a predictable public menace which, in turn, may constitute a criminal offence.

Hypothetically, you just have to kill enough people – with reliable predictability – and that’s yelling ‘Fire!’

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 11:34 pm
WTF? WTF is doing going off to Pakistan and who approved that?

For lord’s sake … look, let’s allow Gillrudd to fire this nimrod and not have the coalition contest his seat. He’s a national menace.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 11:35 pm
Better:

So: if you threaten to kill people and do actually kill people, the free speech that ’caused’ the killing may constitute a predictable public menace AND may itself be a criminal offence.

C.L.

15 Sep 10 at 11:37 pm
Breyer is a fucking idiot.

Burning the American flag is a national pastime for the American left. Hell, it’s a rite passage for any leftie. As far as I know or recall flag burning is free expression, or was deemed as such by the SCOTUS.

I think Breyer is being a typical left wing intellectually dishonest creep here.

The example of yelling fire in a crowded theater would be only analogous if one was able to get into the head of the flag burner. If the American flag were being burnt to deliberately incite violence then of course that too would not be free expression. But how would one prove that was the motive, as it would not be as easy as to prove the motive of yelling fire.

The same thing would apply to the burning of the Koran.

In other words it would be almost impossible to prove intent in a case of Koran burning, as it would in the case of yelling fire in a theater.

The trouble with these leftwingers is that they are so freaking dishonest. I would bet my house that Breyer’s answer would be different if the question that was asked was would it be free expressions under the constitution to burn the American flag.

JC

15 Sep 10 at 11:54 pm
Oliver Wendell Holmes’ judgement about “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” was actually the precedent used to censor and imprison a bunch of (largely Jewish) anti-draft protestors during World War I.

If THAT is the precedent that “liberal” justices are leaning on to support the destruction of the First Amendment, it only reinforces what I’ve said before – the Left is now the reactionary Establishment.

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 12:02 am
He’s also comparing an innocent cinema crowd fleeing fire to Muslim loonies murdering people in the street.

The man is a disgrace.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 12:05 am
Here is what the late Oliver Wendell Holmes, now the darling of the Left on account of his curmudgeony views on free speech, had to say about forced sterilization:

“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. … three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

That’s some great company Justice Breyer is keeping here. You mustn’t shout “fire in a crowded theatre”. But Nazi-style sterilizations are OK.

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 12:08 am
Look I think yelling fire in a crowded theater is a decent precedent. It shows that free expression is not totally limitless. You can’t for instance come into my home and yell fire because there is constitutionally allowed free expression. It would be illegal and in no way could ever be thought of as free speech.

Flag burning was considered a form of free expression by the courts. I can’t recall if it ever went to the SCOTUS but I think it did or it went to a lower court, which adjudicated that it was a form of free speech.

However Breyer is basically playing a game here.

If could be proven beyond any doubt that burning the flag was act to incite then the crowded theater precedent could be applied and receive sanction. That’s difficult to prove especially if the flag burning is done in a neutral setting.

Breyer of course doesn’t offer the right analogy and prefers to leave the issue of restriction etc. out of the discussion because he’s being a deceitful dick like all leftwingers.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 12:16 am
C.L.,
Again with the “no evidence” shtick. What is your opinion? Would he, or would he not, have mentioned the fact that his boss had presumed to excommunicate and depose Elizabeth?
If you think not, then why? I, as I said, would find it surprising if he had not.
This is a discussion, not a courtroom, much less a court room 400 plus years ago.
Which is probably just as well.
.
Answering the question on why you feel the document on Obama might constitute conclusive evidence would also be nice, but you seem determined to leave this one out.
I am not surprised on that, just disappointed.

Andrew Reynolds

16 Sep 10 at 12:56 am
Good point from Hot Air:

Mike Castle, if he is a man of loyalty to the party he wished to represent should hold fundraisers for O’Donnell beginning next week. Lisa Murkowski should follow suit in Alaska for Joel Miller. And Sue Bowden should be doing the same for Sharron Angle in Nevada.

In other words if “establishment” candidates are willing to give anything more than lip service to the party they wished to represent, then they should be willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of campaigning for someone they disagree with on issues. And they should do so remembering they are in it for the greater good.
…
We were told that in the end having a majority with an (R) after their name was the best thing of all. Well, I see no reason why that statement can’t hold true when a genuine Republican conservative wins a primary.

The reason why “moderate” (i.e. leftist) Republicans invariably cross the floor and support the Democrats after losing primaries to conservative challengers is simple: they ARE Democrats in spirit. They love the Democrats, adore them in fact, and are at their most morally sanctimonious when voting with the Democrats. Supporting “moderates” is a waste of time, as well as being electorally damaging to the Republican Party.

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 1:09 am
The same is true, I would add, of “Moderate Liberals” in Australia. They are really closet Labor partisans just waiting for an excuse to come out.

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 1:12 am
Oakenshitt and Windsor are primary examples of RINOs in Oz.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 1:14 am
Evidence is now a “shtick” is it, Andrew?

My, how far you’ve fallen.

When we’re talking about a man historians agree was innocent?

