Open Forum: March 23, 2013 at Catallaxy Files

Open Forum: March 23, 2013

1,086 comments

Written by Sinclair Davidson

March 23rd, 2013 at 12:01 am

Posted in Open Forum

1,086 Responses to 'Open Forum: March 23, 2013'

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1 week

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
SIX MORE MONTHS

m0nty

23 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
First!

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
Fourth then.

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
SIX MORE MONTHS

Then about 6 more terms of Abbott.

Infidel Tiger

23 Mar 13 at 12:06 am
175 days 59 hours and 10 seconds.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 12:07 am
Then about 6 more terms of Abbott.

He’ll need that long merely to repair the damage, let alone to do Australia any good.

First thing – close the borders, and everyone who came in undocumented from the moment Rudd became PM is given two options – either work on the Bradfield or similar major engineering scheme for three years, and earn your ticket in, or fuck off home. Anyone who’s committed any sort of crime in that time can just fuck off home.

perturbed

23 Mar 13 at 12:10 am
I hope Abbott doesn’t turn out to be a big spending, gun grabbing, compassionate conservative.

I’m not holding my breath.

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 12:12 am
4 months really, the last 6 weeks or so just full on campaigning and speculation.
So 4 months for ALP to pick themselves up.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 12:13 am
I hope Abbott doesn’t turn out to be a big spending, gun grabbing, compassionate conservative.

That’s best case scenario.

Infidel Tiger

23 Mar 13 at 12:14 am
I certainly wouldn’t recommend holding your breath. Just enjoy the downfall of the current government before you have to see the true nature of Tone.

John Mc

23 Mar 13 at 12:19 am
Abbott may be bad
Turnball back would be a horror.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:19 am
XIIIth

Cold-Hands

23 Mar 13 at 12:22 am
If only Abbott could be revealed as a serial murderer, rapist and wifebeater. The fact that he is thereafter still overwhelmingly elected against her despite being an horrific monster would communicate to Gillard just how actinic is the Public’s hatred of her and how strong the desire to smash and smash and smash at her and at anything she holds dear.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:24 am
So let me hear you say that I’m a criminal of war
Come on little punk that’s what you came here for

Happy Passover

geoffff

23 Mar 13 at 12:25 am
Surely the latins did not put th after their numbers?

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:25 am
Pleeeeeeeeeeease let it be so. I might order an extra case for election night.

Labor may lose all Queensland seats.

H B Bear

23 Mar 13 at 12:27 am
This will be the defining battle of the 21st Century

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks socks it to them.

geoffff

23 Mar 13 at 12:28 am
Whalehunt..Latins with lisps

Steve of Glasshouse

23 Mar 13 at 12:30 am
I might be going out on a limb here but have the feeling that when Labor lose in September one of the first acts of soul searching after three days of sackcloth and ashes will be the expulsion of Kevin Rudd from the Labor party.

By expelling Rudd they will be able to maintain the delusion that the only reason they lost was because of the destabilising damage he caused during the three previous years.

It won’t be because Abbott was better
It won’t be because they botched every policy implementation
It won’t be because they sent the country broke

It will be all Kevin Rudd’s fault and for his gross disloyalty he will be excommunicated.

Splatacrobat

23 Mar 13 at 12:31 am
An Abbott government will be an order of magnitude better than the current shambles, but pretty disappointing all the same.

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 12:34 am
Rabbi, Just nuke the neighbours and enjoy the quiet that follows the bang.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:34 am
Abbott’s hateful comments about “birth mothers” calculated to hurt people affected by the forced, evil adoptions of that period up to the mid-70′s when women who gave birth without having been married were treated as sub-human, disqualifies him from ever being PM of this country. He must resign immediately and hand over to a civilised human being, such as Malcolm Turnbull, or better still, Kevin Rudd. The Liberal Party must divorce itself from the far Right and become more a party of the Centre.

hammy

23 Mar 13 at 12:37 am
The journos who visit Chernobyl see a quiet strongly growing ecosystem. A beautiful place in some ways. Iran would be so much nicer if someone suddenly improved it by a sharp distribution of their radionuclides stores across parts of their land.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:39 am
“Whalehunt..Latins with lisps”"

Bigus Dickus had such a lipth and he was Roman, so he said “XIIIth” with a “th”.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

23 Mar 13 at 12:41 am
Give them what they want and they’ll stop killing you, says probable Muslim Barack Hussein Obama to the Jews:

Viable Palestine means a secure Israel, says Barack Obama.

The ‘Palestinian’ officials this mindless oaf met with are doctrinally committed to exterminating Israel either way.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 12:41 am
Sweet memories of Life of Brian come flooding back. Thanks Mick

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:44 am
I’m really sick of the phrase “falling on their swords” being used to describe the resignations of Fergusan, Carr and Bowen (amongst others). They are not committing ritual suicide in defeat; they are distancing themselves from a woman who is a disgrace with the clear intention of harming her mortally as they withdraw. These resignations are not capitulations. They are acts of war by other means. Abbott is therefore exactly right. The civil war continues. And it will go on.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 12:45 am
“Give them what they want and they’ll stop killing you, says ~~probable~~ Muslim Barack Hussein Obama to the Jews:”

They equal opportunitied The Magic Negro straight past the history, politics and critical thinking classes at high school.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

23 Mar 13 at 12:46 am
Abbott’s hateful comments about “birth mothers” calculated to hurt people affected by the forced, evil adoptions of that period up to the mid-70′s when women who gave birth without having been married were treated as sub-human, disqualifies him from ever being PM of this country. He must resign immediately and hand over to a civilised human being, such as Malcolm Turnbull, or better still, Kevin Rudd. The Liberal Party must divorce itself from the far Right and become more a party of the Centre.

hammygar

23 Mar 13 at 12:47 am
Paul Kelly loses the plot again (as usual):

There is one certainty from these events. Gillard will be unmoved. With nerves of steel she will restructure her ministry and proceed with aggression to the business of government. She has outfoxed and outmuscled the Rudd push. She has mocked the many media predictions she was finished. “It’s over” she declared of the leadership debate yesterday. She’s right.

Gillard didn’t ‘win’ anything. And no, it’s not over. If anyone seriously believes Labor will walk into an election 12 points behind if there is anyone – anyone – polling better, they are deluding themselves.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 12:49 am
Obama’s a probable black American. I thought his mum was a white american and his dad was an african? In which case the black part is not the american part. The guy’s mum has suffered no racism in america. His dad suffered none in Kenya or whatever. And the Gillard quality liar that he is, paints hisself as an emblem for all the black folks in the US whose antecedents were slaves. What a vile lowlife piece of scum, stealing a whole ethnic group’s sense of past sufferings now mostlyovercome.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 12:50 am
There is one certainty from these events. Gillard will be unmoved. With nerves of steel she will restructure her ministry and proceed with aggression to the business of government. She has outfoxed and outmuscled the Rudd push. She has mocked the many media predictions she was finished. “It’s over” she declared of the leadership debate yesterday. She’s right.

Paul Kelly is at his best in histrionic mode. As JC said, he’s a like a mediocre trader who misses nearly all the upswing.

Fisky

23 Mar 13 at 12:56 am
Reading Miranda Devine on the failed coup, I noticed her previous column giving her account of a panel discussion (Sarah Murdoch, Miranda Devine & Academic Kate Gleeson, chaired by Sandra Lee) held by Madison Magazine interrogating Tony Abbott. Tony’s foray into the world of the Wimmyn’s mags must have gone well, as there doesn’t seem to have been the usual howls of outrage; he seems to have handled the discussion with aplomb, even the inevitable silly fluffy questions. It helped that the panel wasn’t stacked with shrill feminist scolds (just one of the three).

Cold-Hands

23 Mar 13 at 12:56 am
He must resign immediately and hand over to a civilised human being, such as Malcolm Turnbull, or better still, Kevin Rudd.

I agree with Hammy. KRudd should give up pretending he has any affinity with traditional Labor values and acknowledge he is a right-wing populist.

John Mc

23 Mar 13 at 12:59 am
Media Watch Dog this week

Low-life Mike Carlton shows he’s a twit yet again.

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 1:02 am
These two pictures tell you all you need to know about Barack Hussein Soetoro.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 1:04 am
Greetings all,

The popcorn is good in Sydney.

Munching away.

Rabz

23 Mar 13 at 1:07 am
I Heard Rodney Cavelier talk on the ABC today and he said in Qld there is now more polling booths than actual ALP members. He said can you imagine how hard it will be for Labor to drum up volunteers when the campaign officially starts when they know they are in for a drubbing?
They have no money to campaign. The unions have no big “anti Liberal workchoices” bogeyman to sell. And if your an young leftie uni student are you seriously going to give up hangover recovery time standing outside railway stations at 6.00 am in the morning handing out moving forward propaganda?.

Splatacrobat

23 Mar 13 at 1:10 am
Give them what they want and they’ll stop killing you, says probable Muslim Barack Hussein Obama to the Jew

Anyone merely relying on the TV news might think King Barack-the-Good is doing brilliant Middle-East diplomacy under difficult circumstances where everything is “hard”, “hard” and did I say he said “hard” lotsa times?

In 2008 he ‘commended’ Secretary Rice and W for making efforts to return the protagonists back to negotiating but in the same breath said they had failed because it should have been done 6 years earlier when Bush still had some political capital and that’s what he – King Barack – would have done.

His arrogance knows no bounds.

Of course you hear no replay of his cynical criticisms of Rice and ‘W’ then after his utterly contemptuous disdainful mismanagement and even ignoring of the Middle-East during his first term – particularly after his offensively stupid
Cairo speech suggested otherwise.

This man would be (and certainly should be) international laughing stock were it not for the medja.

Israel has given the Palestinians everything within reason and their leadership has repetitively spat back in their faces for over 4 decades.

The surrounding peoples hate them for who they are not for what they do.

It’s simple to understand but way too difficult to accept for leftist anti-semites.

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 1:21 am
They’re utterly fucked. Any chance they had of making any sort of sane decision between now and the election is bleeding away as the more experienced and sensible Ministers either resign or are removed to the backbench. The more that goes wrong for them, the more the potential for further disaster increases – an exponential curve of rising fail, soaring towards infinity.

Their ONLY hope is to call a quick Lower House election, take the hit, bleed away the fury, and pray they can reorganise and rescue something at the separate half-Senate election which follows, when the waiting-with-cricket-bats mentality has abated. But this presupposes that there will be any adults left – than men such as Crean and Ferguson won’t be annihilated along with the dross.

perturbed

23 Mar 13 at 1:30 am
If the mendicant Business Council of Australia and the useless fellow travelers in the Ai G actually stood up and told Swan, Treasury and the ATO to fuck off, a la Mike Carlton, and they are not paying taxes monthly then we might know who is up whom!

NoFixedAddress

23 Mar 13 at 1:58 am
Labor will still have a problem after the election too – block the repeal of the carbon tax in the Senate in the face of an overwhelming mandate (assuming the Coalition can’t secure an upper house majority) and face a secondary wipe-out with the Greens at a double dissolution or vote with the Libs to undo their two terms of government.

