The sudden resignation of Bob Brown seems rather odd. After all, he was at the apogee of his power, and had only just started to enjoy the spoils of power sharing as co-prime minister with Julia Gillard.
Perhaps, some might argue, he could sense the wind changing and wanted to get out while the going was good.
But that would be unusual for any politician, especially Bob Brown who is notorious for his ego, delusion and self-importance.
No, I suspect that there has been a mini-coup in the Greens, with the extreme left having a putsch against the hard left – the watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) now taking over from the kiwi fruits (green all the way through).
I expect Lee Rhiannon will be the effective leader new deputy leader.
The Greens – moving from kiwi fruits to watermelons to strawberries.
UPDATE: Has Julia Gillard offered an incentive to Bob Brown to retire? Is he about to be appointed as an Ambassador?
Didn’t this already go to Bandt?
Fleeced
13 Apr 12 at 10:33 pm
Isn’t bandit new deputy leader
Jack
13 Apr 12 at 10:34 pm
Whoa ! That was an odd call and very short lived. Getting carried away??
Amfortas
13 Apr 12 at 10:36 pm
Samuel is in a different time zone at the moment and missed the Bandt news. The point about watermelons v kiwi is probably correct.
Sinclair Davidson
13 Apr 12 at 10:38 pm
The fruit they most resemble is durian.
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 10:40 pm
The bandt muppet doesn’t seem bright enough though, maybe Ms Brown is really puling the strings?
entropy
13 Apr 12 at 10:41 pm
Just as James Delingpole’s Watermelons book is coming to town too. A great segue, all this fruity talk.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
13 Apr 12 at 10:43 pm
Wayne Swan is Deputy PM of Australia. This is far more puzzling.
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 10:43 pm
No.
The events of today are about as close as it gets to an orderly succession planning process for these malignant totalitarian scumbags.
Rabz
13 Apr 12 at 10:47 pm
The nature of the Greens’ disintegration in the lead-up to the election will be interesting to watch. Will the anti-business or the anti-semitic voices scream loudest?
It would have been nice to spill him and send him packing at the polls, but having rid of Brown now and giving newer (and less self-disciplined) voices their time on the podium may be the best way to convince the average Australian that what they’re voting for in the Greens is not the nation’s environmental conscience.
Unless of course something happens to trigger a snap election, in which case his electoral destruction will be sweet and richly deserved, and his party will still be trying to determine its priorities & shake itself down for the fight, and thus effectively rudderless (if not actually imploding).
perturbed
13 Apr 12 at 10:53 pm
Not by looks, I presume, but smell?
ar
13 Apr 12 at 11:00 pm
“The Greens are on trajectory to become a future government”, says B Brown
About the same trajectory as the recent Nth Korean rocket launch I believe.
Splatacrobat
13 Apr 12 at 11:01 pm
I thought Arbib’s sudden departure was odd, but brown’s exit is even odder. Why would he vacate the PMs chair at the moment of his greatest triumph. He is only months away from seeing the carbon tax inflict cost rises on the Australian economy just as East coast businesses accelerate sackings and small business failures reach record highs. This scenario is Nirvana for Brown – so why leave ?
Jack
13 Apr 12 at 11:03 pm
No don’t think he was pushed. He has been around for a while. One thing that should be mentioned he did help to get rid of draconian anti gay laws in Tassie so Libertarians should like him for that.
Perturbed
The polls suggest the Greens primary vote is pretty flat.
kelly liddle
13 Apr 12 at 11:04 pm
Could be because of the hard prickly skin.
kelly liddle
13 Apr 12 at 11:07 pm
Because he might be held accountable for the inevitable popular anger?
Out of sight, out of mind.
However – some of us have very, very long memories.
We do not forget, nor forgive.
Rabz
13 Apr 12 at 11:10 pm
Just be thankful he hasn’t died, or they would have laid him in state and made us walk past and weep, with a flogging for those not showing enough emotion.
That’s how they depart dear leaders in socialist joints, you know.
brc
13 Apr 12 at 11:11 pm
And then he proceeded to backdoor the whole Tasmanian economy. A land of plenty now spends its days panhandling.
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 11:12 pm
So is Bob Brown punishing Australia with his carbon tax or is God striking down the Australian people because of their participation in the carbon tax?
Samson Agonistes
13 Apr 12 at 11:20 pm
Fair suck of the sauce bottle. Christine Milne’s personal profile is one for the psych department:
That went well, Christine.
Christine “FIGJAM” Milne
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 11:20 pm
The Australian people never supported a carbon tax.
Why are you punishing us?
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 11:22 pm
The Australian people never supported a GST, Workchoices or the Iraq War and yet they all participated in it.
Samson Agonistes
13 Apr 12 at 11:25 pm
What happened to the privileges committee investigation into bob brown following Graeme wood’s record donation to the greens ?
Jack
13 Apr 12 at 11:27 pm
except for voting for the party that had it as a stated policy before the election.
Idiot.
duncan
13 Apr 12 at 11:32 pm
They voted for the GST in 1998 nd said yes.
They voted on Iraq in 2004 and said yes once again.
They voted on Workchoices in 2007 and said no.
It seems democratic to my untrained eye.
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 11:33 pm
A general election has very little to do with specific issues.
Political parties get a general endorsement at elections and they do whatever they feel is in the best interest of the country even if a measure is not supported.
What I said is therefore entirely accurate.
Samson Agonistes
13 Apr 12 at 11:41 pm
It’s one from four, it might be green but there is nothing clever about bludging off the rest of the country, in fact it is rather dirty. It also has no economy.
Rob
13 Apr 12 at 11:42 pm
Whatever gets you through therapy sweetheart.
Infidel Tiger
13 Apr 12 at 11:47 pm
You seem to be saying that the public doesn’t care if they are lied to by politicians in elections. It seems rather at odds with recent experience. It seems to be the L-A-W law of elections that if you break an explicit promise, that is the core of your platform, the electorate will be waiting for you with baseball bats.
Rob
13 Apr 12 at 11:54 pm
The Australian people never supported a GST
Utter rubbish. Howard went to an election on that issue and was returned.
Workchoices
is what happens when you give a centre-right political party with a loathing for union featherbedding and standover tactics both houses of Parliament. The sooner it is brought back in some form, the better.
or the Iraq War
which was fought over the WMD even Kevin Rudd thought were there
Stop wasting our time, you pathetic little shill.
perturbed
14 Apr 12 at 12:09 am
I thought that was a load of garbage at the time but both parties supported it, we have never said no to the US.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 12:12 am
Perhaps they’ve never said no to us. History suggests we don’t need to be asked twice to a scrap.