Interesting view.

When you debate 9/11 truthers, do you ask them to ignore the lack of evidence and just cite their opinions?

With respect to Obama, there is official documentary evidence that he was a Muslim.

With respect to Campion, there is no evidence he was a spy. There is evidence his ‘trial’ was a sham.

You’ve presented no evidence to support your multiple Obama theories and no evidence from history to support your very odd – and heterdox – exegesis of St Edmund Campion’s unlawful execution.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 2:29 am
For haters of David Cameron.

Adrien

16 Sep 10 at 10:52 am
Any chance one of the Catallaxy authors might consider putting this topic up on its own thread ?

It probably merits a focussed stream of comments – and there are economic and political aspects to it.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/bhp-boss-marius-kloppers-its-time-for-carbon-tax/story-e6frg8zx-1225924335319

Myrddin Seren

16 Sep 10 at 11:23 am
C.L.,
Again – no answer on Campion and no answer on Obama. Why are you afraid to answer the questions asked? Would an answer show exactly how shallow and pointless your position is?

Andrew Reynolds

16 Sep 10 at 11:27 am
Super Rudd to save the world

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/rudds-un-goal-averting-disaster-in-pakistan-and-afghanistan-is-focus-of-first-foreign-trip/story-fn59niix-1225924280834

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 12:09 pm
lord help us. He just doesn’t get out of our face. I literally can’t stand the sight of him.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 12:11 pm
Who the hell is washing penis’s?Why can’t they wash their own?

I’m a little curious as to the origin of these questions. Intrigued even.

Adrien

16 Sep 10 at 12:32 pm
Apparently Rudd decided to go to Pakistan on a whim. Can you imagine the expense of this little exercise and the security precautions needed? The ratfucking pshycopath is out of his mind.

Infidel Tiger

16 Sep 10 at 12:37 pm
Adrien

Stop being so lazy. Look up thread and you’ll find that CBS is reporting the Obama Demolitionists spent $850,000 of the stimulus money on an African genital washing program.

Nothing wrong with alerting people to genital hygiene as such, however to spend money as part of the stimulus is a little cheesy to say the least

I raised it a few times asking Keynesian zombie goons like SFDC if it created 267 new sustainable jobs because my Keynesianista multipier equation suggests it did.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 12:42 pm
IT

the plane ride is $6,000 an hour. That’s how much the jet costs to fuel up.

10 hour ride to Pakistan (est). you can figure out the rest. The Ratf.cking look cost us 120G so he can preen around the world looking like a Gen Sec.of the UN.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 12:45 pm
oops loon not look..

JC

16 Sep 10 at 12:46 pm
$120k? Man – think of all the genitals that could have been washed!

Fleeced

16 Sep 10 at 1:21 pm
It’s spending, Fleece. It’s job creating.

By the way, that just fuel costs factor in everything else and you don’t get much change from 10K and hour.

That loon will end up costing us

12 hours to Pak, that 12 hours to NYC and then 15 hours back here (unfortunately).

The ratf..ker will end up costing us $270,000 just for the jet alone.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 1:26 pm
Andrew,

There is official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy.

You have presented no evidence that he wasn’t.

Campion was not a “spy.”

You have presented no evidence that he was.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 1:31 pm
“In the long run we are all washed.”

- John Maynard Keynes

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 1:31 pm
$120k? Man – think of all the genitals that could have been washed!

More Keynesian waste. In every capital city, I imagine, there are men happy to do this for free.

dover_beach

16 Sep 10 at 1:49 pm
There is official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy.

No there isn’t.

Campion was not a “spy.”

Yes he was.

Tillman

16 Sep 10 at 1:50 pm
Even if the genital washing stimulus succeeded in creating jobs – they’re not exactly the sort of jobs you’d want to write home about.

Fleeced

16 Sep 10 at 2:18 pm
Who the hell is washing penis’s?

Tal, Tillman was offering this service to the White House before being red-flagged by the Secret Service.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 2:33 pm
You just can’t leave the penises alone, can you CL?

Does your gran know what you’re up to on the internets?

Tillman

16 Sep 10 at 2:36 pm
Teabagging hotty Christine O’Donnell has pretty much the same approach to evidence as CL does:

Well, creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the Earth in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/the_gops_delaware_senate_nomin.html

Tillman

16 Sep 10 at 2:40 pm
You just can’t leave the penises alone…

Tillman, advocate for harrassed penises.

Makes sense.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 2:45 pm
Does O’Donnell believe President Roosevelt appeared on television in 1929 (Biden), that Obama is a “light-wkinned negro” (Reid), that the CIA spread the AIDS virus (Obama’s 20 year mentor and role model, Jeremiah Wright) or that she can make the oceans go down (Barack)?

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 2:49 pm
Tillman,

The Dems have Rev Wright and Al Sharpton. Plus you never have anything positive to say about the good parts or candidates from the Tea Party, say Brown or Paul.

Pelosi’s views on economics are just as nutty as launching an anti masturbation crusade. Probaly more harmful too.

.

16 Sep 10 at 3:17 pm
Stop being so lazy.

Never!