H B Bear

23 Mar 13 at 2:05 am
Pope Francis continues to disappoint with his boilerplate about ‘the poor’ and the rather annoying symbols of his own magnificent humility. Silver ring, not gold; plain chair, not ornate; no platform; (luxury) car rather than limousine etc.

None of this does anything for the poor.

Now he wants us to reach out to Islam.

No.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:20 am
Middle East diplomacy should work like this:

“Anyone who shoots at Israel gets the fuck bombed out of them. Use WMDs on Israel and we will nuke the capital city of the nation they were launched from and then we will turn the Arab part of the Middle East into a napalm-blasted charnel house and turn it over to the Israelis to do with what they will.”

perturbed

23 Mar 13 at 3:05 am
I hope Abbott doesn’t turn out to be a big spending, gun grabbing, compassionate conservative.

If Abbott gets in with a DLP balance of power in the senate, he will be quite deferential to them. More A DLP government, than a Liberal one.

2dogs

23 Mar 13 at 4:38 am
Albanese has been ‘asked to consider his position’.

He is such a gutless wonder that Gillard will have to fire him.

mike

Mike of Marion

23 Mar 13 at 6:46 am
I Heard Rodney Cavelier talk …

Every weekend, Bill Glasson’s crew are out and about in Griffith doing their thing. It’s good to see the LNP finally giving a red hot go at filleting Kevni.

lotocoti

23 Mar 13 at 7:22 am
Why wait, Perturbed.
A surprise is nice.
Remember the most famous saying ever “wot wozzat?” (Mayor of Hiroshima).

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 7:29 am
We saw elderly Japanese woman interviewed on a documentary.. She had been a schoolgirl drafted to drive trams in the evening. If you got it wrong the connection to the overhead power would come off with a flash and the tram would stop.
She said she saw a large flash and then things stopped. She thought it was something she did wrong driving the tram!

Talk about misplaced guilt. It’s up there with people who believe the indigenous were stolen.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 7:35 am
So, what’s with TLS fronting up on the Kyle and ‘O show.?
Did she require a top up of misogynist outrage?

Steve of Glasshouse

23 Mar 13 at 7:35 am
It was a job application interview perhaps.
How’d she go? Did she flirt?
Is kyle married? If not he’s safe.

WhaleHunt Fun

23 Mar 13 at 7:38 am
First thing – close the borders, and everyone who came in undocumented from the moment Rudd became PM is given two options – either work on the Bradfield or similar major engineering scheme for three years, and earn your ticket in, or fuck off home. Anyone who’s committed any sort of crime in that time can just fuck off home.

+1 from me – and from ‘The Aborted Coup’ thread, I would send all middle and senior APS management and other APS Labor hanger-on to Antartica to head-count every penguin on that continent.

p.s. Bill Leak’s cartoon in The Australian is a classic.

A Lurker

23 Mar 13 at 7:45 am
Labor could lose all its’ Qld seats. Oh how I wish.
That would see the end of that narcissistic nancy boy Rudd, the economic imbecile Swan and the bonehead Emerson, who can see out of his own arse, via Gillard’s contact lenses.

Popular Front

23 Mar 13 at 8:00 am
Abbott is terrified of the MSM, he interviews like he wishes he wasn’t there.
His term will be about equivocation so as to minimally upset the Age. He’s all Pell no Hayek.
Modern LibLabs are no secret….Bailleu, O’Farrell are Tony’s future.

Alfonso

23 Mar 13 at 8:18 am
The ABC will be the last Labor support media standing. This morning I heard one asking the tough questions like ” did the ministers who resigned do the right thing?”
Then there were no follow-up questions when the interviewee said the government would be back on the job Monday delivering policies to benefit the Australian people.

Blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 8:19 am
I think that Julia Gillard is a pissy little bitch.
That’s not misogeny talking, I think that Kevin Rudd is a pissy little bitch too. In fact, a majority of the Labor Party are pissy little bitches.

Steve

23 Mar 13 at 8:26 am
Surely the lithp ith only a problem with XVIth and XVIIth but not with XIIIth?
Who can thay for thure?
We thould check thith with Ita Buttrothe.

Leigh Lowe

23 Mar 13 at 8:37 am
I Heard Rodney Cavelier talk on the ABC today and he said in Qld there is now more polling booths than actual ALP members. He said can you imagine how hard it will be for Labor to drum up volunteers when the campaign officially starts when they know they are in for a drubbing?

I had a quick chat with a Labor booth worker at the NSW state election. Turns out they weren’t doing it for love – they were being paid to stand there and hand out how to vote cards. None of the other parties had that problem.

I’m in Reid. The Lib candidate has a swarm of young volunteers swamping shopping centres every weekend. You have to fight your way past the buggers. It’s blue T-shirts everywhere. I’ve only seen John Murphy’s Labor supporters out once, and even then, the campaigners were outnumbered by signs on A-frames. The difference in the level of enthusiasm and support between the two groups is enormous.

By the way, this is all Abbott’s fault. I know a few of the Lib campaigners through friends of friends, and they were totally apathetic and uninterested when Turnbull was in charge. Abbott really fired up the base. And amazingly, the Libs are attracting new blood – the active ones are all in their 20s. The Labor campaigners look like they have been wheeled out of their retirement homes for a morning in the sun.

boy on a bike

23 Mar 13 at 8:37 am
Surely the class that Julia has declared war on is the maths class which, as an innumerate lawyer, she must have missed while studying. The list of statistical blunders is long, but here’s a couple of examples. About 20% of the work force are members of unions, which means 80% are not. Yet she can’t see the harm her pro-union policies are doing to her reputation. The average wage means – roughly – that half the workforce earns above that amount, and half below. Yet her policies are directed at harming the 50% above the line in the hope of capturing the grateful votes of those below the line. Then she attacks News Ltd, with a readership reach of 70%, which means only 30% are not readers. Don’t even mention the budget deficits and her plans for even more spending. It is off to remedial maths classes for her come September.

Curmudgeon

23 Mar 13 at 8:49 am
Ooh, a new ozblogistan error message? Cloudflare?

Cold-Hands

23 Mar 13 at 8:49 am
More polling booths than ALP members. GOOD ONE

Jim Rose

23 Mar 13 at 8:58 am
standing outside railway stations at 6.00 am in the morning handing out moving forward propaganda?.

Splatacrobat
23 Mar 13 at 1:10 am

Ok, this one is right up there with “loose” for “lose”!

Please write out 100 times “Six in the morning is six am” before you go out to play this morning Splat!

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 9:11 am
We thould check thith with Ita Buttrothe.

Yellow card

Tapdog

23 Mar 13 at 9:12 am
Every weekend, Bill Glasson’s crew are out and about in Griffith doing their thing. It’s good to see the LNP finally giving a red hot go at filleting Kevni.

Can you believe the Liberal idiots don’t have a candidate in Lalor (Gillard’s seat)? Even though its safe Labor, the Lying Slapper is so unpopular Lalor is a prime candidate to become marginal with a half-decent candidate opposing her – especially in a changing outer suburban seat with many aspirationals, tradies and small business people. I would have thought it’s a walk-up start for someone wanting to enter politics in 2016 for the Libs since Gillard will probably be in jail by then.

Michael Kroger, Michael Kroger, Michael Kroger — time to put a poker up someone’s backside at Liberal HQ in the People’s Republic of North Tasmania.

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 9:15 am
I think that Julia Gillard is a pissy little bitch.
That’s not misogeny talking, I think that Kevin Rudd is a pissy little bitch too. In fact, a majority of the Labor Party are pissy little bitches.

That’s right; when has the coalition or anyone apart from this site, Pickering and Bolt, once or twice, taken it to this pricks.

Good morning PM, what do you say to those who describe you as a serial fucker of married men? And go from there.

cohenite

23 Mar 13 at 9:15 am
Only police should have guns, because they have been trained to use them.

A SWAT team in upstate New York is being mocked as an example of the difference between military and police training after an officer was captured peering through a backwards sight on his combat rifle.

‘It’s disturbing to think that 1) none of his buddies corrected it, and 2) he’s in a real-life situation with his optic on backwards, which means he’s never fired that rifle with the optic on it, which means it isn’t zeroed and he thought it was OK to show up to a gunfight with an unzeroed weapon,’

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 9:30 am
Is it possible to have a little less on the splapper on the site as its turning a little like tim dunlops site with a few of the bolt refugees

JC

23 Mar 13 at 9:50 am
Is it possible to have a little less on the slapper on the site as its turning a little like tim dunlop’s site with a few of the bolt refugees

JC

23 Mar 13 at 9:51 am
OK, in the interests of changing the subject.
JC, do you recall in the mid to late 1980s there were numerous TV ads suggesting that people “roll over” their super into a private fund? I suspect it was aimed at public servants who were being offered packages to quit at that time.
It certainly would not have made sense to roll over a deferrable defined benefit, but I wonder how many did just that without consulting an accountant.
In fact it didn’t make sense to roll over any component of a PS benefit, or to donate hard-earned wage and salary money of any sort into funds run by insurance companies (no names, no pack drill) that ripped off excessive fees throughout the 1990s.

blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 10:06 am
FOOTY.

Sinc will be on cloud nine.

i’m surprised he hasn’t posted yet his clanger ” watch them fly high” or something

maybe good to wait out the season a bit before getting too excited!

happy JC?

pete m

23 Mar 13 at 10:06 am
More Paul Kelly compost

The Rudd-Gillard story is a personal and political tragedy. They were the two shining political stars of this Labor generation and the war that erupted between them has cruelled this phase of Labor history.

Obio

23 Mar 13 at 10:07 am
Gillard and Rudd the shining stars in a political generation. God help the ALP if that is true.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 10:13 am
I think this quote from Jeremy Grantham of GMO is appropriate:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Although it appears he is a hypocrite since he looks like being a warmist.

trax

23 Mar 13 at 10:25 am
Mich surely Lisps is really Lithps

johninoxley

23 Mar 13 at 10:27 am
Hammygar, How was Abbott’s terminology any nore insensitive or insulting than Gillard saying that adopted children deserved much better? In my family are two outstanding steady decent hard working adoptees and our family has always loved them and been loved in return with ho need to emphasise they were adopted.It was taken as an affront to be told they deserved “beter” than the loving stable home they experienced ,as they adore their mother who is till there for them and their wider family support base. Just ask them if they “deserved BETTER”! Grr!!

Jazza

23 Mar 13 at 10:28 am
Isn’t it wonderful how Obama forced Netanyahu to apologise to Erdogan, who is on record as saying that Zionism is a crime against humanity.

blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 10:29 am
It’s back to work for Julia and rest of the policy dwarfs, more waste, more boats, more debt and more spin to look forward to. But wait, the backbench is at work too – Chris Bowen for PM, with Rudd putting his considerable hate and ratfucking abilities towards a candidate with real potential and not hindered by his own failings Julia should be worried.
They have a very strong team now that will get down to business and that business is the destruction of the slapper and the coming of Chris “the messiah” Bowen.

Honesty

23 Mar 13 at 10:33 am
Strop

No I don’t.