Infidel Tiger
14 Apr 12 at 12:16 am
Comment of the day.
ar @ 11.00pm: IT’s joke was perfectly formed and does not need assistance to unpack. Or are you explaining it for the benefit of people like M0nty and LaRouchite?
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 12:18 am
Samuel, I think your gut feeling is right. Your reminder that Brown is a monumental egotist is spot on and that would trump any strategic decision to leave at the zenith of the Green’s power. This is why the closed nature iof the party room is so bloody intriguing. Perhaps ASIO could put some microphones in there and find out what the comrades are whispering about.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 12:21 am
All relevant, objective institutions knew and stated there were no WMD in Iraq and everyone knew at the time that the intelligence was fixed around policy.
Samson Agonistes
14 Apr 12 at 12:31 am
http://www.vexnews.com/2011/11/greens-revolting-lee-rhiannon-busted-in-melbourne-cafe-plot-with-vic-greens/
Perhaps a pre-emptive move by the Taswegians to shore up their positions against Red Rhiannon and her “useful idiot”.
Ivan Denisovich
14 Apr 12 at 12:35 am
Samson. If you want to troll, that’s fine, but FFS, can you try to be credible.
If you are going to do something, do it properly. Your efforts here are just too half arsed.
Johno
14 Apr 12 at 1:09 am
Johno, you just said nothing so say nothing.
Samson Agonistes
14 Apr 12 at 1:14 am
I disagree that Brown was pushed. There have been enough tame journos speculating recently that Brown would retire soon. He’s getting on a bit and his partner apparently has been hasselling him to get out. He has got the legislation though Gillard that he wanted. What else has he got to look forward to?
He may be at the height of his powers, but being at the height means the only way forward is down! Why not Get out now while he is on top. He can happily retire as a legend of the Left and not have to deal with the growing backlash against the damage he has inflicted on this country.
Johno
14 Apr 12 at 1:19 am
The stupid it burns.
Is the OP that started this thread one of those 9/11 Truthers with his conspiracy theories? Of course BB couldn’t have left of his own accord being nearly 70 and all.
Nothing funnier than the extreme-right losing their minds screaming at passers-by CEC style.
LaRouchite
14 Apr 12 at 2:43 am
Thanks for volunteering that DNA sample, Doucheballs. I wasn’t sure of who you were until now. As a Green activist, you thought you could just sidle up here and pretend you were rational. But, if we let you tslk long enough, you’re a dead giveaway: on Planet Zombie, everyone who isn’t a Green voter is the “extreme-right wing”, just as all non-ABC radio announcers are “shock jocks” and anything that isn’t Fairfax is the “hate media”. The “extreme right wing” are the majority of the Australian population who are being made – against their will, through a government they didn’t vote for – to pay for your dismantling of the Australian economy to the accompaniment of The Internationale. The public is seething with you and, in the next two elections (the minimum because your party relies on the six-year terms of the Senate gerrymander for its power), that anger will be expressed in the place you fear the most: the ballot box. By 2016, the Greens will be a whiny little club of political has-beens and Australians will never again allow themselves to be dictated to by a minority government of sociopathic misfits.
Tom
14 Apr 12 at 6:14 am
Mother Milne will need all her maternal wiles to look after Sulky Sarah whilst fending off Looney Lee.
Thou art in heaven will really need to help my country if this lot start to influence that Due-Liar.
amcoz
14 Apr 12 at 6:53 am
To be fair, everything is to the extreme right of our little communist friend, Douche.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 6:53 am
No one has mentioned SHY – spare a thought for her. She must be feeling pretty dreary today.
Sleetmute
14 Apr 12 at 6:55 am
I see that Bob Ellis confirms that Brown has never been wrong on anything in the last 30 years.
He invites evidence that he is wrong.
ken n
14 Apr 12 at 6:57 am
Amen to that, Tom.
Blogstrop
14 Apr 12 at 7:04 am
Oh is bob doing the, name 30, name 20, etc post routine?
What a fat arse clown that man is.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 7:07 am
At the risk of appearing offensively mercenary..is there any material difference between the post parliamentary remuneration package for a resigned senator as distinct from a senator who is not returned after an election ?
Tapdog
14 Apr 12 at 7:59 am
Put me down for pushed before he turned up at a presser wearing only a flannelette pyjama top and crazy hair.
He’s on Ebay now, searching for a pair of Nike Decades.
lotocoti
14 Apr 12 at 8:05 am
You may be right. Advancing stages of syphillis?
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 8:12 am
Abu I thought normal old age dementia but your diagnosis has a more biting ring to it!
Daisy
14 Apr 12 at 8:38 am
Jack:
Option 1: Disease
Option 2: Crime
Option 3: Backstabbing
Option 4: Ego
Option5: [Family pressure]
Can’t think of any others.
It certainly is not a crisis of conscience over the people the bastard has killed with his ‘I feel so good’ policies. He’s getting away scot-free with that.
[Edited to preserve the substance. Mark OTT. Really unnecessary. Sinc]
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 9:00 am
The green pallor, the eyes like piss holes in a snow bank, the failure to make any fucking sense, the dissolute lifestyle of a Tasmanian pouve…
Elementary, my dear Daisy.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 9:00 am
Carbon tax clawback in sight.
Tom
14 Apr 12 at 9:01 am
Bob resigned because he was going to be exposed for gross hypocrisy by the hard-line greens. Apparently, for decades now he has been secretly using electricity for light and warmth, has been flying on planes, driving in cars and eating processed food.
Jack
14 Apr 12 at 9:03 am
Abu, this is gold!
the dissolute lifestyle of a Tasmanian pouve…
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 9:08 am
Obio
14 Apr 12 at 9:12 am
You’re an ugly embarrassment to the right of politics, Mk50. I don’t care how many Bob Brown hating gay friends or acquaintances you have, and how great they might think you are: their bitchy feelings about Brown are ugly too.
I’d walk out of a pub if I knew you were entering it…
steve from brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 9:14 am
Well he is starting to look like Gollum.
Perhaps they should have filmed a pouve lord of the rings down in the incest state?
”Three Rings for the Pouven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Marxist Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Pouve on his dark throne,
In the Land of Franklin where the Shadows lie,
One freckle to rule them all, one freckle to find them,
One freckle to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Welfare where the Shadows lie.”