850 K to was dicks as part of the stimuklus ‘ey? Maybe Birdy is right about Obama being a gay secret agent.

Adrien

16 Sep 10 at 3:21 pm
that’s gay muslim secret agent of a shadow CIA-Arabia conspiracy, Adrien you dope

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 3:22 pm
I see that Bird has also issued a fatwa against the concept of ocean acidification.

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 3:26 pm
steve

can you make any sense of his arguments on ph?

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 3:33 pm
So birdie is an oceanographer now? he really is a multi-talented genius. Lol

His correct title now is Birdie the Ocean Mufti.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 3:33 pm
Someone needs to write a book

‘Bird for dummies’

There are some theories of his which I just don’t understand.

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 3:34 pm
JC
he must have conducted some field research during his holiday in Thailand

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 3:35 pm
You don’t need field research. Just Youtube.

Infidel Tiger

16 Sep 10 at 3:39 pm
yea Jase , lol he spent a lot of time in the bars there and figured it all out. The Ocean Mufti is all knowledgeable.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 3:42 pm
Jason: no. I don’t have time to go read it again right now, but he seemed to be arguing the pH could never change in the ocean. (I’m sure he’ll correct me in his usual moderate tones if I am wrong.)

I don’t know how he thinks the long term measured changes from the site near Hawaii, which are broadly in agreement with ocean acidfication predictions, can be explained away. Full open access to the article can be had here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.full.pdf+html

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 3:46 pm
Hilarious.. Pyne has walked away from the deal it seems.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/julia-gillard-accuses-pyne-of-reneging-on-parliamentary-reform-deal-over-speaker/story-fn59niix-1225924910940

So the vote count will be 75/74.

The freaking cheek of Oakenshitt wanting to be speaker. Jeez H C I despise that prick.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 3:55 pm
Breaking news: Bird has the cure for cancer

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/the-cisro-continues-its-campaign-of-malcious-lies/#comment-32643

Well we are talking about pH right. So its a matter of your finding out what pH cancer cells like and can survive in. And what pH normal cells like and can survive in.

Try and check that out and get back to me with a solution to turn the tables in favour of the Hitchens non-cancer-cells.

Too easy.

jtfsoon

16 Sep 10 at 4:25 pm
well i knew it wouldn’t be long before he received a Nobel Prize.

Hey Bird, can i go with you to Sweden and be there on stage while you accept it.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 4:36 pm
Someone should tell Bird about resveratrol, stem cells, dendritic cells, str1720 and oncolytic viruses…you know, the generic applications that might actually become medications to cure cancer, as opposed to nutty panaceas.

.

16 Sep 10 at 4:49 pm
Hope and change we can believe in.

…….”Health insurers are asking for immediate rate hikes of more than 20 percent in Connecticut for some plans, citing rising medical costs and federal health reform laws as reasons.

Both issues — the new federal health care reform and rising medical costs — are significant drivers of the increases, according to filings by insurers with state regulators that were reviewed by The Courant”

The worst president ever.

http://www.ctnow.com/health/hc-health-insurance-rate-hike-0914-20100914,0,5611833.story

JC

16 Sep 10 at 4:50 pm
Don’t forget DCA. Or the Docrates Institute:

http://www.docrates.com/en/home/

.

16 Sep 10 at 4:53 pm
C.L.,
…and you repeat the same crap yet again. Given you continue to fail to answer the questions, or any reason why you think you cannot, I will have to call this as a loss to you.
Fail, C.L., fail.

Andrew Reynolds

16 Sep 10 at 4:55 pm
Anyway, guys – you will be happy to know I will not be playing with C.L. (no, Tillman, not that way) with C.L. for a month or so as I will be on holidays in the US.
Have fun!

Andrew Reynolds

16 Sep 10 at 5:00 pm
well i knew it wouldn’t be long before he received a Nobel Prize.

The real cancer is not in malignant cells, but in our banking system.

THR

16 Sep 10 at 5:01 pm
In that case he receives two prizes. one for curing cancer and the other for curing fractional reserve.

(I can’t quite help thinking that Le Bird’s fixation with fractional has a lot to do with that loan he took out at the top of the real estate market)

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:05 pm
Have a good time Andrew and stop thinking about Campo, or whatever his name is or if Obama was a child muzzo.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:07 pm
Actually, there’s an article in Crikey today about banks and hedge funds that ought to get the Turkeymeter up a bit:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/15/housing-bubble-and-banks-time-for-disclosure-and-context/

THR

16 Sep 10 at 5:09 pm
Hey Jason, have you dared watch the Nicholas Gruen video of his Gov2 presentation given in Washington last week? I am interested to see if it is less boring than his posts on the topic, but maybe we should draw straws to see who has to test that. I mean, it’s 15 minutes I might never get back again.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.full.pdf+html

(That said, he’s a very nice man for posting book discount coupons regularly.)