A defined benefit means a fix amount, right?

JC

23 Mar 13 at 10:34 am
Strop

Israel’s apology means shit. The Israelis don’t mean it and everyone knows they would do the same thing again.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 10:39 am
Defined Benefit meaning a calculation usually defined as a multiple of the average of your last three years salary and therefore irrespective of contributions or investment markets which are known as “accumulation funds” as they are dertimined by what is gained or accumulated. In roaring markets they look good but go pear shaped when they crash hence the looked attractive in inflationary times in the 80′s and parts of the investment cycle in the 90′s and dot com bubble.

Honesty

23 Mar 13 at 10:39 am
The Grate Negoshater.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 10:40 am
A strange looking man just dropped a flyer in my letterbox. He looked kind of like David Marr, only unbathed and distressed-looking. The flyer is entitled “Wall Punch II: The Full Story.”

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 10:43 am
Modern LibLabs are no secret

the Laborals are so disappointing.

Tintarella di Luna

23 Mar 13 at 10:44 am
On another thread I wrote: From Greg Sheridan’s article in this mornings’ Weekend Oz

“Even when Rudd first became leader, Gillard was the better internal tactician. Kim Beazley had the majority of the Right, Rudd a minority of the Right and Gillard the Left. At that stage Labor was not ready for a leader from the Left. So she joined her greater numbers to Rudd’s fewer numbers making him internally a weaker leader than he looked and laying the basis for her future leadership tilt “

The seeds of Rudd’s removal were sown in that decision to support Rudd against Beazley in 2006. Rudd’s removal in his first term was pre-ordained, part of a long term plan and a political imperative, his polling numbers simply a figleaf for an already decided course of action by the Left to seize the leadership . Rudd was never going to be a shining light.

Sirocco

23 Mar 13 at 10:44 am
Abbott’s hateful comments about “birth mothers” calculated to hurt people affected by the forced, evil adoptions of that period up to the mid-70′s when women who gave birth without having been married were treated as sub-human, disqualifies him from ever being PM of this country. He must resign immediately and hand over to a civilised human being, such as Malcolm Turnbull, or better still, Kevin Rudd. The Liberal Party must divorce itself from the far Right and become more a party of the Centre.

hammygar
23 Mar 13 at 12:47 am

No keroboy. Fuck off. Don’t like the libs? Start your own party, you dipshit.

How about calling it the UKP. … United Kero Party.

Admit it, Kero. It has a nice ring to it, no?

JC

23 Mar 13 at 10:45 am
JC, a defined benefit means that you can retire on a pension which is a substantial percentage of your final salary. In the (now closed) public service schemes, you could leave at 55 and have a very adequate income for the rest of your life, given that classification creep means that you would have to be a complete dill not to retire on at least $100,000 a year.

You could also take a lump sum plus a lower pension, or just the lump sum. As the old schemes (whose members are still retiring by the thousands every year) used to contribute around $2 for every dollar the member paid in, people who were in these schemes for a long time had a very nice set of options to choose from. Importantly, you get all this irrepective of the performance of the fund, courtesy of the taxpayer.

johanna

23 Mar 13 at 10:46 am
Pete m – my victory cry is up on the previous open forum. But just so that nobody is in any doubt.

See the Bombers fly up!

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 10:46 am
I did tip Adelaide to win by 10 points though, so this is the sweetest victory all, etc. etc. etc.

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 10:50 am
I’m in Reid. The Lib candidate has a swarm of young volunteers swamping shopping centres every weekend.

Me too bike and the very distinctive Craig Laundy bus is everywhere. Early in the morning on the way to work I see it in Homebush, then its in Auburn, Concord, the guy is really getting around.

Tintarella di Luna

23 Mar 13 at 10:50 am
See the Bombers fly up!

It wasn’t Red Bull that gave them wings!

But they did look very buff.

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 10:51 am
A rather strange looking female on their ABC (Kate something) is telling me that gillard “pissed off” the Indeps this week. The other panel members dissecting this weeks events all agree that it’s turning out to be a disaster for Abbott.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 10:52 am
Democrat in the news:

Politician Took Photos of His Genitals & Put Them on Female Coworker’s Computer.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 10:52 am
Please write out 100 times “Six in the morning is six am” before you go out to play this morning Splat!

Sorry Eddy, I have a 20 something daughter and have to constantly reinforce the hours in the morning are AM. Teens have no concept of 24 hour clocks and as most don’t open thier eyelids any earlier than 900 hours (9.00am “in the morning”) it is a double check that they understand 6.00am is when they are reqired to be in an upright position.

Splatacrobat

23 Mar 13 at 10:59 am
No keroboy. Fuck off

He who cannot be named ought to get a life.

hammygar

23 Mar 13 at 11:01 am
Just ask them if they “deserved BETTER”! Grr!!

the spodge (spoken stodge) of the day was that phrase “they deserved better”— I am appalled with what was said and the disparagement of good people who wanted to provide a good home and a loving family to children who’d been put up for adoption.

There are those who are the adoptees who now in the blame game — aided and abetted not doubt by the blamegame industry. There is a view being put about that the adoptive parents are somehow to blame in all of this, as though their contribution to the upbringing of many fine upstanding people is somehow diminished.

Another fine mess, more hurt and more division – another day on Planet ALP

Tintarella di Luna

23 Mar 13 at 11:04 am
Lol

The democrats seem to have a predeliction to sticking their genitals in a pic and then putting it on the web and sending it to females.

I wonder what mental illness causes that sort of behavior.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 11:06 am
Essendon certainly injected some life into the start of the season

chrisl

23 Mar 13 at 11:08 am
You really hate being to told to get lost, or in gentlemanly terms.. Fuck off.

As for getting a life, you ought to talk, you suicidal maniac.

Look dipshit, your comments are just platitudes from a simpleton. Smarten up or give it up….. So give it up.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 11:13 am
If Kevni was Canadian…

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/canadian-finds-knife-in-back-after-3-years/story-fneuz9ev-1226603908191

Tracey

23 Mar 13 at 11:22 am
Kate Ellis for Temporary PM, people!

You know it makes sense…

Rabz

23 Mar 13 at 11:27 am
See the Bombers ~~fly~~ shoot up!

Sinc, dya reckon Sir James will actually be able to handle the coaching side when he gives up the marketing job and takes over from Bomber Thompson?

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 11:28 am
St. James will do whatever he likes for as long as he likes.
After the bungled Sheedy exercise the board are somewhat constrained.

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 11:43 am
Why not rabz?

She would almost get my vote.

We’ve had tall, short, fat, skinny, ugly PMs.

Why not have a half way looker. It also proves we’re not Miss Oginists too.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 11:50 am
You don’t want a PM, Rabz, you hanker for a booty-shakin’ mama.
Reaching back in time, perhaps the term omnishambles is due for another run.

blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 11:51 am
Abbott’s hateful comments about “birth mothers” …

It’s pathetic how when lefty rags decide to invent some new sin, people like Hammy just line up to repeat it, without thought. What mindless drones these diehard lefties are – even their birth-mothers would be embarrassed.

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 11:51 am
I think they can be proud of their enhanced showing over last year. They really outflanked their opposing numbers and stuck it to them. When they shot to a lead I knew they’d never be headed. What a rolled gold performance.

pete m

23 Mar 13 at 11:55 am
The Old Lezzo, who had his anus widened to carry parliamentary explosives in the 2011 Gaian jihad, rules out the idea that the electoral cannon fodder should be allowed to vote if it’s avoidable:

A motion of no confidence in the government will be put to the parliament by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott when parliament returns for the May Budget.

“We will see where the dust settles before I make further comment,” Mr Thomson said.

It is understood independents Andrew Wilkie and Tony Windsor have suggested privately they would have no problem going to an early election. Neither, however, would want to be responsible for triggering it.

Mr Wilkie, Mr Windsor, and NSW independent Rob Oakeshott have said they would support debate on the motion but have not committed to how they would vote on the motion itself, with the exception of Mr Windsor, who said he would not support bringing down a government.

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 11:55 am
what is the go with this ‘birth mother” business anyway? I really don’t want to click on the articles to give it any credence.

Is it some sort of pomo crap where the birth mother doesn’t like it because it suggests that the mother what raised the little urchin might be allowed to be called “mother” of any sort?

entropy

23 Mar 13 at 12:08 pm
even their birth-mothers would be embarrassed.

Apples don’t fall too far from the tree.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 12:12 pm
what is the go with this ‘birth mother” business anyway?

Despite adoption agencies, adoption re-connection agencies, genealogy websites, the govt website on adoption, research reports on adoption, all media and even in sitcoms, despite all these and the fact that “birth mother”, “birth parents” have been in the vernacular for decades now, it seems only when Abbott uses the term is there a major issue.

That is what is with this “birth mother” business.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 12:15 pm
Deprived ‘African-American’ teenager is victim of poverty:

“He asked me for money and I said I didn’t have it,” she told The Associated Press Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son’s toys and movies.

“When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They’re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said ‘I don’t have it.’ And he said, ‘Do you want me to kill your baby?’ And I said, ‘No, don’t kill my baby!’”

One of the teens fired four shots, grazing West’s ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.

Seventeen-year-old De’Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said.

The Age doesn’t mention the cuplrit’s race, of course. They would only do that if the baby was black and the shooter white.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 12:17 pm
It was a great game to watch and the only people who wouldn’t have enjoyed it are Adelaide supporters.

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 12:17 pm
the disparagement of good people who wanted to provide a good home and a loving family to children who’d been put up for adoption.

Effectively they are kidnappers. They wanted a child at any price, even at the expense of devastating the life of the poor woman who became pregnant by some man who pissed off and left her to it.

hammy

23 Mar 13 at 12:17 pm
Anyway, serves Abbott right for going alone with the sham apology day.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 12:20 pm
going along with

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 12:20 pm
The next Liberal prime minister takes a pop quiz:

Whether his paid paternity scheme discriminates against stay-at-home mums:

“Well, if you want to get the dough, go into the workforce”

What to do about the pay gap between men and women:

“I think we should try and make it easier for women to work in ways that give them wage justice – that’s how I think we should tackle that. I think if we had more flexible childcare, if we have a better paid parental leave system.. it is about trying to ensure women have a more realistic chance to be doing the same job as the bloke and therefore getting the same pay as the bloke.”

So there you have it. We need more socialism to ensure motherhood is abolished.

http://www.madisonmag.com.au/news/pop-quiz-with-tony-abbott.htm

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 12:22 pm
Sure, Gab, that it as an atempt to have a go at Abbott goes without saying. But what is hteir position?

Hell, even that pinko rag the conversation calls them birth mothers

OK, I weakened and looked it up in the press coverage:

But members of the audience shouted at Mr Abbott repeatedly during his speech where he talked about “honouring the birth parents” shouting they were true parents, not “birth parents“.