~epigraph to The Lord of the Pouves
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 9:14 am
I don’t hate gays. I just think they need to know their place, which is no better than anyone else’s. Sick of having their issues rammed down our throats, so to speak. Get over yourselves, Pouves. The balance needs to swing back the other way – feel free to contribute to society but put your freak flag away as some of us are tired of it.
Mainstream society is where it’s at, dilettantes and losers. Time for you to make us sammiches.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 9:19 am
Screw you, Semenologist from Brisbane. You are this blog’s tame pervert, I doubt I’d ever enter any establishment you habituate as I don’t attend places of perversion. No wonder you like the foul old killer, Bob Brown.
Consider the number of people he has killed. Consider his racism. Consider his totalitarianism and his cold callousness.
All of which are held in common with the other Greens.
THEIR ‘oh I wanna feel so good and smug and trendy about how good and smug and trendy I am’ attitudes have led to over a thousand people dying at sea since 2008.
The ecoloony policies of them and their fellow greens dragged somewhere between 150 and 250 million people back from what the UN describes as ‘poverty’ into what the UN describes as ‘absolute poverty’ (read ‘not enough to eat’ or ‘live on less than $US1 per day) – just so these bastards could preen about biofuels.
Turning cheap food into fuel for fat Germans to burn. Great. Did you know that for each tankful of biofuel, 5 human beings go hungry for a year?
Remember the food riots in Central and South America in 2010 because the cheap US corn they depended on for food got turned into petrol, and people were starved in consequence?
Billions wasted on effing desal plants in this country alone due to their AGW scam when 5% of that money would have guaranteed clean potable water for every human being in melanesia AND eradicated malaria in Melanesia as well.
Brown and the rest of those filthy scumbags have blood on their hands – no, they swim in a sea of blood. All of which their compliant media presstitutes conceal.
They are stone-cold ideological killers.
But not to worry, they are only “little brown people”, and what do their lives matter compared to a Greenie feeling smug about his self-proclaimed moral superiority while he sips latte in Paddington or punches his catamite’s freckle in a hut in the economic wasteland Green policies created in Tasmania? How is that lack of concern for the real-world outcomes of their insane ideology not a demonstration of innate anti-humanism and/or racism?
And what about all those Tasmanians losing the dignity of work? ‘So what’, says this piece of sh*t, ‘trees matter more than people’.
Bob Brown and the policies he and his ilk espouse at best cause untold human misery to millions upon millions of human beings who did nothing to deserve it and at worst are directly responsible for a thousand corpses at sea.
Bob Brown’s avuncular facade has a remorseless, soulless ideological stone killer behind it. And that bastard has gotten away with it – literally gotten away with killing people. Policies have consequences. Brown’s policy on border protection has killed people.
And he walks off scot-free, with people convinced he’s some kind of nice eccentric old man. Well, if he is, so was Mengele.
Go watch some reruns of 50+ people being drowned or battered to death against the cliffs of Christmas Island if you don’t believe me.
Bob Brown and the Greens bear half the responsibility for each and every one of those deaths. The ALP bears the rest.
That is why I viscerally despise Brown and the Greens – they are killers who have found a way to slaughter ‘little brown people’ and create untold human suffering, and they get away with it.
And you are happy with this.
Says a lot about you.
[mk50 - off the angry pills. Sinc]
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 9:37 am
We need someone to duck down to Toyworld for a Ouija board so Alene Composta can post a counter to McCrann.
Something on how Brown made Australia better for his children and his children’s children would be nice.
lotocoti
14 Apr 12 at 9:41 am
I agree with Steve from Brisbane, the anti-gay coprolite is so thick it is just unacceptable. The homophobic stuff is too thick and nasty to decent people to tolerate.
We should ask what connection being gay has with leftism and environmentalism. When ‘Queer Theory’ and postmodernism were exciting new ways to look at the world, and yet being gay was criminalised, it is very likely that finding a “Grand Moral Cause That Makes Me Better Than You” had certain attractions.
ChrisPer
14 Apr 12 at 9:54 am
Mk50 has really lost the plot. I understand his feelings but Bob Brown was not a dictator the fact is the policies he so hates are ALP policies and in some cases conservative side policies such as NSW fuel bill.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 10:06 am
AIDS/chronic illness is listed as a possibility for the bastards resignation. 80% of the gay friends I had in 1980 died of it and I attended way too many funerals. it’s a fact of life for homosexuals of his vintage.
having addressed your weak bait-and-switch, I note that you raise not one objection to the fact that this foul animal is getting away unscathed after a career which has caused vast human misery, wasted billions better spent, and resulted in a thousand deaths since 2008.
So you are cool with all of that, then. No worries about that from the Semenologist. What, you give this killer a pass too, why? Because they were only ‘little brown people’?
Nice to know you approve of their deaths: guess they make you feel good, eh?
[Slight edit. Sinc]
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 10:09 am
And kelly, who supported things like the NSW fuel bill?
The ideology it came from and the persons who supported it were all embedded in the Greens camp, yes?
brown has pushed an anti-human, frankly racist, openly totalitarian ideology his entire life. He has never cared one whit for the human suffering, misery and death this ideology has caused.
To him, that was an acceptable price for him to feel good about his ideology.
I believe that human life matters more than that.
SfB does not.
Who is ‘off the rails’, then?
If that ideology did not exist or if it was regarded as being for fringe kooks,only, would things like the NSW fuel bill exist?
No. It was anti-human ideologues like brown who brought this ideology into the mainstrean and then had public policies built on it.
Those public policies are killing people as we sit here and type.
There are perhaps 64 human beings dead, dying or in danger of dying off Sumbawa right now because of Bob Brown’s ideology.
last Sunday a Singapore-registered tanker rescued around 120 Australia-bound asylum seekers – all males and mostly Afghans and some Iranians – from their sinking wooden boat.
In December, a boat carrying about 250 mostly Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers sank in Indonesian waters on its way to Christmas Island, with only 47 people surviving.
Why is Brown not held responsible for any of this?
As I said, I have personally recovered dead from the sea, I have seen (and smelled – you never forget the smell) the sort of outcomes Brown’s ideology has created.
Why is the bastard getting away with it?
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 10:21 am
You couldn’t care less about anyone, mk50.
Samson Agonistes
14 Apr 12 at 10:25 am
Mk50
If you say it is because of Green ideologies (therefore not ideology of the other parties) then that makes the other parties more culpable because they are willing to kill people just for political gain and couldn’t even be bothered standing up against such policies due to laziness. Despite the Greens policies often being misguided they do actually believe they are doing the right thing.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 10:27 am
Well said, Mark.
The evil crank won’t be missed by anyone.