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 5:18 pm
Oops, wrong link:

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2010/09/16/mr-gruen-goes-to-washington-again-2/

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 5:19 pm
Reason warns GOP not to overstep the mark with their criticisms of Obama. Obama is not an alien gay Muslim with a Kenyan passport in his back pocket. He is the very evident product of the American left, which I might add is alien in itself but that’s another story.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/15/theres-no-need-to-get-personal

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:19 pm
What is Gov 2?

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:20 pm
“Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That’s something that would create jobs.”

- Democrat Party icon and South Carolina senate nominee, Alvin Green, on solving the unemployment crisis.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 5:21 pm
JC, enlightenment surely awaits you at Club Troppo.

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 5:22 pm
Andrew, you weighed into a discussion between Ev and I. You were the one seeking to play, then. Not me. So you finish on another error.

There is official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy.

You have presented no evidence that he wasn’t.

Campion was not a “spy.”

You have presented no evidence that he was.

Thanks for the Birdian declaration of VICTORIOUS VICTORY!

It’s very convincing.

Adios.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 5:25 pm
Actually, I think this site is an example of Gov2 in America – it’s a list of problems or projects people are invited to try and solve, in some cases for prize money.

http://challenge.gov/

One of the more unusual challenges – design a clothes washing system for NASA. Prize money – $25,000. (The space station has no laundry, apparently).

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 5:29 pm
That’s a very interesting article THR. I can’t see a housing bubble in Australia. A long period of stagnation or deflation, yes.

Infidel Tiger

16 Sep 10 at 5:31 pm
“There is official documentary evidence that Obama was a Muslim as a boy.”

I thought you said it was a school entry certificate filled out by his stepdad? I suppose that is an official document (assuming it was a govt requirement), but that does not convey quite the same thing as official documentary evidence.

pedro

16 Sep 10 at 5:33 pm
Oh my – I think we have to approach the Gruen video in relay teams like in the world’s funniest joke sketch in Monty Python. I just watched the first 5 minutes but felt the pressure of boredom reaching dangerous levels.

steve from brisbane

16 Sep 10 at 5:39 pm
Steve Sailer has a hilarious post up about Italian-Americans being considered an affirmation action category in New York of all places.

“There have been so many cases of discrimination that I personally know of — from not getting hired to not getting promoted to not getting tenure,” said Dr. Scelsa, who is now president of the Italian American Museum in Manhattan. “It’s so clear that there’s been no serious attempt to increase our numbers.”

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/09/affirmative-action-for-italian.html

Did you feel similarly oppressed when you worked in New York, JC?

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 5:39 pm
Fisky.

I always felt oppressed there Is there any money in this shtick because if there is I’m all for it being an indigenous person of color and all.

No kidding, I had an American friend who really made a pile of money out of the preference racket.

Believe it or not there was racial preference racket going on during the S&L crisis. The US government would actually lend you money at next to nothing and gave all sorts of shit out for people that could claim minority status in buying S&L’s that went inot government triage.

This dude created a minority board, piled in buying this crap at next to nothing with huge subsidies, running them for a while and then selling them to the larger banks.

It’s offensive to tell you how much I think he made out of it. He wasn’t a close friend as such but we saw them often enough, as our kids had play dates and crap like that.

The racial quota thing is just so wrong on so many levels that it is impossible to get your head around it and not feel pissed off.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:49 pm
…………….”I just watched the first 5 minutes but felt the pressure of boredom reaching dangerous levels.”

Steve, now you know how we feel about your comments.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:51 pm
Fisk

Did you notice Aunty Jack (Strocchi) was on that thread commenting a storm.

I don’t think I’ve ever finished reading a Aunt Jack comment without falling asleep.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 5:56 pm
Someone needs to write a book

‘Bird for dummies’

Or perhaps he should just rename his blog Bird For Dummies in the interest of honest advertising.

Adrien

16 Sep 10 at 6:44 pm
Apparently Oprah Winfrey is a muslim too.

Peter Patton

16 Sep 10 at 6:46 pm
Plus you never have anything positive to say about the good parts or candidates from the Tea Party, say Brown or Paul.

No you’re lying.

I was the first person on this board to point what a nice rack Christine O’Donnell has.

Tillman

16 Sep 10 at 7:32 pm
Dr Freud, another hysterical woman is here to see you.

I’ll get the baby oil and be back in three hours.

.

16 Sep 10 at 7:47 pm
Seriously, is there any category of Nobel that Bird doesn’t deserve?

Economics – obviously. That just goes without saying.

Medicine – he can cure Hitch’s cancer by adjusting the ph of his blood. Definitely worth a Nobel.

Peace – No-brainer.

Literature – Well consider this morsel:

Yeah and get rid of fucking Marius Klopper too. That cunt sounds like two horses that need to be sent to the glue factory.

Show me a line in Ulysses that’s any better that.

Tillman

16 Sep 10 at 7:50 pm
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine plans to make what’s being billed as a major announcement Wednesday about the future of the party, according to a Democratic source with knowledge of the speech.

The source tells CNN that Kaine will announce something that will excite Democrats across the country.

And now we have the exciting news – yes, really:

Democrats unveil new logo: It’s a target.

C.L.