Sorry, princess, the mothers who gave up or were forced to give up their babies were birth mothers, and the ones who raised them where their parents. I am sick of pricks trying to take over language for political purposes.

entropy

23 Mar 13 at 12:34 pm
the ones who raised them where their parents

No, they were carers, not parents.

hammy

23 Mar 13 at 12:44 pm
Did anyone catch Michael Danby on Chris Kenny’s show this morning?

These people are delusional – it’s really sad to watch. We have a Waco in the making, I mean what can they do next?

Dianne

23 Mar 13 at 1:16 pm
What’s the problem with calling them “birth mothers” ? I mean, it’s just a term. They were after all mothers who gave birth.
I think this whole sorry for adoptions thing is just a “stolen generations” for white people. (That should put the cat amongst the pigeons!)

lem

23 Mar 13 at 1:20 pm
More insight from Bob Ellis

I get to Palm Beach at noon, have sex, and sleep. I am awoken by Martin Ferguson resigning.

Tiny Dancer

23 Mar 13 at 1:24 pm
Speaking of stolen generation

Mum and Dad did all of this on a tight budget, and I watched them both go without time and time again to make sure each and every one of us had what we needed first. Dad worked long hours as a pump jockey, and never complained. I remember one day he had an accident at work and burnt his leg quite badly with LPG gas, but he refused to even take the afternoon off work, hopping around on one leg to fill other peoples cars with petrol because he had 12 hungry kids to feed. Mum was a financial wizard who knew where to find the best bargains and stretched Dads pay packet out to get value from every cent. We never went hungry, we always had a warm bed to sleep in, and there was always a hug and the door was always open.

But it wasn’t always sunshine and roses.

Two white people and a large brood of black kids tend to stand out. Often for all the wrong reasons. I don’t know how we came onto their radar, but after finding out about us, one of the local Aboriginal organisations began making noise about our situation. They were unhappy that white people were fostering Aboriginal children, and wanted us removed from their care. We were reported to Welfare, but thankfully the world wasn’t yet gripped by Stolen Generation hysteria, and when they found us to be well fed, clean and healthy, wanting to stay and very much loved, they had no grounds to remove us. This didn’t stop the cycle repeating several times over, and by the time I was in my teens, Mum had a thick folder full of letters from Welfare – all typed up on blue paper – all the result of people who cared not for our situation or our welfare, but were simply horrified that the people providing exceptional care to us were, shock horror, white.

via Bolt.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 1:26 pm
Tiny Dancer, that is just plain disgusting. Who cares about Bob Ellis and his solitary activities?

lem

23 Mar 13 at 1:29 pm
In fact, Tiny Dancer, on reflection, you might have cracked the riddle as to why Martin Ferguson resigned.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 1:33 pm
Perhaps calling them birth mothers brings back feelings of guilt of having an illegitimate baby in more moral tiems, and having to relinquish. It seems an appropriate term to me though, just basically logical.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 1:36 pm
I get to Palm Beach at noon, have sex, and sleep. I am awoken by Martin Ferguson resigning.

Oh Lordy, what a braggant – that would be sex with that well known sex-maniac, Mrs Palmer

Tintarella di Luna

23 Mar 13 at 1:38 pm
I am told that not only mrs Palmer gets around, but her five daughters are very nimble. Flexible even.

entropy

23 Mar 13 at 1:45 pm
How could he fat lard muster the energy?

JC

23 Mar 13 at 1:50 pm
Julia Gillard gives an insight into the home life that makes her so simpatico with Australian families:

“I’d have to say I spent some time with people into the evening, and then got back here and had a few telephone calls to make and all the rest of it,” she told radio yesterday.

“But at the end of a long hard day, I was happy enough to hang out, pat the dog, and then get some sleep.”

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 1:51 pm
While acknowledging that I was also not aware of sensitivity over the term “birth mother”, from the second page of the introduction to Senate report we find this:

1.9
Adoption is a difficult subject to write about in a manner acceptable to everyone affected by it. Forced adoption even more so. Mothers who were forced to give up children for adoption generally reject the terms ‘birth mother’ or ‘biological mother’, and some reject ‘natural mother’. The preferred term is often simply ‘mother’. However, this may be unacceptable to an adoptive mother who has raised a child. The same applies to fathers. In a similar way that many submitters to the inquiry find the term ‘relinquishing mother’ insulting and inaccurate, many adoptive parents reject the term ‘adopters’….

1.12
Wherever possible in this report, the committee has used the term ‘mother’ to refer to a person who has given birth to a child. However, in situations where further clarity is needed, it has used the terms ‘natural mother’ and ‘adoptive mother’ to make a distinction between these parties.

Either Abbott, or one of his staffers, was careless to use the term “birth mother” when the report had mentioned the sensitivity to the term.

steve from brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 1:53 pm
Seriously, who gives a flying flock what that turgid piece of filth does after another day destroying this country.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 1:53 pm
Well here’s hoping, after reading that site, that one day poor old Bob falls asleep in Mrs Palmer’s embrace, and never wakes again. “She” deserves a rest, poor withered old thing.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 1:56 pm
Speaking of insight, Andrew Wilkie shows all the analytical giftedness that made him one of the great intelligence officers:

KEY federal independent Andrew Wilkie says the Gillard government will struggle to survive a parliamentary no-confidence motion if it does not start showing stability and competence…

“I tell you what, if the government doesn’t start showing some stability and some competency I think it is going to struggle to get the numbers when that motion of no confidence does come up,” he said.

“I’m keeping a very close eye on the government, all the time, but even more so now.

“And I want to see some stability and competence from this point in time.”

Another piece of bullshit anger theatre from an ‘independent.’

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 1:57 pm
Gab:

Language please. This is the Cat and it’s unacceptable to use language like that about our political leaders- especially when the lying slapper is a woman.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 1:58 pm
Hey Step…

What did you want to tell me on the open forum about Annan? Spit it out, you moron.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 1:59 pm
Adoptee searches for birth mother, adoption records (03:50)

Kim Menta can’t find her birth mother and says her adoption was never formalised.

http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-news/adoptee-searches-for-birth-mother-adoption-records-3902791.html

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 2:00 pm
Humility:

Pope Francis bows to Robert Mugabe at installation Mass.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:01 pm
Off to McDonalds for lunch, JC. You’ll have to wait…

steve from brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 2:02 pm
I presume Gillard will be appearing with Ellen DeGeneres.

I actually like DeGeneres. I think she’s funny and genuine.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:03 pm
Ellis and sex? Why is the term that springs to mind ‘livestock’?

There’s room to graze sheep in Palm beach.

Or he could be the notorious beaches suburbs moggy-molester.

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 2:03 pm
Why is the term that springs to mind ‘livestock’?

errrrgh – cold shivers

Tintarella di Luna

23 Mar 13 at 2:05 pm
What about progenitor instead of the birth thing? It’s also gender non specific. I’m going to try it out on my offspring.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:05 pm
This is excellent for online consumers.

Technology just trumps these idiots at every turn.

Consumer group endorses bypassing online geo-blocks.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:06 pm
Humility:

Pope Francis bows to Robert Mugabe at installation Mass.

Hate to say it, but I had him pegged from the beginning. Nothing good ever has come out of Argentina except my grand parents when they left to return to Italy.

Bowing to the Mugster? He sounds like a white version of the Kenyan.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 2:07 pm
oops… great grand parents.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 2:08 pm
The people heckling Mr ABbott about “birth mothers” were probably put up to it by activists and thereby manipulated vulnerable people spoiling the day for everyone.
Very insensitive and appropriate behaviour by the hecklers, to my mind.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 2:08 pm
While acknowledging that I was also not aware of sensitivity over the term “birth mother”, from the second page of the introduction to Senate report we find this:

1.9
Adoption is a difficult subject to write about in a manner acceptable to everyone affected by it. Forced adoption even more so. Mothers who were forced to give up children for adoption generally reject the terms ‘birth mother’ or ‘biological mother’, and some reject ‘natural mother’. The preferred term is often simply ‘mother’. However, this may be unacceptable to an adoptive mother who has raised a child. The same applies to fathers. In a similar way that many submitters to the inquiry find the term ‘relinquishing mother’ insulting and inaccurate, many adoptive parents reject the term ‘adopters’….

1.12
Wherever possible in this report, the committee has used the term ‘mother’ to refer to a person who has given birth to a child. However, in situations where further clarity is needed, it has used the terms ‘natural mother’ and ‘adoptive mother’ to make a distinction between these parties.
Either Abbott, or one of his staffers, was careless to use the term “birth mother” when the report had mentioned the sensitivity to the term.

steve from brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 1:53 pm

What a joke. You cannot be serious. Do you await Senate reports for all thinking?

Bear Necessities

23 Mar 13 at 2:09 pm
Watch out, Steve from Brisbane, you might see Bob Ellis down there, that is apparently where he likes to graze according to his site. Under no circumstances shake hands with him.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:09 pm
Forced adoption group now demanding second apology:

“Julia Gillard should now come out and say I’m deeply sorry for what happened in the Labor Party on your day, on your important day,” she said.

Forced adoption victims ‘disgusted’ at Labor spill.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:10 pm
very insensitive and inappropriate behaviour. I’m sure they were just Abbott haters and that’s all it was about.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 2:10 pm
I’ve wondered why this blog appears to be quite in-bred in respect of its commenters.

Now I know. New contributors get discouraged when they can’t get a comment up without it spending a considerable amount of time in “your comment is awaiting moderation”. Even if or when approved, the moment has passed. Many of them presumably shrug their shoulders and mutter under their breaths, “fuck ‘em”.

I guess it’s not quite as bad as the Bolt blog, which may as well close its comments down altogether.

hammy

23 Mar 13 at 2:12 pm
Excellent C.L. This whole sorry thing is going to be never ending. The Sorry industry. They need something now that the bottom has fallen out of global warming.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:14 pm
Oh my God.

The weirdness, it burns:

Julia Gillard said she will campaign with Kevin Rudd in lead-up to September election.

Worth clicking for the picture alone.

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:16 pm
1.12
Report: Wherever possible in this report, the committee has used the term ‘mother’ to refer to a person who has given birth to a child. However, in situations where further clarity is needed, it has used the terms ‘natural mother’ and ‘adoptive mother’ to make a distinction between these parties.

sfb: Either Abbott, or one of his staffers, was careless to use the term “birth mother” when the report had mentioned the sensitivity to the term.

Given he was making a speech to ‘birth mothers’ which addresses and apologizes for their loss, I’m not sure why the further clarity that is given here is being derided as insensitive.

dover_beach

23 Mar 13 at 2:17 pm
Kevin can’t spell g’day.

Infidel Tiger

23 Mar 13 at 2:20 pm
They have been “offended”. They are now double-victims and as such they must take Abbott to court over the despicable terms he used in that birth parents speech.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 2:21 pm
H/T Bolta.

There is beauty in its ugliness. Well that’s how I’m rationalising this.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-22/nbn-rollout-could-be-delayed-by-10-years3a-expert/4589520

Bear Necessities

23 Mar 13 at 2:21 pm
Election soon? Combet has called for an end to the Labor Fiasco. I hadn’t heard her called that yet.
C.L. The photo is good, needs a caption competition.
“Don’t worry Jules we’ve got ya back”
“That’s quite close enough you filthy hirsute prole”

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:24 pm
They ruined their own day by heckling Tony Abbott over a turn of phrase, when blind freddie could see he was genuine and respectful in his speech.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 2:25 pm
They can always fall back on the Aboriginal industry. That one ain’t going anywhere. The dial-a-reffo industry will be in run-off mode after September.