C.L.
14 Apr 12 at 10:27 am
Mk50, you are being called out for your puerile insistence on bringing generic, schoolboy, gay baiting insults into absolutely any reference to Bob Brown.
I have never voted Green.
The boat people issue is complex and I favoured the Malaysian deal, recommended as it was by the same trusted senior public servant who advised the Howard government. Right wing pundits like you preferred to rave about how that would be appalling, even though logic suggests that the deal meant Malayasia would have every reason to see those who arrived were not mistreated like previous asylum seekers.
[Slight edit. Sinc]
steve from brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 10:38 am
Kelly:
Does it? The conservatives stopped the flow of boats and saved about 5000 lives. The death rate is about 4.2% of those who get here. Work it out for yourself.
it makes the ALP and Greens completely culpable, Kelly. They are in government.
They are the ones who developed and implemented the policy.
Please prove this statement – it is false on its face. The Libs and Nats have consistently and actively opposed what the Greens and ALP did.
So did those at the Wannsee Conference in 1943 when the final details of teh Holocaust were worked out.
Do you give them a pass because “they do actually believe[d] they are [were] doing the right thing”?
By your ‘reasoning’ if I ‘do actually believe I am doing the right thing’ in criticising brown, they you have no right or capability to criticise me.
Semenologist from Brisbane: I see you DO agree that the deaths are an acceptable price to pay for feelgood public policies.
Thanks for finally revealing yourself for what you really are.
You get upset if someone speaks scathingly of a racist stone-killer they despise, and chirpily agree that a thousand dead at the stone-killer’s hands are nothing to concern yourself with.
Classy. So your view is that ‘they were merely little brown people,’ eh Steve?
Now we know what you really are: underneath the penis and buttplug obsessed pervert lurks a racist.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 11:01 am
Mk50 of Brisbane – you’ve got my vote mate.
Brown is a grubby stain on Australian politics – personally dissolute, dishonest squared and utterly unscrupulous. A thoroughly immoral fellow.
The media gave him the rails run throughout his career.
The grand irony is that his “stature” held the stupid Greens together.
I’m looking forward to the internecine warfare that will tear them apart, and especially to the destruction of Comrade Sarah Helter-Skelter.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
14 Apr 12 at 11:09 am
Mk50
Bush senior and Clinton supported sanctions against Iraq that caused a lot of death especially amongst children in the 90s. George Bush and John Howard believed they were doing the right thing going into Iraq and it led to more death and destruction than otherwise would have happened, If I thought for a minute they deliberately wanted to cause more harm than good I would hate them for it. Was Iraq war II acceptable as a feel good policy for you Mk50 or do you hold the same contempt for Bush and Howard as you do for Brown?
Bringing Nazis into the arguement is ridiculous they knew what they were doing and it was to be the rulers of the world by killing anyone they didn’t like.
The conservative side does support biofuels in many cases and that was one of your arguements.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 11:19 am
samuel J, when was bob brown was pushed around by anyone?
Jim Rose
14 Apr 12 at 11:46 am
Abu and MK50, speaking freely and with incisive passion; Kelly and SfB putting their counter-arguments without interference; a robust exchange in which both, or all, sides get a fair chance to dispute and convince.
Treasure it and fight for it. Thanks Sinc for the opportunity to be here, and to hear free speech.
[Actually I am editing some of the comments, but trying to maintain the substance. Sinc]
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
14 Apr 12 at 11:56 am
Lizzie
Good point.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 12:12 pm
The “paleosimian” man tries to call me racist for calling him out for schoolboy diatribes about homosexuality taken at every opportunity. Right…
Steve from Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 12:17 pm
Steve, you cannot mention the black Herman Cain without snorting about his alleged sex life.
The promiscuous, insatiable Afrian, hey?
You also snorted and chuckled about Rick Perry’s alleged homosexuality.
Then there is your Abbott slander-by-proxy.
You hypocritical dope.
C.L.
14 Apr 12 at 12:40 pm
…and it led to more death and destruction than otherwise would have happened
How would you know? After all, Saddam is responsible for more Muslim deaths than anyone else in the history of the planet. You think he had a change of heart?
Also, policies that lead to death and destruction are not of themselves a bad thing, as long as the right people are ideologies being destroyed.
jupes
14 Apr 12 at 12:43 pm
Jupes have no idea of what you are talking about. If you are referring to Iran Iraq war then the US was also involved and have they had a change of heart?
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 12:48 pm
Damned good point, Lizzie!
Kelly:
Yes and no. Correlation is not causation. There’s actually no definite proof that I have seen that the italicised portion above is true. We DO know that Saddam’s regime denied food relief and medical relief specifically intended for children to his army, though.
Again, you offer no proof of this. if you actually start to dig into the work the Iraqis themselves have done since the destruction of Saddam’s regime, you will see that they have some evidence that the opposite is true. It turns out that Saddam was murdering a lot more people than previously thought ()go and do some digging on the UNHCR website). It is now quite certain that the invasion saved a lot of lives, around 20,000 per annum or more.
Agreed.
The comment is not valid. An armistice was signed after GW1. Saddam broke it, and that automatically re-started the war. An armistice is NOT a peace treaty. Bush delayed too long, the attack should have gone in much sooner: the 14 month delay while obtaining UN approval enabled Saddam to fill many more mass graves with Kurds.
But that’s YOUR POINT, Kelly.
YOU say that misguided policies are OK if those pushing them “believe they are doing the right thing”. Such records as remain of Wannsee indicate that all attending “believe[d] they
are[were] doing the right thing”Either you give them a pass for that, or your statement is incorrect. Bad public policy which kills people is not excusable because you ‘thought you were doing the right thing’. Because outside of war killing people IS NOT DOING THE RIGHT THING.
The moment they knew that the policy was killing people it was their responsibility to stop it.
They have continued it.
More people have died.
That blood is on the hands of the ideologues who brought in and continue that policy.
No, it was not. The destruction of people’s food to make biofuels is an outcome of Green ideology.
I know of no conservative in this country who supports that.
The development of a sugar industry specifically for biofuel use – as Brazil has done so successfully over the last 40 years – is an entirely different concept. Oh, and Greenpeace OPPOSES that Brazilian sugar-methanol policy as they think it costs rainforest. It actually does not as they mostly use fertilised pasturelands in a carefully calculated import-replacement policy.
In the USA, the Greens pushed use of corn to make fuel. Not sugar, corn.
The Semenologist from Brisbane has no answer at all to this, then: I see you DO agree that the deaths are an acceptable price to pay for feelgood public policies.