16 Sep 10 at 7:50 pm
Did you notice Aunty Jack (Strocchi) was on that thread commenting a storm.

Yes I did. But I prefer to read Homer’s ramblings.

Michael Fisk

16 Sep 10 at 8:29 pm
I am just about to fly out to Tahiti. See you in a few weeks.

Rococo Liberal

16 Sep 10 at 9:09 pm
I am summering in a suburban caravan park.

Infidel Tiger

16 Sep 10 at 9:16 pm
The cabana next to my outdoor door will not be finished for another 8 weeks. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!

Peter Patton

16 Sep 10 at 9:21 pm
Have a great time RL and the french chicks alone.

JC

16 Sep 10 at 9:21 pm
damn… Leave the french c….

JC

16 Sep 10 at 9:22 pm
Seriously, is there any category of Nobel that Bird doesn’t deserve?

Bird certainly knows how to solve an economic crisis:

Did you know that Adolf issued non-interest-bearing money supply? Thats important since it meant that the recovery wasn’t haunted by too many resources going to the bankers.

http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/the-cisro-continues-its-campaign-of-malcious-lies/#comment-32653

THR

16 Sep 10 at 9:51 pm
no point in looking folks there’s no train about to hit us. It’s just “nation building”.

……….”BORROWING by state governments is forecast to hit more than $243 billion, reducing available credit for the private sector as the economy recovers.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/states-debt-binge-to-top-240-billion-as-private-sector-faces-squeeze/story-fn59niix-1225925075615

JC

17 Sep 10 at 1:05 am
Oh an Joyce is just a moron to be warning about debt levels.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 1:06 am
Gangreens senator Ludlum.

………….”LET’S not expect a volatile, antiquated technology to solve any problems, says Scott Ludlam.

JUDGING from the extraordinary outpouring of editorial anguish – ranging from simple name-calling to paranoid hysteria – over the Greens’ cautionary uranium mining policies, it seems we may have hit a nerve.”

Let me re-edit the first sentence for this turkey.

…………..”LET’S not expect a volatile, antiquated technology such as the wheel to solve any problems, says Scott Ludlam.”

This freaking moron thinks that old or new has something to do with economic efficiency.

Ludlum, you turkey it’s irrelevant as you are if the technology is old or new.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 1:12 am
Obama administration is now threatening medical insurance firms with regulatory retribution if they make public rate rises brought on as a result of Obamacare.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/what-hath-sebelius-wrought-at-the-health-insurers/63098/

The worst administration is history.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 2:29 am
I had wondered about this but now we know:

Phoenix doco a fake, Affleck admits.

He also confirmed that when Phoenix appears on The Late Show With David Letterman on September 22 he will not be in character.

In February 2009, a mumbling Phoenix appeared on the Late Show to explain his surprise decision to retire from acting.

That 2009 Letterman appearance was a classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuO75_hJgCQ

C.L.

17 Sep 10 at 11:09 am
“Bush’s tax cut’s responsible for debt in 2020″

Bullshit:

http://www.economist.com/node/17043472

.

17 Sep 10 at 11:15 am
My God there is some barking moonbats on the economist comments:

”
Sense Seeker wrote:
Sep 17th 2010 12:59 GMT

Raising taxes on the rich alone will not fix the deficit. But it’s a good start.

The rich are best able to afford it, and mostly invest the money from the tax cuts in luxury (private pools, yachts, bigger mansions, etc.) or even channel it to tax havens.

The poor are much more likely to invest in education, better nutrition, housing, and the like. These investments are much more likely to pay economic dividends in the future, and more likely to contribute to the local economy.

America is on its way to become a third world country because of its underinvestment in social and physical infrastructure, with lousy schools exept for the kids of the rich, crumbling roads, and levees that are not hurricane-proof. Failing to tax those who can afford it hasten that process of decay.”

Yeah right. Billy Bob in the trailer park will invest in his step kids education if the Heinz/Kerry family moves processing plants offshore.

Barking fucking moonbats.

.

17 Sep 10 at 11:17 am
This is the face of modern environmentalism. “SAVE OUR LOCUSTS”:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/locust-plague-threatens-victorian-crops/story-e6frf7kx-1225925004536

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 12:41 pm
this pisses me off.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/fear_itself/

we should fight fire with fire. any two bit cleric who issues a death fatwa against a western citizen should be the subject of a $10 million bounty on production of his severed head

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 1:16 pm
To Obama’s credit, he did order the CIA to kill that scumbag.

C.L.

17 Sep 10 at 1:20 pm
Yes, true. I just think it should become a general rule and we allow bounty hunters in on the act to make it more grisly for these fuckers.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 1:22 pm
Required reading – speech by Conroy in April explaining…. various things.

http://www.breakfastpolitics.com/index/digital-transformation.html

boy on a bike

17 Sep 10 at 1:53 pm
I agree Jason. We should have an avowed policy of targeted assassination.

That extends to scum like Mitterand and Gadaffi who use state sanctioned terror against civilians.

.