Then David Marr types can start work again on their Morry Monthy articles about the Abbott government is stifling dissent and free speech.

H B Bear

23 Mar 13 at 2:26 pm
“That’s quite close enough you filthy hirsute prole”

But what did he say to her?

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 2:27 pm
Bear Necessities, I kind of wish for another four years of the ALP. I know it would trash the country but there are so many people who just need to learn about actions and consequences.

Tel

23 Mar 13 at 2:27 pm
lem, shitfer already has the libor disease

johninoxley

23 Mar 13 at 2:29 pm
@C.L.

“So, how’s the wife and kids?”

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:29 pm
Tel, In some way you are right in that it would give some satisfaction to me. But I look at other countries who go down this path (e.g. Argentina) and it looks like there can be no return after a certain distance or with great pain. It is not just the ALP we should not elect but also the Greens and Katter who are just loopy and full of hate. They are different hates but still hate.

Bear Necessities

23 Mar 13 at 2:33 pm
Gillard and Rudd teaming up to campaign in Qld. Brilliant. I don’t know how Abbott manages it.

lem

23 Mar 13 at 2:34 pm
Kevin can’t spell g’day.

Says it all really.

H B Bear

23 Mar 13 at 2:37 pm
Gillard and Rudd teaming up to campaign in Qld.

Why on earth Rudd wants to campaign with her in tow is a mystery. He must be very confident of his popularity.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 2:39 pm
I think Kevin Rudd lost respect all round from not challenging and perhaps making a fool of Simon Crean and the senior ministers who resigned. He’s put himself in a weird place, he may resign.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 2:42 pm
CL, my caption entry

Obersturmbannführer! Erhalten diese schmutzigen Bauern weg von mir!

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 2:43 pm
@Mk50

And she replies:

“Sit!”

lem

23 Mar 13 at 3:02 pm
What about progenitor instead of the birth thing? It’s also gender non specific.

Progenitor—“founder” or “ancestor”—in Latin, at least, is not of nonspecific gender; it is masculine, and progenitrix is the feminine form.
Genitor and genitrix are father and mother.

Deadman

23 Mar 13 at 3:06 pm
Gab

It is all part of Krudd’s cunning plan to unseat the Australian Gillard Party and be repaid by Julie Bishop with the Ambassadorship for somewhere.

The man’s vengeance knows no limits. He’s seen the QLD polling and he’s not afraid to use it. Double double double double cross. Take that Crean!

lem

23 Mar 13 at 3:06 pm
Candy,

Rudd doesn’t care about respect, What he is about is vengeance. He got some with Thursday’s fiasco and more with the ensuing resignations. But resign himself? Not likely – he has much more damage to inflict on them so he is not going anywhere yet.

Septimus

23 Mar 13 at 3:08 pm
Deadman

That is all very well and good, but you did not reckon with the ability of the Mac dictionary to fix these annoying details. Since I am as a woman, now a chairperson, perhaps I can become a progenitperson. What say you?

lem

23 Mar 13 at 3:10 pm
Why on earth Rudd wants to campaign with her in tow is a mystery. He must be very confident of his popularity.

Gab, it is that Rudd wants his popularity to underscore her lack of it. Imagine how it will look, Kevni mobbed, with the liar all alone looking on in the background.

From Kevni’s perspective that kind of vengeance would be better than sex.

entropy

23 Mar 13 at 3:13 pm
Deadman

And further, the person formally known as a man father and/ or husband can then also be a progenitperson. If we cohabit and raise our offspring we can collectively be known to the authorities as progenitpeople. To distinguish us with the authorities (that includes our offspring who appear to have similar punitive rights in the law, superior to ours) I, formally known as the mother and wife can be known as the XX progenitperson..etc etc. Who could possibly take offence?

lem

23 Mar 13 at 3:17 pm
Recall how Turnbull banned the light bulb. the Doofus never needed to as LED is making a fast tack towards owing the lighting market.

Forget compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)—LEDs are the new smart choice for lighting. Americans probably won’t want to hear this, after finger-wagging greens and Congress hectored us into changing from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, but CFLs have big problems.

Most notably, the bulb contains a small amount of vaporized mercury, which is damaging to the environment and, in larger quantities, to human health. And consumers have criticized the light they give off as harsh and sterile. CFLs also require time to “warm up” before being fully lit.

According to the New York Times, LED lighting solves these problems, and has many other advantages:

LEDs last about 25 times as long as incandescents and three times as long as CFLs; we’re talking maybe 25,000 hours of light. Install one today, and you may not own your house, or even live, long enough to see it burn out. (Actually, LED bulbs generally don’t burn out at all; they just get dimmer.)

You know how hot incandescent bulbs become. That’s because they convert only 5 to 10 percent of your electricity into light; they waste the rest as heat. LED bulbs are far more efficient. They convert 60 percent of their electricity into light, so they consume far less electricity. You pay less, you pollute less.

But wait, there’s more: LED bulbs also turn on to full brightness instantly. They’re dimmable. The light color is wonderful; you can choose whiter or warmer bulbs. They’re rugged, too. It’s hard to break an LED bulb, but if the worst should come to pass, a special coating prevents flying shards.

And now these wonder-bulbs are finally becoming affordable. The cheapest brand reviewed by the NYT, Cree, makes a $10 bulb that shines as bright as a 40-watt incandescent bulb. Some of the higher-end models allow you to sync your new bulbs with your phone or computer, allowing you to dim or even change the color of the light they emit remotely.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 has required a slow phase-out of high-wattage incandescent bulbs: 100-watt incandescents ceased production last October, and in January 75-watt bulbs were also discontinued. By 2014, the production of 40- and 60-watt incandescents will also cease.

But we don’t need the Commissar of Home Lighting that foisted mercury-laden CFLs on us to now promote LEDs. The market is already bringing us sexier, greener, more efficient light bulbs on its own.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/21/led-lightbulbs-a-bright-idea/

JC

23 Mar 13 at 3:18 pm
Crean was taking a huge risk when he called that press conference. He should have been aware of that but even now he won’t admit it even to himself and just blames Rudd and his camp for his demise. Rudd’s backers let him take that risk hoping it would trigger a movement towards Rudd as did Crean. Perhaps they were less than honest with Crean about where the numbers stood at that point. Perhaps it would have taken Rudd to actually stand to trigger the move.

In the end it was Gillard’s “will to power” that won the day. Rudd doesn’t really have it. Costello didn’t have it either. Too bad for Australia that she’s got it and for her it’s an end in itself.

Viva

23 Mar 13 at 3:21 pm
Viva…Creans a fool, just look how after the schoolyard dust up Rudd and Gillard are now kissing and making up for the public. Rudd is playing with her tiny mind. There’s still plenty more fun to be had! This will be some state of origin match!

lem

23 Mar 13 at 3:31 pm
Viva…Creans a fool

As the song goes:

Oh, Oh baby don’t you know I’m human
Have thoughts like any other one
Sometimes I find myself long regretting
Some foolish thing some little simple thing I’ve done
But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

Viva

23 Mar 13 at 3:38 pm
Birth mothers – best complain to the ABC about being offensive:

Forced adoption: Tim’s message to his birth mother

Don’t forget to complain to the Conversation as well:

An apology to forced adoption birth mothers: it’s about time

And of course you should tell off all the mums at this site for referring to themselves as birth mothers:

http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/

boy on a bike

23 Mar 13 at 3:49 pm
Viva, Eric Burdon shouldn’t be put together with the ALP.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 4:11 pm
In the end it was Gillard’s “will to power” that won the day. Rudd doesn’t really have it. Costello didn’t have it either.

I’ve mentioned the dishonest media being a problem for a properly functioning democracy, and the acceptance that our leaders have to have some sort of psychotic will to power would be another.
It may be true of the ALP, but can we not hope for a saner set of people in the major parties who elect leaders for their quality rather than their distilled and concentrated lust for power.

blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 4:11 pm
Fair shake of the sauce bottle, Kev has such trouble sounding like a top bloke. He actually writes “Gidday” in emails? LOL

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 4:12 pm
Absolutely right BOAB. Its a term that’s been in common usage for at least twenty years.

blogstrop

23 Mar 13 at 4:12 pm
Crean was taking a huge risk when he called that press conference.

He’s a moron. He took a shot without even trying to cover his base. That party is a nest of vipers so how could he rely on any of them to follow him.

What he should have said was, you all go first and I’ll then do the presser as to why I’ve changed horses.

But he was too dopey not to lead with his chin.

This is the idiot telling people his biggest concern wasn’t policy, but process. He just showed he as guilty as the rest of the turnips in the stupid stakes.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:14 pm
This is the idiot telling people his biggest concern wasn’t policy, but process. He just showed he as guilty as the rest of the turnips in the stupid stakes.

Got it in one… He’s playing the wronged party now, and claims Rudd is cowardly – but what’s the whole saga say about him? Man of integrity? Hardly!

Show you’re not a coward and force an election already – let the people decide… Clinging to power at all costs, and following any leader that lets you do it – even if you despise them and without regard to policy – is the real mark of cowardice.

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 4:23 pm
The seeds of Rudd’s removal were sown in that decision to support Rudd against Beazley in 2006. Rudd’s removal in his first term was pre-ordained, part of a long term plan and a political imperative, his polling numbers simply a figleaf for an already decided course of action by the Left to seize the leadership . Rudd was never going to be a shining light.

Sirocco

23 Mar 13 at 10:44 am

What an excellent analysis. How else to explain TLS’s otherwise inexplicable statement last weekend:

The Prime Minister has also dismissed any prospect of being ”tapped on the shoulder” by senior ministers, telling Fairfax Media: ”It just won’t happen. (It’s) much speculated upon and just won’t happen.

I hereby formally disavow my theory that Rudd has a future. Neither does a political party in the 21st century where all key decisions are made by unelected faceless trade unionists.

News Limited won’t win what is clearly this year’s Best Photo Walkley, because those same trade unionists control the journalists union, which organises the annual groupthink awards. Australia: corrupt colonial media shithole central.

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 4:27 pm
He’s a moron.

I think so.

It was pretty clear that he forced the issue before Rudd was ready.

He did not do it with Rudd’s ok.

The Rudd forces knew they were still short.

I think he decided to signal that that Shane Wand was the real problem and if Rudd failed it at least gave Gillard a clear run.

If he was out to bring 5 or 10 more with him he sounded as if he accused Rudd of destabilising in a cowardly manner.

It was hardly a strong Rudd endorsement.

I must admit that the conspiracy theory that he was acting for Gillard might actually be true – if not necessarily a conspiracy then a sudden rush to resolve the matter one way or the other which clearly favoured Gillard who we know he likes and disadvantaged Rudd who we know he was scathing about in the past.

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 4:27 pm
He’s a moron. He took a shot without even trying to cover his base.