Thanks for finally revealing yourself for what you really are.
You get upset if someone speaks scathingly of a racist stone-killer they despise, and chirpily agree that a thousand dead at the stone-killer’s hands are nothing to concern yourself with.
Classy. So your view is that ‘they were merely little brown people,’ eh Steve?
Now we know what you really are: underneath the penis and buttplug obsessed pervert lurks a racist.
You have no concerns with the thousand corpses brown’s policy has generated. What other interpretation is possible except:
1. You don’t care as ideology trumps human life in your view so a thousand dead ‘little brown people’ just don’t matter to you.
2. You don’t care because they are not white.
There is no other explanation for your silence on that matter.
And subsequent squalling about it now will just reveal that you’ve been caught – you had your opportunity to express your horror at the loss of so much human life.
All it would have taken was ‘look, it’s terrible that so many have died but…’ from you. But you did not even say that.
Therefore those thousand dead mean nothing to you. No other interpretation is possible.
And both are profoundly racist views.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 12:50 pm
We DO know that Saddam’s regime
denieddivertedfood relief and medical relief specifically intended for children to his army, though.PIMF
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 12:52 pm
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/a-couple-of-things-behind-change-of-heart/story-fn59niix-1226326277472
Was he pushed? Don’t know for sure. Don’t really care for certain. Glad he’s gone.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 12:52 pm
Oho! Pickering!
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 1:03 pm
Mk50
I can’t offer proof and nor can you because all the numbers are tainted by ideology with any casualty numbers inside Iraq from any cause has estimates that all vary by more than 100%. If records were not destroyed it is likely that some of the true numbers are available because militaries of all persausions tend to keep records. So if you are aware of any numbers that use the Iraqi military as the source I would tend to believe them.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 1:10 pm
in my opinion Pickering’s cartoons are just rude without much political satire to make you laugh.
i don’t know what people see in him, honestly.
candy
14 Apr 12 at 1:24 pm
It’s just a cartoon, Candy. No reason to get all worked up about them. And at this stage he’s still allowed to post them and you don’t have to look.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 1:26 pm
Actually, as mentioned I can certainly offer partial proof in the UHNCR ‘mass grave counts’ and the main uni in Baghdad has done work on the demographic side.
All records were not destroyed.
Most of the ideology comes from GiGo modelling that partisan hacks did during the Bush years. I present the lancet’s risible modelling as proof of that partisan garbage. See here for a factual debunking of The lancet’s ridiculous 655,000 rubbish.
Now go look at Iraq Body Count (here) for a fact-based estimate where you can verify their facts.
Then go find the latest Iraq Family Health Survey data.
if you want a real picture, go find the sources or raw data for yourself. You’ll be astonished how many times you catch the MSM is bald-faced lies.
SO please do not tell me ‘I have no proof of my claims’ – I’ve actually done the work of finding the data, checking the biases and then coming to a view based on the available facts.
And if the facts change, I change my view.
Something lefties NEVER do.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 1:31 pm
Mk50 so where do you get your post Iran Iraq war and pre 2003 death tolls from? I am not arguing about anything since 2003.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 1:44 pm
“It’s just a cartoon, Candy. No reason to get all worked up about them. And at this stage he’s still allowed to post them and you don’t have to look.”
ok, JC, promise i won’t peek.
candy
14 Apr 12 at 1:44 pm
Come on, Candy.
This is pretty funny, no?
C.L.
14 Apr 12 at 1:51 pm
Cripes, Kelly, there’s a multitude of sources. From the 1980s and 90s UNFAO reports, UNHCR reports, UNICEF, the old Iraqi Ministry of Health (which used a specific subset of national death statistics to generate the 105,000 PA that Saddam demanded – you can back-model from that subset), UNDHA reports from the same two decades.
There’s a wealth of data out there. Go start looking at some of it. Much is biased, but biased data is also useful once you fully understand the bias.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 2:01 pm
“Come on, Candy.
This is pretty funny, no?”
yeah, i laughed
candy
14 Apr 12 at 2:07 pm
“[I have deleted this comment in the thread above. It was way OTT. Sinc]”
Nice. The sort of bottom of the barrel, gay-hating vileness that’s made the Cat off-limits as far as my involvement goes. Over to Sinc in terms of what he’s prepared to stomach but, jesus…
Geoff Honnor
14 Apr 12 at 2:11 pm
Mk50
I might go have a look some time but the numbers of excess deaths you suggest does not seem credible because it is such a large number the saved 20 000 per annum means killing of 100 people per day approximately.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 2:19 pm
Bob Brown’s sexuality is probably the least objectionable thing about him!
Quentin George
14 Apr 12 at 2:32 pm
That is why I viscerally despise Brown and the Greens – they are killers who have found a way to slaughter ‘little brown people’ and create untold human suffering, and they get away with it.
FDB
14 Apr 12 at 2:33 pm
Why is there anything wrong with that sentence FDB? Contrary to the five minute memory of the gold fish chattering classes – in the ’90′s before the Greens became “mainstream” and so had to stop saying such outrageous things in public many publicly and unapologetically espoused their belief that it was imminently necessary to forcefully reduce the population of the earth and that humans, particularly in the third world are a plague that needs to be eradicated, controlled, etc. These were the beliefs that many prominent pre-”cool” greenies subscribed to.
Now all of a sudden everyone is supposed to forget that they spent a decade openly advocating those things….because you link to an image?
twostix
14 Apr 12 at 2:50 pm
2stix
That comment relates to biofuel and immigration policy.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 2:59 pm
ORLY? Got a reference for any of that bilge?
In any case, what Kelly said.
FDB
14 Apr 12 at 3:07 pm
CL: oh, very funny. I suppose that you think if Cain was a white associate pastor at his church who liked to sing Gospel at the end of press conferences, then that his sordid history of settled sexual harassment claims and a long standing affair would have been ignored by me?
You moral coward – you’ll go along with any crude homosexual ridicule and name calling by proxy; even praise Mk50 for speaking like that.
You wonder why I call you an embarrassing advertisement for the Church.
Steve from Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 3:47 pm
And that sentence alone shows just how morally bankrupt are you stupid bastards on the Left, Kelly. You should be ashamed of the dismissing of the deaths of so many people in such a callous manner.
How would you like to spend your last hours in the sea trying to keep afloat and watching your family disappear one by one?
You are sick Kelly and SoB. There’s a special place in Hell for scum like yourselves.