17 Sep 10 at 1:57 pm
why are you so hung up on Mitterand?

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 1:59 pm
The Rainbow Warrior operation was not intended to kill. It was an act of sabotage to prevent those pesky Greenpeace idiots interfering with atomic tests. It’s unfortunate that someone was killed unintentionally and it was illegal but firstly I wouldn’t be surprised if Western governments have done this sort of thing many times and all we knew about it was some undisclosed technical failure and secondly it’s difficult to get overly excited over it other than the unfortunate manslaughter.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 2:03 pm
I don’t like Govenrments killing civilians without a bloody good reason, that’s why.

.

17 Sep 10 at 2:11 pm
dot there was little point to killing anyone. it was a plan that went wrong because one of the environmentalist loons decided he should go down and film the whole thing

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

The agents attached two limpet mines to the ship and detonated them 10 minutes apart at around 11:45 p.m. Agents intended the first mine to cripple the ship so that everybody would be evacuated safely off when the second mine was detonated. The ship sank four minutes after the second explosion.

However, the crew did not react to the first explosion as the agents had expected. While the ship was initially evacuated, some of the crew returned to the ship to investigate and film the damage. A Portuguese-Dutch photographer, Fernando Pereira, returned below decks to fetch his camera equipment. He drowned in the rapid flooding that followed the second blast. The other ten crew members were either safely evacuated on the order of Captain Peter Willcox or were thrown into the water by the second explosion.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 2:13 pm
Swan on the NBN:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/broadband-network-will-save-jobs-swan-20100916-15eo4.html

TREASURER Wayne Swan has hit back at attacks on the national broadband network by claiming the $43 billion project will keep jobs in Australia and keep inflation lower.

Mr Swan made a sweeping economic defence of the government’s broadband policy last night, arguing it was essential for productivity growth.

Amid criticism from the opposition that the government has failed to make a business case for the project, Mr Swan said Labor faced a ”stark choice” when it came to power, as the private-sector proposals to improve broadband access did not offer value for money.

————-

Yes, and the NBN will also produce long laster orgasms, heal the sick, enable the lame to walk, fix up Aboriginal health, allow the blind to see, abolish obesity and promote world peace.

boy on a bike

17 Sep 10 at 2:18 pm
The worst thing about the whole Rainbow Warrior fiasco was that it illicited more sympathy for the fascist Greenpeace than any PR department could ever hope to achieve. It’s baffling that they are still considered a conservation movement.

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 2:21 pm
IT, don’t for a moment think I have sympathy for that movement. They are rejected by their foudner as gaia worshipping loonies.

Swan – the man is beyond a joke. The lunatic in charge of the asylum.

Only a truly dopey company will put him on later. He’s no Nick Greiner. The exception being some form of legal but unethical corruption in procuring business.

Jason – you can’t blame someone for being blown up with a second bomb on a sinking ship. You blame the murderer.

.

17 Sep 10 at 2:32 pm
Boy on bike says:

…………”Required reading – speech by Conroy in April explaining…. various things.

http://www.breakfastpolitics.com/index/digital-transformation.html ”

Boy I get the distinct feeling that controy is one of those virgin gamers that simply wants a faster internet service to his home.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 2:36 pm
Dot
*it wasn’t murder*. It wasn’t intended to be murder and the courts didn’t decide it was murder. They found it was manslaughter and the spies served time in jail for it.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 2:36 pm
One of the spies in fact got pregnant to the other spy…. all very French from what i recall.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 2:37 pm
From Nature, talking about GM animals:

“The next GM animal on dinner plates may be the Enviropig, developed at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and submitted to the FDA for approval.”

Enviropig – great name huh?

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100914/full/467259a.html

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 2:54 pm
Jason,

If you followed your other quals. and became a prosector instead of an econmomist and multiple victims were *killed* in the commission of a crime, and you were the crown prosecutor for that case, I’d bet all the copper in Bird’s house that you’d try them for murder.

“Boy I get the distinct feeling that controy is one of those virgin gamers that simply wants a faster internet service to his home.”

LOL. He needs a stern talking to from Christine “Look no hands” O Donnell. Maybe they need to hook up?

.

17 Sep 10 at 3:03 pm
yea, terrific name.

I hope they come up with a non farting cow asap as it would go some way towards allaying Harry’s fear in getting caught downwind.

My preference in naming a the non-fart cow is the enviroharry in obvious deference.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:07 pm
dot

there is no way any court would have convicted for murder. Killing those loons would have served no purpose. the directives and intentions were clear. they just wanted to stop those loons (who in the past infringed on others’ property rights by interfering in whaling and seal hunting) from getting to Mororua or whatever the heck chunk of land was being nuked.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 3:10 pm
As I recall, the Envirojoe won’t even replace his halogen lights with compact fluros.

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 3:11 pm
Those mushrooms clouds would be a fabulous thing to watch if of course done safely out in the wider Pacific.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:12 pm
Bird and I converse:

#

Useful link:

http://www.docrates.com/en/home/

*

By: . on September 16, 2010
at 6:53 am

Reply

#

Bird,

You should have a look at dendritic cells, DCA, oncolytic viruses, stem cells, str1720, resveratrol and in paticular for men, provenge and abiraterone.