Given the nature of his shot, I’m not sure that is the case. I think he took the shot that had to be taken so that Labor actually has a base to build off after the election.

It’s a build point for a narrative. Sure, it didn’t work; I don’t think it actually needed to in order to have the desired effect.

You now have a back bench, at least some of who will survive the election, who have the capacity to present a break with the current administration after the election.

Driftforge

23 Mar 13 at 4:33 pm
I must admit that the conspiracy theory that he was acting for Gillard might actually be true

Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

The party has form on the latter, after all. And though they’d certainly have no qualms about employing the former, their incompetence would still win out and they’d fuck it up – it’s what they do (remember the Australia Day race riot?)

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 4:33 pm
Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

Even if it was a conspiracy they were incompetent in that as well.

Bear Necessities

23 Mar 13 at 4:37 pm
I don’t think he could be acting for J Gillard because he got the sack, and he’s no fan of k.Rudd either. Just trying to get the party on track because they can’t win with Ms Gillard. It’s only months to go.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 4:38 pm
The one who’s sailing through all this is Wand.

He’s thinking…

Just look at me, I’m as fucking useless as a bulls tit and everyone is focused on everyone else except me. That’s great. Get to survive another day.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:40 pm
Drift

He was playing a poker game trying to bluff not even trying to guess what the other players had up their sleeve.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:42 pm
I’ve mentioned the dishonest media being a problem for a properly functioning democracy, and the acceptance that our leaders have to have some sort of psychotic will to power would be another.

It may be true of the ALP, but can we not hope for a saner set of people in the major parties who elect leaders for their quality rather than their distilled and concentrated lust for power.

Interesting comment Blogstrop. It is somethimes said that only those who don’t really want power can be trusted with it. Others have concluded that the moment you put your hand up for it you are tainted.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

Viva

23 Mar 13 at 4:43 pm
How can anyone attempt to even get within a sniff of rationalization when the entire party is fubar.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 4:44 pm
Lincoln was a sexist.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 4:45 pm
Gillard was probably seething about the whole apology business – after all, she spent years trying to ensure that unwanted kids could be aborted instead of born and adopted out.

Being the good Mick, Abbott would be thankful they were born at all. Gillard and friends would be better off apologising to all the kids that never had a chance and ended up in a bucket in an abortion clinic.

Her real speech should have read, “If I had my way, all you bawling, mewling wingers would not be here today. Your mothers wouldn’t have had to put up with lugging you around for 9 months. They should have terminated you at will”.

boy on a bike

23 Mar 13 at 4:46 pm
What got me about Rudd’s comments was on one hand he was seeking advice from supporters about numbers and what he should do and on the other is claiming he was true to his word that he was never going to challenge. Can’t have both.

Biota

23 Mar 13 at 4:47 pm
Candy @ 4.38pm

I don’t think he could be acting for J Gillard because he got the sack

Absolutely correct.

Septimus

23 Mar 13 at 4:50 pm
husband can then also be a progenitperson

I prefer to be called “the inseminator”.

boy on a bike

23 Mar 13 at 4:52 pm
I don’t think he could be acting for J Gillard because he got the sack

Absolutely correct.

It would be funny if it was and she sacked him anyway. I wouldn’t put it past those arseholes.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:56 pm
“What got me about Rudd’s comments was on one hand he was seeking advice from supporters about numbers and what he should do and on the other is claiming he was true to his word that he was never going to challenge. Can’t have both.”

Yes he can and he did.

And as for Crean, he’s the same. Two hours before he nominated himself as deputy, he declared his undying support for gillard as PM. He’s just as bad as Rudd; the entire party consists of self-serving snakes and rats.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 4:58 pm
three or four of her cabinet have resigned this week and that fucking angry moron Greg Comet is telling the ABC the Slapper now has clean air. Gawd almighty they’re fucking clowns.

Clean air, yea right. More like stink bombs going off every so often.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:58 pm
…the entire party consists of self-serving snakes and rats.

Mentally retarded ones too.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 4:59 pm
I think Crean’s actions reveal what the Caucus already knew – he is an idiot. No wonder they never got behind him as leader.

About two years ago I sat behind Crean on a flight from Canberra to Melbourne. He whipped out a classified document and started reading it. I read it over his shoulder. What a tool. If I had done that I would lose my clearance. Crean does it – no one cares because politicians automatically get cleared.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 4:59 pm
“Can’t have both.”

True, and I now think he’s been a bit dishonest about it all and it seems let ministers get the sack/resign on his behalf, without atempting a challenge.
It looks pretty poor of kevni.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 5:00 pm
Gillard has had plenty of clear air. But she keeps clouding it with the fog that impairs her on judgement.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 5:01 pm
John

I met him at a party a coupla times when he was opposition leader. You’re right, he’s a clown. He tries to sound all alpha male and comes across as a dipshit.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 5:02 pm
Kev came to parliament with few friends and he will leave without anymore, which is stunning for an ex Prime minister.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 5:03 pm
Sinc
Any thoughts on the Cyprus situation. I read in one UK paper that the Cyprus banks took a hit on Greek bonds in the “haircut” last year. I would be interested to know how much of their problem was caused by their own stupidity and how much caused by the IMF and the EU. If so the EU is forcing the expropriation of Cypriots savings to partially pay for Greece.

Also read a good article by Warner that told Brits that QE was having a similar impact on their savings and that it was a back door expropriation by the BOE.

Yr thoughts would be great.

Jock

Jock

23 Mar 13 at 5:05 pm
Gillard has had plenty of clear air. But she keeps clouding it with the fog that impairs her on judgement.

I keep mentioning it because it’s still hard to believe. But she basically started the new year fucking things up after being warned all through the last 3 months of last year that she had to improve her game. Yea right. She did all right, she improved on how to fuck things up even better than she had in the past.

Seriously, how do you put up a very controversial piece of laws like the anti-free speech proposals without testing the waters. And then you have that total fucking retard c..t Conroy telling parliament they had a week to decide and he was empathic that he was going ahead without any thought to changes etc.

Von Roxon did the same thing with those taking offense laws and lying that it was just a consolidation. They are so fucking evil and so inept it leaves one breathless. You can laugh and hate them at the same time.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 5:09 pm
Those of us who thought Medicare Gold showed how hopeless Gillard’s judgement are proven right. It has been Medicare Gold all the way.

Gillard’s judgement is so toxic it has ruined Latham, Rudd and finally her own leadership.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 5:25 pm
I prefer to be called “the inseminator”.

As opposed to the financial child supporter.

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 5:27 pm
I prefer to be called “the inseminator”.

Perhaps you would BOAB, but I can’t imagine ‘the inseminated’ would go down better than ‘birth mother’.

In years to come we’ll have to have another apology for the adoptive parents for treating them poorly. That’s the trouble with todays ‘righters’ – they’re rights usually walk all over someone elses.

Ellen of Tasmania

23 Mar 13 at 5:33 pm
The one who’s sailing through all this is Wand.

He’s thinking…

Just look at me, I’m as fucking useless as a bulls tit and everyone is focused on everyone else except me. That’s great. Get to survive another day.

There’s no doubt that Crean was having a dig at our hapless and inept Treasurer in this press conference that brought on the spill.
co will have to hammer Labor on this dross that they are running a great economy.

Only Joyce is doing that but not effectively enough.

Sloppy Joe is still under-performing.

What cretins remain that still see him as a future PM?

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 5:39 pm
co will have to hammer Labor on this dross that they are running a great economy.

Abbott & Co will have to hammer Labor on this dross pedaled that they are running a great economy.

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 5:41 pm
Hey, Eddystone.

The ‘new’ .303 turned up. Very nice Enfield 1876 MkII Martini Henry with Colonial stamps. Modded to .303 in Federation year. Bore’s 9/10, chamber is very good, crown looks good. Extracts flawlessly. Woodwork is excellent. So she should be a nice little shooter indeed. headspace is not really an applicable term with a MH action, but I’ll neck size after firing so she’s working off the shoulder for case length. It’s not possible to get a separation then. I’ll load low, 150gr vice 174 and 2200 fps vs 2461. Might even go down to 2000 with this old warhorse, that’s plenty for 200 yards anyway. Hell, the 577/450 hustles a massive 480gr at 1333 fps, and it’s accurate and lethal at 200, just ask any passing ‘fuzzy wuzzy‘!

We ‘eld our bloomin’ own, the papers say,
But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us ‘oller.
Then ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an’ the missis and the kid;
Our orders was to break you, an’ of course we went an’ did.
We sloshed you with Martinis, an’ it wasn’t ‘ardly fair;
But for all the odds agin’ you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square.

IMA has the 1870 triangular bayonet modded to .303 by the Cairo arsenal in 1895. Just $75, so I’ll grab one of them too.

The seller is a MH collector and he’s culling his collection. If you were ever after one, email me and I’ll pass details. He has some nice ones for sale, and he’s only charging what they owe him so prices are way below what the gunshops have. He’s trying to find good homes for them I think, and he’s a good bloke, too.

Also got the new .308 from the gunsmith, looks very good all in black. Dropped a bundle at Queensland Gun Exchange today on dies, brass and ballistic tips for it!

Guess who’s loading up .308′s tomorrow….

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 5:47 pm
lem:

progenitperson

You miss my earlier point: genitor means father, or begetter, but progenitor means forefather, or ancestor, and is therefore an inappropriate substitute for father.

Deadman

23 Mar 13 at 5:51 pm
The economy is not doing badly at all.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 5:59 pm
That sounds great Mark. 150 grainers are pretty mild to shoot, should do well in the old girl.

Load those 308s up to full power, though. No need to look after the new production rifles like we do for the old bangers.

I’m off to the range tomorrow.

42 rounds at 200m for the Service rifle shoot.

Eddystone

23 Mar 13 at 6:00 pm
Just watched a happy little girl reporter on ten on the wonders of earth hour. Apparently Australia is about to get its 1 millionth solar installation – highest world uptake. Up from just over 100 not so long ago. That’s a lot of people to disappoint over the next few years. And she signed of with going home to enjoy the candlelight – excreting more CO2 than if she kept the lights on.

Biota

23 Mar 13 at 6:07 pm
Birth mother // Aborginal race riot // McTernan

St Hubbins

23 Mar 13 at 6:12 pm
The ALP had a choice between Captain Chepetto and Captain Queeg. In the end they would rather hit the rocks led by an incompetent than keep on sailing with a rude, paranoid micro manager.

John Comnenus

23 Mar 13 at 6:18 pm
Jock – I did put up a post the other day. There is probably enough stupidity to go around. There is a lax regulation/tax haven/bank secrecy meme developing but I suspect that isn’t the actual story. Just convenient.

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 6:25 pm
I went to a lot of B&S balls in my younger days. One of the best was “The inseminators ball”.

boy on a bike

23 Mar 13 at 6:27 pm
It is clear Crean was dudded by the Ruddites:

“At no stage did they say to me that Rudd wouldn’t run if he didn’t have the numbers.”

Their probable response would be “Well you never asked!”They let him stick his neck out and waited to see whether it got chopped off.