Winston Smith
14 Apr 12 at 3:50 pm
Greens who don’t like people
wreckage
14 Apr 12 at 3:53 pm
you know, I thought it was ALP under Mr Rudd and then Ms Gillard who ruined our border protection.
I understand Mr Rudd has thought better of it now, but Ms Gillard is wee bit stubborn still, and does not want to do anything that Mr Howard did successfully, and that Mr Abbott would continue with (which is want Aussies want).
I could have it all wrong but
candy
14 Apr 12 at 3:58 pm
Nice try wreckage, but VHEMT are:
>Not affiliated with the Greens or any political party
>Not from the early 90s
>About VOLUNTARILY choosing not to breed (hence the name)
So not in any way an example of what twostix was babbling about.
FDB
14 Apr 12 at 4:00 pm
Got a response that doesn’t rely on some internet image macro?
Oh come on
14 Apr 12 at 4:08 pm
There has been a very robust debate in this thread. Some of the descriptions have been OTT. I have undertaken slight edits to maintain the substance of the debate without the gratuitous abuse.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Apr 12 at 4:10 pm
For lords sake, what has Mad dog’s sexual orientation have to do with the fact that he ran the most destructive misanthropic political party we’ve ever seen?
JC
14 Apr 12 at 4:21 pm
Not really, it was a quick Google. Not much into the current argument, just demonstrating that in-principle, Green does not have to mean Likes People.
wreckage
14 Apr 12 at 4:21 pm
BTW, Kelly and FDB, I think twostix was getting at this kind of thing when he spoke of an “unapologetic belief that it was imminently necessary to forcefully reduce the population of the earth”:
I don’t think it’s uncontroversial to say that many conservationists believe something similar to the above.
Oh come on
14 Apr 12 at 4:24 pm
That should be controversial, not uncontroversial. PIMF.
Oh come on
14 Apr 12 at 4:24 pm
54 per day, approx.
And that’s why the 2006 lancet estimate of 655,000 people was so ridiculous. It posited hundreds killed daily by the Allies and no-one noticing, when the place was crawling with anti-US media.
And FDB, what about Lovelock’s Gaia drivel over the past few decades, Ehrlich’s twaddle on malthusian dystopianist futures in the Population Bomb from the 70s, Carsons crap in Silent Spring and all that garbage? You are being very selective in your memory!
I see the Brisbane Semenologist is reduced to shrieking ‘they are being meanies!’. He still has no answer to this:
I see you DO agree that the deaths are an acceptable price to pay for feelgood public policies.
Thanks for finally revealing yourself for what you really are.
You get upset if someone speaks scathingly of a racist stone-killer they despise, and chirpily agree that a thousand dead at the stone-killer’s hands are nothing to concern yourself with.
Classy. So your view is that ‘they were merely little brown people,’ eh Steve?
Now we know what you really are: underneath the penis and buttplug obsessed pervert lurks a racist.
How interesting to note that lefties really, really do not like their own tactics being used against them, isn’t it?
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 4:36 pm
Well deserved edits if ever there were ones, but mk50 has got away with a really unacceptable level of the crudest, and gratuitous, gay insults for so long this has probably caught him by surprise.
Steve from Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 4:38 pm
Far out, Steve. You’re like an old gay nanny.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 4:41 pm
[Edited to preserve the substance. Mark OTT. Really unnecessary. Sinc]
My formal apologies, Sinc.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 4:42 pm
The homophobe Mk 50 second guesses Lancet. I’ll take Lancet.
Samson Agonistes
14 Apr 12 at 4:44 pm
But of course you’d prefer biased lies and false computer models to reality, SA.
You are a leftard, after all. It’s what you tossers do.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 4:52 pm
Winston
I could come up with much bigger death tolls than that. I even kept my tongue tied to a large extent when some people talked about Saddam Hussein killing people as the most deaths occured when he was our ally. Just remember that whatever you say is bad about Saddam Hussein he got much of his power from us and the chemical weapons were supplied by the west. Is a middle class person on a boat more important than an Iraqi or Iranian in the 80s? If you think I have a cold hearted reaction to death then that suggests I am not in denial because hundreds of thousands die each year from preventative causes. If I was to start blaming everyone, on the left and right I would go crazy. I will re assert my claim that the ALP is much worse than the Greens going by Mk50s opinion because they kill people to win votes.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 4:53 pm
No sneering Stepford. This is a sneer free site. Sames applies to you Bobster.
Yea Kelly, you imbecile. The Taliban also 100% believe putting a bullet in a woman’s head for refusing to wear a veil or having an affair while unmarried is the right thing, you nimrod.
This is the bullshit we’ve been hearing from lefties since the destructive coot has been in Parliament. “At least he’s consistent”.
So he get’s top billing because the lunatic has been pushing economically regressive policies for 20 odd years.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:00 pm
Hello everyone. Lovely morning in London. What did I miss?
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:02 pm
JC
If you want to call me a leftie could you please not use far right religious extremists as an example.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:03 pm
Abu, what the fuck are you doing there?
You missed nothing other than Stepford and Bobster doing leftie sneers. God they’re insufferable.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:05 pm
Anyway, good riddance to disease-addled Bob Brown, with the green pallor of the king’s favourite poisoner. Good riddance to his wild eyed zealots belefe that he can destroy our economy and at the same time i prive our lives. Good riddanceto his overwheening totalitarianism. Good riddance to his insane egotism, and articles about the little cottage he wrote his manifesto in and the greens wan to turn into a heritage site. Good fucking riddance.
Don’t let the door hit you where Gaia split you, you mad, stupid bastard.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:07 pm
I didn’t call you a leftie, Kelly. I called you an imbecile and a nimrod.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:07 pm
Just enjoying the weather while a gentleman resupplies, JC.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:08 pm
Well thats ok then lol.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:08 pm
hey steve you want to go down to the pub somewhere?
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:09 pm
All that may be fine, Abu, however I actually think Tubbie Milne makes the Dog look positively libertarian. It’s not necessarily a good thing when we have the Liars party caught in the grip of this lunatic cult and having Tubbsie as the slime’s leader.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:10 pm
Resupplies?
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:11 pm
JC well the Fin Review has as a second headline on the front page “Greens veer to left under Milne”
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:12 pm
If he was a Democrat, yes. If he was a Labor MP being investigated by Fair Work Australia or a prime minister with a colourful lack of commitment to the sanctity of other people’s marriages, absolutely.
You’re a hypocritical creep.
No, I don’t wonder at all. I’m a believing Catholic and you’re a pro-abortion fanatic who hates the Catholic Church and who spends an inordinate amount of this blog’s time rubbishing it.