Also the docrates institute in Finland.

This pH stuff isn’t worth a pinch of shit. This other stuff could become generic medications with widespread use and high success rates.

*

By: . on September 16, 2010
at 6:53 am

Reply

#

No you are entirely wrong dot. If a cell is at ph 7.44 thats good for an adult. If its at 7.61 thats good for a kid. If your cells are at 7.18 you are sick. And if your cells are at 6.48 or lower the cell cannot function in its specialised way and will turn cancerous. Thats the take home story by which you would want to judge the merits of any discussion on the subject.

There is a fellow in France who takes a pretty straightforward approach to this sort of thing. He treats tumors by finding out how to get to them via the arteries. And then he sends a solution of sodium bicarbonate up those arteries to the tumor. And the tumor simply melts away. It cannot be any other way, since the specs for the cancer cell mandate a certain ph. Whereas the specs for the healthy cell mandate another ph. And one cannot survive in the others ph and vice versa.

When you have low ph you cannot absorb oxygen. So all the viruses come out to play and start using enzymes to dissolve your low-ph and low-oxygen cells. This poisonous crap gets throughout your whole body, does damage and makes you sick. So the starting point is that you have to get your cell-voltage aka ph, right. Now you don’t necessarily do it in the crude fashion that the French bloke uses. But hey. If thats the quickest way to get results then that might have to do until you have a more holistic solution.

.

17 Sep 10 at 3:19 pm
Perhaps Bird can set up an alternative medicine practice. The NBN could allow him to disseminate his services around the world.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 3:21 pm
Good luck in tarrying the warmening:

30-40 million cars a year to be produced in China by 2020.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/business/energy-environment/17energy.html

dover_beach

17 Sep 10 at 3:21 pm
Don’t knock it, Steve. Environmentalism has made me some decent cashola.

In fact I love the environment like a red headed step child. Show me a tree and you’ll just see the love coming from me. I adore trees.

I was pretty early in spotting the LED lighting thing and made some pretty decent cash in CREE a leader in that field. I bought that stock in the highish 40′s and released it in the low 70′s.

I have several nuke stocks which over the next 5 to 7 years will make my retirement.

I was also quick to buy into lithium mining and bought SQM which also happens to have large and developing potash deposits. That thing is heading to the moon.

I love environmentalism more than you do. In fact where’s the nearest Greenpeace office because I wanna sign up asap.

Save those whales and all that… I’m into it. those pokers don’t deserve to be on anyone’s dinner plate.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:22 pm
I see he’s still going on about how he would make a much better head of BHP.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 3:22 pm
Yea…Birdie’s credentials are far better. In fact an economics degree from Buttfuck Uni NZ beats a Phd in chemical engineering from MIT any time.
From Wiki:

………”He graduated from Helpmekaar Kollege, an IEB school in Johannesburg. Kloppers graduated with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Pretoria and subsequently went on to receive a PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also graduated with an MBA from INSEAD.”

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:28 pm
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/the-cisro-continues-its-campaign-of-malcious-lies/#comment-32662

You are too stupid to be an economist mate. Bad economics is dead easy. Good economics is harder than medicine. Thats why only Kates and Rafe make the grade at your main site. And only I achieved excellence.

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 3:33 pm
Jamie Oliver’s son’s name: Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver.

I laughed at first, but now I quite like it.

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 3:36 pm
Bird does not lack for ego. I believe this is what has kept him out of high office. If only he could show his affinity with the common man.

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 3:38 pm
What isn’t the Bird good at I wonder.

Nobel level in science, economics, literature.

CEO material in the Fortune 15.

Potential Political leader.

Expert stock trader.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:39 pm
Its not so much that bird so good jc (although he is), it’s that everyone else are dummies.

It should be bird’s motto, “if I have seen further it is because I have been surrounded by pygmies”

Steve Edney

17 Sep 10 at 3:49 pm
….or jut plane liars, Steve.

If you disagree with the Dobell Mufti you’re either a liar or a dummy.

Perhaps soon he’ll be performing fatwas against the liars and dummies that disagree with nim.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 3:52 pm
Bird’s interest in body pH reminds me of the “magic water” episode that SMH columnist Paul Sheehan was involved in some years ago. Here’s an extract from Sheehan’s original article:

The villain in this story is carbon dioxide. Every person produces between half to one kilogram of carbon dioxide a day. It is produced inside body cells as a toxic by-product of the process by which our bodies create the energy to survive. The acids formed from carbon dioxide contribute to fatigue and degeneration and are the building blocks for all inflammatory diseases.

Carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid, which leaches through the body like acid rain. It creates the conditions for the great agents of ageing – free radicals and oxidisation – to damage the body. Carbon dioxide and acidity are also direct causal ingredients in rheumatoid arthritis, in the dissolution of bone substance (osteoporosis), the dissolution of joint cartilage (osteoarthritis), the death of brain cells (Alzheimer’s) and many cancers and skin diseases.

etc.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/08/1017206303625.html

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 3:54 pm
Well, he is an holistic prophet.