A well intentioned fool and his head are soon parted.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/winning-is-not-labors-priority-20130322-2gl9w.html

Viva

23 Mar 13 at 6:32 pm
Sinclair

Cypriot bank assets are 8 times GDP. Their problems are of their own making.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 6:35 pm
Mk50 of Brisbane,if you really want something accurate just contact John Giles out at Carina.He’ll build you a rifle that will shoot like you wouldn’t believe is possible.

Lew

23 Mar 13 at 6:36 pm
Abbott needs to realise the country is becoming more socially liberal but no less (actually, probably MORE) fiscally conservative. Big government “compassionate” conservatism like we saw with GB Jr. is a miserable failure .

I just really hope Abbott can be a reformist.

James B

23 Mar 13 at 6:46 pm
The Inseminators Ball

“Where the ewes get rammed and the rams get ewesed”

Infidel Tiger

23 Mar 13 at 6:47 pm
Mk50. Time well spent yesterday afternoon with you and Pickles and some cold beers. Should happen more often.

Tiny Dancer

23 Mar 13 at 6:52 pm
sdfc – by itself that means little. GDP is only $28 billion. Cyprus is a tax haven, banks are supposed to be big.

Sinclair Davidson

23 Mar 13 at 6:53 pm
Not that big Sinclair. We are seeing the results of that now. Their size makes them not only too big to fail but too big to bailout.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 6:56 pm
The dust has barely settled in the ALP leadership game of tiddly winks, and we now have the National Continence Hotline being advertised on the media. Yet another unintended consequence of keeping the slapper ; there has been an outbreak of the squirts amongst the populace.

Steve of Glasshouse

23 Mar 13 at 7:00 pm
and we now have the National Continence Hotline being advertised on the media.

Really? As an aside, gillard has spent $70 million advertising her carbon (sic) tax.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 7:02 pm
Ah James, you may well hope, for hope is all there is and it’s futile.
Abbott is a welfare Statist who thinks baby bonuses / massive paid preggy leave etc will cover for his socially conservative / Pell approved agenda.
Tony has not a single conservative economic doctrine he ever talked about on TV……the poor bastard couldn’t even handle the “birth mother” sheet without cringing before the comrades.

How to roll Tone?

Alfonso

23 Mar 13 at 7:07 pm
Earth hour! How could I forget. Lights on, everybody. Bonfires. Fireworks.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

23 Mar 13 at 7:12 pm
Tony has not a single conservative economic doctrine he ever talked about on TV

Exactly, Alfie. He’s a redistributionist in a more expensive suit. It’s just that the commo loonies now trashing the treasury make him look good. I jest not: have you ever heard even one of this filth defend our current economic system? In recent times, only Martin Ferguson has disavowed Marxism.

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 7:21 pm
How to roll Tone?

And replace him with who?

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 7:22 pm
Deadman

Fair enough. I don’t want to get bogged down too much in semantics. What about a pictogram?

(Sorry I took so long to reply, I was going around the house switching on all the lights and appliances. Lit up like a Christmas tree now. I hope Europe appreciates the effort we’re putting in here.)

lem

23 Mar 13 at 7:23 pm
Mk50 I know nothing about rifles but 75 buck for a fireable rifle that is 100 years old seems like a bargain. If it was a lamp that old that still worked I’m sure,it would be worth more.

brc

23 Mar 13 at 7:24 pm
brc, that’s $75 for a period bayonet to go on it.

That said, 90% of the Enfield made Martini-Henry Mk IV 577/450 rifles from International Military antiques are turning out to be shooters. $450 + ~$130 for shipping (don’t forget you B709A form!). These are not cleaned and are straight out of the massive IMA buy of Nepal’s derelict arsenal at the palace of Lagan Silekhana in Katmandu.

But cleaning and restoring them is a hell of a lot of fun, and you double your money.

If you want a piece of Australian colonial history, there are a few good buys at the moment on used guns and ozgunsales

Eddystone, yup. Got 100 155gr Hornady boat tailed BT’s today. I am thinking AR2206 and 2800fps for final load, but for tuning it in I’ll just use 2500fps, then start tweaking the hunting recipe for 2800.

155 AR2206 40.0 2,540 25600psi – 44.5 2,825 -27100psi
155 AR2206H 43.0 2,735 25600psi – 46.0 2,875 -27100psi

I do like ADI powders.

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 7:42 pm
Tiny Dancer

Yes we do, and with a bit more warning I can contact Habib and get him along. He’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Great bloke.

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 7:43 pm
How to roll Tone?

And replace him with who?

Don’t engage with the troll.

Septimus

23 Mar 13 at 7:48 pm
Did I see above mention of a Martini-Henry 577/450?

Catallaxy just got a lot more interesting. I’ve one of those, with triangular bayonet, though I’d never be game to fire it.

I’ll go to my grave with the memory of the display of various M/H rifles of all calibres & eras, looking brand new, fully blued with polished wood, in a museum in (of all places) somewhere in Taiwan.

Steve at the Pub

23 Mar 13 at 8:01 pm
Human Achievement Hour starting in 30 mins for those in Canberra, Sydney & Melbourne.

Andrew

23 Mar 13 at 8:01 pm
Understood but it is an interesting question. Is there anyone in the Libs who is small govt?

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 8:02 pm
Biden’s One-Night Paris Hotel Tab: $585,000.50

As it turns out, Vice President Joe Biden’s London stay in February was not the most expensive part of his trip. A government document released on February 14, 2013 shows that the contract for the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand came in at $585,000.50.

The documentation for this contract is not as detailed as the London one, so the cost per room is not available. However, just like his London hotel, the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand is a five star hotel. Again, security concerns prevent these type of contracts from being open to bidding, but if the government was able to do some comparison shopping, the Hotel Intercontinental has a special offer, “Find a lower price elsewhere and your first night is free.” The Vice President stayed in Paris for one night.

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 8:06 pm
Mail Online: Could we face gas rationing? British gas reserves could run dry in 36 HOURS after freezing householders turn the heating up

Freezing Britain was last night facing the unprecedented prospect of gas rationing.
A combination of bitterly cold weather and pipeline failures has left the energy grid at breaking point.

The country has less than 36 hours of gas reserves remaining and one energy expert warned yesterday that if the cold snap continues, rationing is ‘inevitable’.

If this happens, businesses and power stations will be restricted first, but then householders will be ordered to cut down on the amount of gas they use for heating their homes.

Thank goodness they had the forseight to change the name to climate change dispensing with Glowball Warming.

Eh?

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 8:09 pm
Ah, Earf Hour. Heater on, tv, pc, lights, and any other appliance I can find.

nilk

23 Mar 13 at 8:12 pm
Andrew Ferguson, Editorial Weekly Standard: The ‘Science’ of Same-Sex Marriage

The Kass-Mansfield brief is silent on the larger question of gay marriage as social policy. The professors instead confine themselves to a shared area of expertise: the relation between social science and cultural and political life, which they have pondered and written about for many years.

The brief is an attempt at intellectual hygiene. Among the many annoying tics of contemporary liberalism is its insistence that liberal social policies are always and everywhere determined by the latest findings of social science. Redistribution, affirmative action, tighter economic regulation—name the policy and you’re sure to find some associate professor of some social science or another beavering away with a labful of undergraduates to discover its benefits. Such are the claims made for gay marriage. “More than thirty years of social science,” as one piece of NPR agitprop declared on Morning Edition last week, have demonstrated that children raised by homosexual couples show “no difference” in social outcomes from children reared in heterosexual households. And more recent cutting-edge data show the salubrious effects of gay marriage in general. We are told.

It is the aim of Kass and Mansfield to wave the Supreme Court away from “scientific findings” that are produced by culture warriors, as the findings in the field of “gay studies” nearly always are. “The social and behavioral sciences,” they write, “have a long history of being shaped and driven by politics and ideology.” They note pointedly that two generations ago, the “scientific consensus,” as represented by the American Psychiatric Association, was that homosexuality was a “mental disorder.” The consensus was publicly reversed in 1973, and science, to paraphrase Mae West, had nothing to do with it: Both positions, before and after, were determined by political and cultural considerations.

Now, of course, the American Psychological Association, which waited until 1975 to “depathologize” homosexuality, tries to lend its shaky intellectual credibility to the cause of gay marriage in general and gay parenting in particular. In 2005, it issued a bull declaring the “no difference” finding a matter of settled science. Kass and Mansfield point to a recent paper by Loren Marks of LSU, who had the temerity (and professional death wish) to go back and actually read the 59 studies the APA cited in its decree. They were shot through with conceptual and methodological flaws: small, nonrandom “convenience” samples, a recurring lack of control groups, shifting and poorly defined outcomes, and a steady pattern of comparing apples to oranges—for example, placing the children of intact, well-to-do lesbian households up against children reared by single heterosexual parents.

In all aspects of gay marriage, Kass and Mansfield write, the “body of research . . . is radically inconclusive.”

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 8:18 pm
Lights and power well and truly ON in Marion, SA

Mike of Marion

23 Mar 13 at 8:30 pm
I can hear some of the local motoring enthusiasts turning petrol into motion around some the back roads near here. The pineapples will be dusted in rubber and gravel tonight..

Steve of Glasshouse

23 Mar 13 at 8:44 pm
Is there anyone in the Libs who is small govt?

1. Is there?
2. Would he/she have any chance to lead if he/she exists?
3. What would have to happen in our own country or where-ever else for such a person and such a small govt. position to become popular?

Ellen of Tasmania

23 Mar 13 at 9:05 pm
3. What would have to happen in our own country or where-ever else for such a person and such a small govt. position to become popular

Yes … is it possible for the L/NP to be seen as the party of the left… can the centre be moved back that far or redefined to be large govt vs small rather than left vs right.

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 9:16 pm
Has anyone been to the Cinque Terre in Italy. If so, is it nice, pleasant …?

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 9:19 pm
There are most definitely people in the LP who are libertarians/small government conservatives. The problem is most of them are on the back bench.

Ellen: Small government and freedom can be sold to Australians, I believe. A charismatic leader could definitely do it.

James B

23 Mar 13 at 9:19 pm
Small government and freedom can be sold to Australians, I believe. A charismatic leader could definitely do it.

Because collectivists run the propaganda, the simple idea that the more the government takes the less is left for you is still a subversive idea that has been withheld from the wider population.

Tom

23 Mar 13 at 9:31 pm
sdfc

If Cyprus is a tax haven – I have no objections to their Govt taking 10% of it, to teach the tax evading tax haven using BASTARDS to pay some tax somewhere.

Aliice

23 Mar 13 at 9:35 pm
What the hell is Obama and his Muslim heathen terrorist companion doing at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity – one of Christendom’s holiest places?

C.L.

23 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
In all aspects of gay marriage, Kass and Mansfield write, the “body of research . . . is radically inconclusive.

No, no, no. no, no…yes.

dover_beach

23 Mar 13 at 9:37 pm
How did Obama get through the Door of Humility?

Infidel Tiger

23 Mar 13 at 9:42 pm
What the hell is Obama and his Muslim heathen terrorist companion doing at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity

Taking measurements to turn it into a mosque.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 9:44 pm
If Cyprus is a tax haven – I have no objections to their Govt taking 10% of it, to teach the tax evading tax haven using BASTARDS to pay some tax somewhere.