And no, I don’t say anything here by “proxy.” I say what I want to say myself. You, on the other hand, slandered Tony Abbott’s sex life by proxy, just as you slimed Rick Perry’s in the same manner. You even boasted to Dover that if anyone criticised ‘climate change’ they were “fair game” for sexual character assassination.
What a grub.
C.L.
14 Apr 12 at 5:13 pm
Yes, JC. Saville Row, Jermyn street. Resupplies.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:16 pm
Yea, I read that Kelly. Only Laura Tingles could think this group of far left trogs could swing further to the left.
I also noticed her nursing home living partner was absolutely fawning over the Dog.
I can’t believe that we have people in the country fawning over this piece of shit (the Dog) after what he’s tried to do to free speech. It’s jaw dropping.
As for the homophobic comments etc. I’m personally offended by them, but let me ask Stepford and Bob if they consider that to be worse than attempting to destroy free speech in this country as the Dog has tried to do?
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:18 pm
You know he’s probably going to head overseas and set up that One World Government he was raving about and all the Greenies at the last conference gig signed up to. I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of this old queen.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 5:21 pm
Lol… I had a several suits made by Norten and Townsend. They made the best double breasted suit in the business and their trousers are a perfect fit. Try them Abu and you won’t be disappointed.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:23 pm
Was it a sarcastic article? Maybe a form of lampoon? Oh, wait, it’s Fairfax and Laura Tingle. FMD
Gab, I fully expect him to have a regular column in The Age.
entropy
14 Apr 12 at 5:26 pm
Interesting that the Oz editorialist gave Brown a nice polite sendoff having once wished electoral destruction on his party and earning the Hate Media tag.
Viva
14 Apr 12 at 5:31 pm
No homophobia on my part, JC. I believe balance must be restored: we need to be able to take the piss out of everyone. The industry of hurt feelings is what is deballing western civilisation.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:31 pm
Entropy
I think Tingles is right though. Tubbie is to the left of the Dog. That’s what’s so amusing.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:32 pm
Kelly – the Taliban and other wahabists/Salafists simply do not fit into the western left-centre-right frame in any way whatsoever.
You just can’t look at them through a western frame of reference and make the slightest sense of what you see. You have to go back to a pre-Enlightenment frame of reference.
This is how it was explained to me a decade or so ago by the very nice Mullah who ran the local Masjid: a man who despised the Taliban, JI and DI, and the Wahabists etc
He said that the Taliban and other Wahabists/Salafists believe the following:
- the Koran was physically written by God
- only one version ever existed
- it cannot be interpreted by human beings, it has to be obeyed literally in all respects
- failure to follow it literally in all respects is punishable by death
- humans have no free will whatsoever
- there is no such thing as freedom
- God is capricious and from instant to instant directs everything: if he want the sun to rise in the north tomorrow, it will
- God is stern and cruel, he enjoys human suffering where the human is not following the Koran literally
- all muslims are at war against the non-believers and apostates until they are all forcibly converted, enslaved or killed
There was lots more but you get the drift. Bambang did not like the extremists one iota, and disagreed with every point above. However, he agreed that one obtained Paradise not by belief and ‘goodness’ but by process.
But I have never had the slightest reason to doubt that his assessment was correct.
Therefore you will see that trying understand the taliban within a western conceptual framework is like trying to describe a rainbow to someone blind from birth.
You can understand them only within the binary and very fundamental literalist religious koranic world of believer as the slave of God/unbeliever as one to be killed/enslaved/forcibly converted by the believer.
very, very few muslims accept this worldview in South East Asia, I might add.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 5:34 pm
Yes, but the Dog never really brought up his orientation in the public. It’s his policies and ideas, if they can be called that what ought to be criticized.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:35 pm
Well it all started from a facetious reference to his dissolute lifestyle possibly explaining his exit. The important thing is if people take things too far then other people can call them out for being retards. It should all happen in public.
But people who want to stop the discussion because it offends and is inappropriate… Those people are evil little totalitarian insects.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 5:40 pm
Madeye Milne – her CV reads like something from the script of One Flew Over the Cuckoos’s nest. Serious loon territory.
She’s obviously on a leash during full moon so the baying does not wake the neighbours, Snake-eyes Sarah appears to loathe her, and Lee of the KGB is probably sharpening her icepicks as she reads her collected works of lenin for the 147th time.
So it’s the barking mad ecoloons vs the NSW Communist Party takeover.
Who makes the first move? I reckon it’ll be Lee of the KGB, sliding an icepick into Snakeye Sarahs eye socket. Taking out the weakest first has been her usual style.
Going to need a second popcorn machine for this show. Gonna be like the Hunger Games only with retards.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 5:43 pm
Abu
It is the context and the way in which it might be done. We have degenerated into a society that can be much more offensive than even 10 years ago. For example driving a cab some people call me c*nt and think that is normal because at their workplace they call each other that and at the same time the news doesn’t report normally any more and can’t refer to race or suspected motives. I don’t know if it was reported nationally about someone getting shot in Eight Mile Plains but the news said someone got shot. Without too much editorial was outside Chinese restaurant (they did show this eventually) and suspected drug related activities, victim was Asian according to my basic knowledge ( I don’t know this but more than 90% sure this is the story).
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:44 pm
Abu
But why is it necessary to offend people though when there is absolutely no reason to do so?
Brown never brought up his private life from what I recall except once when the fawning Fairfax did a soft story on his private life in the same way other pols are.
There is absolutely no reason to go after him on this stuff.
It also removes the legitimacy of going after the prick because of his illiberal and economically toxic idea.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:47 pm
Nope. Don’t really agree.
His being a homosexual was used as a shield to deflect questions and criticism routinely during his career.
I recall asking the journos at my table at the Press Club during one of his space-cadet presentations there why he was getting only softball questions and why the assembled presstitutes were treating him like a little tin god. The answer was that asking him hard questions brought instant accusations of homophobia from his staff and demands for apologies for asking difficult questions.
Look at his meltdown when actually asked a difficult question.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 5:49 pm
Bullshit.
Kelly, they may be calling you these names because it’s you.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:49 pm
Yes no arguement there. Should be noted that the Creationists are not enlightened in that respect but does not compare to the Taliban.
I know that too. I will tell you a little story about some buddhist Thai soldier. I saw a photo of him in hospital he has had one lower leg blown off. He was celebrating Christmas next to some muslim people (obviously not in the religious sense). He actually wants to go back to south Thailand to help the people there and says most muslims are good.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:51 pm
Unless you think I have become an annoying person but I was not before this is a change of attitude by society.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 5:53 pm
Wow, this Mk50 is a ripe one isn’t he?