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 3:56 pm
If he has discovered the Fountain of Youth, he’ll be abusing the world for, what, another 70 years at least.

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 3:58 pm
“If you disagree with the Dobell Mufti you’re either a liar or a dummy.”

Or more likely both.

Steve Edney

17 Sep 10 at 4:42 pm
That’s Mufti Grameen Bin Al Birdumuffallahman

jtfsoon

17 Sep 10 at 4:48 pm
More French health research that may sway the Mufti Bird:

“I have studied camels in many countries,” says Bernard Faye of the France-based research organisation CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement). “From the Rift Valley of Africa to Central Asia you often hear it said that camel milk can cure; diabetes, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers, gastro-enteritis, cancer are all claimed to be cured.”

http://www.new-ag.info/focus/focusItem.php?a=1275

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 5:22 pm
Around 200,000 people lined the streets of Edinburgh to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father and celebrate Mass with him in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park.

There were unforgettable scenes of adoration – confounding predictions Benedict’s visit would be met with apathy, even hostility.

The pontiff demonstrated the warmth of his character. And his delight to be among his people in Scotland was clear for all to see.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/09/17/pope-benedict-xvi-s-visit-to-scotland-ten-hours-that-touched-the-heart-of-a-nation-86908-22567205/

dover_beach

17 Sep 10 at 5:30 pm
d_b, you failed to extract the best bit of that report:

“THE Duke of Edinburgh quizzed Scots Tory leader Annabel Goldie about her knickers as dignitaries waited to meet the Pope yesterday.

Prince Philip, 89, admired Scots Labour leader Iain Gray’s papal tartan tie – then asked Goldie, 60: “Have you got a pair of knickers made of this?”

Goldie replied: “I can’t comment and even if I could, I couldn’t possibly exhibit them.” ”

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 5:36 pm
This is now becoming a war.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68C4SP20100917?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

You don’t kill 22 people in police fire fight and call it general policing duties.

JC

17 Sep 10 at 5:59 pm
Another reason to admire the Scots and Prince Philip, Steve from B.

dover_beach

17 Sep 10 at 6:06 pm
Mr G Bird: haven’t you ever heard of the placebo effect?

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 6:10 pm
The Greek is a legend. Wilfully misunderstood by the humourless media.

Infidel Tiger

17 Sep 10 at 6:23 pm
Left wing atheist Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked, has had enough of the loony atheism cult of Richard Dawkins, Geoffrey Robertson, Christopher Hitchens etc.

How the New Atheists are abusing the truth.

C.L.

17 Sep 10 at 10:10 pm
Hey CL, did you see this in a recent Andrew Sullivan column:

“For me, I would marginally prefer to attend a cocktail party with Roman Polanski than bow down to this pontiff as my grandmother would expect.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/heart-speaks-to-heart.html

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 10:41 pm
Steve:

seee what i mean about being a passive aggressive nimrod and why most people here invariably take a shot at you with the nice slicing uppercut to the chin?

JC

17 Sep 10 at 10:46 pm
The religion of peace is at it again.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/five-men-arrested-over-threat-to-pope/story-fn3dxity-1225925613521

JC

17 Sep 10 at 10:50 pm
Jeez we’re back on passive aggressive again. JC, I think Sullivan is a irritating writer at the best of times (weirdly obsessive at his worst.) I didn’t say I approved of his rabidly anti Pope Benedict column, but I was curious to see how florid CL might be in his reaction.

steve from brisbane

17 Sep 10 at 10:58 pm
Steve, I’d say you do agree with Sullivan’s column but you’re doing your usual cowardly routine of passively aggressively pretending to be an agent of debate. You masquerade as a conservative Christian but my link to an atheist demolishing other atheists obviously offended you. Which is strange and seems to prove again that you’re a phony.

With respect to Sullivan, he tends to amplify O’Neill’s thesis about irrationality, wouldn’t you say? Why would anyone take seriously a man who believes Sarah Palin wore a rubber pregnancy suit for months to cover up for her daughter’s pregnancy? Clearly, he’s mentally unwell.

Naturally, you read his blog.

C.L.

17 Sep 10 at 11:35 pm
Yes:

Atheists can dish it out but they can’t take it.

Benedict reminds atheists that atheists were the worst mass murderers in human history.

Their predictable response:

Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Also:

*sob*
*sniff*

C.L.

18 Sep 10 at 12:02 am
“I’d say you do agree with Sullivan’s column but you’re doing your usual cowardly routine of passively aggressively pretending to be an agent of debate. You masquerade as a conservative Christian but my link to an atheist demolishing other atheists obviously offended you. Which is strange and seems to prove again that you’re a phony.”

Actually, I just wanted to see you get upset with Sullivan for his silly, provocative statement. To see you get confused about whether I support I him or not is just an added benefit!

steve from brisbane

18 Sep 10 at 7:38 am
I love Prince Phillip. Even though I greatly admire Her Excellency Quentin Broice, I’d really love the Duke of Edinburgh to be our GG!

Peter Patton

18 Sep 10 at 7:43 am

Catallaxy Files

Open Forum September 11, 2010

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