JC, tell me this piece of trash is actually a sock puppet of yours?
LaRouchite
14 Apr 12 at 5:53 pm
Perhaps they should have ignored it and asked the hard questions anyways. The fact they were just softcocks is no excuse for their softcokery.
Yea look at it.
Where were the accusations of homophobia after his public meltdown.
I’ve not heard one single public accusation of bullshit homophobia over criticisms of the lunatic.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:54 pm
Doucheballs:
Go fuck yourself.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 5:56 pm
Yes. It’s all “society’s fault; it’s them not you.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 5:59 pm
This La Rochite is a stupid twunt isn’t he?
JC, tell me this fool is actually an alter-ego you use to demonstrate the complete, vacuous arseholery of the left?
Rococo Liberal
14 Apr 12 at 5:59 pm
My husband was talking to a bloke last night who thought that Bob Brown had a strong personal following down here and his exit could mean around 3% less support for the Greens in Tassie.
Maybe it’s all those hippies who moved down here from the north island after their big Franklin River party.
(Over 85% of Tasmanians voted for parties that supported the forest industry down here. The Greens are killing it. What’s so wicked about harvesting trees?)
Ellen of Tasmania
14 Apr 12 at 6:02 pm
Gab shouldn’t use that one. So it is your fault that we have an ALP/Green government that is sending us broke?
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 6:02 pm
Damn, I’ve been caught out.
Doucheballs is my leftwing alter ego at its most stupid.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 6:04 pm
No, Kelly, you master of twisted logic. It’s Gillard’s fault, Swan’s et al. Their actions, they are responsible.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 6:05 pm
Nothing. In fact it’s the most positive thing to cut down emissions.
The world has far more tress than we would have simply because we grow to harvest them. Less use of wood products would be far less trees being grown in the world.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 6:07 pm
Well Gab being called certain words is the change of society. And Gillard, Swan et al is the voters or society.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 6:08 pm
JC:
Dunno. Might be interesting to ask the Canberra Press gallery presstitutes about that, though.
He DID call for the questioner to be sacked, IIRC.
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 6:09 pm
JC:
Dude, at least that will keep you fit. You must be out in the back yard every day chasing your alter-ego with a stick and tying to beat it to death!
Mk50 of Brisbane
14 Apr 12 at 6:11 pm
the greens do not have effective leaders. It is a contradiction in terms. would be like hearding cats
the greens run on consensus basis for decisions because no member is willing to yield to a straight majority vote. that is why they are in the greens, rather the ALP.
Jim Rose
14 Apr 12 at 6:15 pm
Insults have been happening since Adam was a boy. It is not a new phenomena.
Stupid lefty voters believed Gillard becuase she duped them. No one on this planet, no earthian, could possibly have foreseen the heights of stupidity this government – and especially Gillard – could achieve. And the polls now reflect a swing away from them. Their actions and now they’re suffering the consequences.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 6:15 pm
MK
If you don’t know then there is really no reason to make that accusation.
So? We know he’s basically an illiberal, totalitarian tending prick. I can’t quite see what his sexual orientation has to with it though.
Adam Ant is an illberal commie, married with kids. The Melbourne based douchbag senator.. Di Natale.. is also married I believe. So what?
It’s far more effective to destroy these pricks by simply arguing the holes and dishonesty in their policies.
Look at it from this perspective… there is no reason to dislike the Dog because he’s gay. However there’s every reason to dislike the prick because he’s an illiberal economically irrational asshat, which is easier to argue.
JC
14 Apr 12 at 6:16 pm
That might be true. Maybe c*nt means the same as cabbage used to mean. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
kelly liddle
14 Apr 12 at 6:24 pm
I never said you had to like it, Kelly.
Gab
14 Apr 12 at 6:26 pm
Has anyone crunched the numbers to work out what the implications for the Senate vote at the next election. This is the only really important outcome of Brown’s resignation.
I’ve seen one report that suggests Xenaphon and the Victorian DLP bloke could end up with the balance of power. This would allow Abbott to start de-greening Australia (if he is so inclined), but the trade-offs to get these boys on side are likely to be smelly.
Something to keep your eye on. I understand that Pauline Hanson has moved to Tassie with the intention of running for the Senate. I know she ran in NSW recently and didn’t do all that well, but Tassie has the lowest quota for a Senate seat and Katter’s success in Qld suggests she could appeal.
Johno
14 Apr 12 at 7:11 pm
Well that and other lionizing media coverage is what I am familiar with. Dearie me, how romantic. More evidence the old lunatic has had a free ride from the press. All his hetero opponents and colleagues get shit about their sexuality all the time. Bob Ellis ran a thread that allowed his rabid acolytes to scream Abbott was a closet homosexual.
Harden up, Nancy boys.
Abu Chowdah
14 Apr 12 at 7:18 pm
johno, good question. brown has a personal vote in tassie of a few per cent.
on sky news, they said the greens need to get three senators back to keep the balance of power.
actually, because the greens are to the left of labor, the labor party would haver the balance of power in 2014.
Jim Rose
14 Apr 12 at 7:20 pm
all states have the same quota: 1/7th of the total votes plus one vote.
one nation never got anywhere in Tassie so I think hanson’s move will go nowhere. she always faces the problem of being last on everyone major party’s preferences.
Jim Rose
14 Apr 12 at 7:26 pm
Bobster, is that true?
Get out from under samsonite disguises and explain yourself.
Abu, the bobster is hardly the person we should be using as standard measure.
Jc
14 Apr 12 at 8:32 pm
What I meant was that Tassie requires the lowest number of votes to reach a quota. 1/7th of the total votes plus one is a smaller number of votes for the half dozen voters in Tassie compared with vast unwashed masses in the mainland States.
Johno
15 Apr 12 at 12:48 am
I have no idea how well she will poll in Tassie if she chooses to run.
It will be interesting to see if the Coalition preferences her last or not this time. You would think that she would run on an ‘anti-green’ platform, as will the Coalition. If this happens, the Coalition would have to preference her ahead of the Greens.
In the 2010 Victorian election the Coalition preferences Labor ahead of the Greens to make a strong statement of their position and many commentators argued that this helped them win the election. (Since gaining power they have wimped out on de-greening Victoria, but that’s a different story.)
Johno
15 Apr 12 at 1:01 am
JC – even if one were a homosexual, it is not clear that one would be in favour of gay marriage.
Samuel J
15 Apr 12 at 4:09 am