Australia has more than enough tax income to pay for even a bloated and wasteful government. Why expend resources pursuing money we don’t need? The only reason we’re not on budget is because the current government are utterly, utterly incompetent to the point that I’m not sure the treasurer can even use a simple spreadsheet.

Howard / Costello wasn’t running a lean, mean, small government machine, and still banged out massive surpluses every year. This lot have no excuse beside gross stupidity.

Tax loopholes account for a tiny amount of revenue, and even less when you account for the fact that they’re usually only left open because enforcing them would be a net loss. When a government starts talking about closing them it’s as much as admitting it’s fucked up.

wreckage

23 Mar 13 at 9:49 pm
How did Obama get through the Door of Humility?

He closed his eyes and thought about the Saudi King.

wreckage

23 Mar 13 at 9:51 pm
lol wreckage
yes America loves the Saudi king alright. its a big country – needs a lot of oil.

Aliice

23 Mar 13 at 10:03 pm
What are you talking about Wreckage? i was talking about cyprus above.

Aliice

23 Mar 13 at 10:04 pm
Wilkie demands stabilidy, else no confidence

Lazlo

23 Mar 13 at 10:14 pm
Wilkie only comes up in the news if he has the chance to bribe the government on a vote count.
useless.

Aliice

23 Mar 13 at 10:19 pm
MK50 & Tiny. Yes was good but ended up going the 2am George St kebab via the Greenbank RSL.

Pickles

23 Mar 13 at 10:21 pm
Not that big Sinclair. We are seeing the results of that now. Their size makes them not only too big to fail but too big to bailout.

I don’t see the problem SDFC. If a bank is “big” it means it has a “big” amount of deposits and bond issuance. If the bank fails.. ie loses all it’s equity or so much it becomes unstable then all that has to happen is for the bond holders and then the depositors to move down to the equity level. What is the big fucking deal here?

Stop being a goose.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 10:30 pm
I reckon Wilkie is still smarting from being played like a violin by TLS over pokies. He is also likely to retain his seat. Could be pay back time..

Lazlo

23 Mar 13 at 10:33 pm
Wilkie only comes up in the news if he has the chance to bribe the government on a vote count

And even then he’s ineffective… he’s been pushed around and bullied by the weakest dweebs you could imagine, and he still can’t stand up for himself. Consider all that has happened with the current government – the whole shambles – and Wilkie’s response is, “I’m warning you… if I don’t see some stability, I’ll withdraw my support!” – and even then, he only makes the threat when there is an election already set in less than six months.

I’ve heard it said that many politicians are still sore at being the last one picked for the sports teams at school – Rudd certainly fits that bill. But Rudd is merely an underachiever – he only takes on tasks where he is certain to win, or where he isn’t expected to come close, but might get lucky (but doesn’t risk “failure” since success isn’t expected).

Wilkie, on the other hand, is a loser amongst losers. It must really eat him up – like most of them, he goes into politics to receive some form of validation, but all he gets is consistent confirmation of his inadequacy.

Fleeced

23 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
SATP

Yea and verily, twas I.

If you have a MH 577/450, happy to discuss.

Is yours a Mk II or a Mk IV, or a commercial? If the bayonet fits, then it’s most likely a Mk II.

Rather than here, our ‘trusted agent’ for swapping email addresses etc (and organising get-togethers) is Kae. Self, Eddystone and a couple of others are keen shooters.

There is now a large body of new MH owners building up experience on these rifles here and especially in teh USA as the IMA rifles sell, and I am in contact with one major Australian collector and shooter.

It is actually probable that any MH in reasonable condition is shootable, especially with the new powder types which have been developed to replace black powder.

Black powder is a low explosive which can generate severe pressure spikes as the shockwave of detonation passes through the cartridge. They coped with this metallurgically by using a ductile steel (or in muskets, spiral welded wrought iron on a mandrell) and a lot of it. Then they moved to prismatic powders and not just a pure black powder. That was done to slow doen the detonation rate.

The modern propellants simply don’t have these pressure spikes, and anyone using these oldies (if they have half a brain) does a drastic reduction in bullet mass and also loads to a low mv (when I get the dies and bullet moulds, I’ll drop from a 480gr bullet to a 300, and from 1333fps to 1050 and that will be the max load. I’ll drill out the test rounds (heh – 577/450 hollowpoint) to 220 and step up from there. An alternative is to have the rifle proofed by a recognised proofing authority. One fellow in the UK had a Nepalese cache John Company musket from 1780 proofed in London, quite amazing, the oldest they had done in years.

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
Pickles:

MK50 & Tiny. Yes was good but ended up going the 2am George St kebab via the Greenbank RSL.

Hmmph. Notice he didn’t invite us, Tiny! That said, we do kinda lower the tone a bit….

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 10:43 pm
GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes 1h
#Galaxy Poll Rudd’s behaviour during #spill:
Honourable & true to his word 55 Prima Donna 29 #auspol

And there you go!

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 10:46 pm
GhostWhoVotes ‏@GhostWhoVotes
#Galaxy Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 45 (0) L/NP 55 (0) #auspol

dismissive

23 Mar 13 at 10:47 pm
Left with good intentions but fell in with a band of ruffians and Hoons. Fraser Is fishing louts from the old days.

Pickles

23 Mar 13 at 10:50 pm
Gosh it’s refreshing to read normal conversations among normal men about a night out. Bit sick of the mincing beta-males who go on and on about AGW and Urf Owa.

Gab

23 Mar 13 at 11:02 pm
There’s a 10 pager on Gina R in the New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/25/130325fa_fact_finnegan

The writer is William Finnegan. He seems to be one of their A grade writers. It’s a bit of a hit job as only the New Yorker does.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 11:16 pm
However, after a week that he described as an “unmitigated disaster” for Labor, marked by failure to pass its media reforms and the aborted leadership coup, Mr Wilkie said the government needed to get its act together.

“I tell you what, if the government doesn’t start showing some stability and some competency I think it is going to struggle to get the numbers when that motion of no confidence does come up,” he said.

How long was he prepared to wait for signs of competence?

Would he feel better about them if the media reform had got up?

Rafe

23 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
So, while discussing TLS Mrs Cato asked

“Does anyone else want to tip her over to play a record?”

Then, showing our age, she commented:

“She always makes me think of one of those tipping bird thingies”

Cato the Elder

23 Mar 13 at 11:30 pm
Andrew Wilkie is probably just as dumbfounded and confused by the ALP as everyone else and is not sure what to do in his role as independent.

candy

23 Mar 13 at 11:31 pm
I must admit, it hadn’t occurred to me before. Perceptive woman, Mrs Cato

Cato the Elder

23 Mar 13 at 11:31 pm
You’re hilatious JC. Equities aren’t money.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 11:33 pm
Must learn to type.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 11:33 pm
Gab it was a bit of a bugger for me. Been off the beer for a while to lose some weight, just a leetle spirits on the weekend (unless I’ve incinerated my finger in which case it’s a third of a bottle of medicinal rum).

So Pickles and Tiny are scarfing down schooners like there’s no tomorrow, not showing anything, and I’m feeling it after a miserable four schooners!

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 11:35 pm
So Pickles and Tiny are scarfing down schooners like there’s no tomorrow, not showing anything, and I’m feeling it after a miserable four schooners!

Well stop mincing about quaffing pygmy glasses of beer and KNOCK BACK 4 PINTS – LIKE A REAL MAN

JamesK

23 Mar 13 at 11:48 pm
You’re hilatious JC. Equities aren’t money.

What sort of meaningless response is that SDFC, you nincompoop.

You suggested large banks are problematic as they are too big to fail. I suggested that it’s nonsense because in the event of a failure the bondholders and depositors can move down to the equity level.

You really do need to stop the drinking bouts.

JC

23 Mar 13 at 11:49 pm
BERLIN ADVICE SOUGHT

Folks, one of the progeny is in Berlin for the next 3 days, staying near the centre of town.

Any suggestions/advice as to what things/attractions the progeny should look at?

Said progeny has not been in Berlin before, and has already found the pubs and street-food-sellers!

Mk50 of Brisbane

23 Mar 13 at 11:50 pm
It’s deflationary for a start. You’re confusing banks with flower shops.

sdfc

23 Mar 13 at 11:59 pm
Advice- PUBS

Tiny Dancer

23 Mar 13 at 11:59 pm
Mk50

Be careful using words like progeny! someone will demand an apology!
Anyway isn’t it too cold to be out in Berlin? Or have we already had an impact with our appliances tonight? On Berlin sights, tell ‘em to look up the internet, and stay in the pub. It’ll be just as good. Better.

lem

24 Mar 13 at 12:01 am
So the New Yorker is trashing Gina and meanwhile Fairfax are now trashing Tinklers marriage. The left really hate mining wealth.

Infidel Tiger

24 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
So Pickles and Tiny are scarfing down schooners like there’s no tomorrow, not showing anything, and I’m feeling it after a miserable four schooners!

C’arn ya wuss! lol

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 12:04 am
Gab. Go easy. Mark is a work in progress. In no time he’ll be leading from the front.

Tiny Dancer

24 Mar 13 at 12:06 am
JC

You’re backing inflationary policies here, deflationary policies there. You’re all over the place.

sdfc

24 Mar 13 at 12:07 am
Here’s 20 places in Berlin to visit MK50
Tell said progeny to go on this tour and thank God Australia didn’t go down the same path.

Hark back to the DDR

Soviet occupation of East Berlin ended in 1990, and today the DDR Museum offers a snapshot of life in the old days. The interactive museum allows visitors a truly hands on experience for both children and adults alike: root through drawers of East German memorabilia, mimic a Stasi officer and listen in on a bugged flat. Out on the streets you can take a unique tour of the city by renting a Trabant, the classic car produced in former East Germany, now painted in bright colours by the Trabi Safari company.

Splatacrobat

24 Mar 13 at 12:09 am
SDFC

Are you really this stupid or just trying very hard to be.

A “bank” is represented by a balance sheet made up opf assets (loans) on one side and equity (small portion only) and deposits plus borrowings (bonds) on the other.

A failed bank by definition means that the loans it’s has made no longer are worth what they were booked for and therefore failure occurs.

That money has been lost by the diminution of the value of the loans.

In order for the bank to be recapitalized the money has to come from somewhere. Either the government takes it over or does a TARP like deal, more equity is issued or the lenders and perhaps the depositors move down to equity level.

These events are possibly deflationary? Of course a bank bust is deflationary. Deflation can of course be counteracted by the central bank in a fiat regime.

If you don’t understand this you really shouldn’t be calling yourself an economist.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:09 am
Just teasing, Tiny. I’m sure you two will soon lead the willing astray.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 12:10 am
Hey! Been on the wagon (well sorta) so I don’t start to look like Jabba the ‘Journalist’.

An’t like I’ve taken the pledge.

(grumble, bitch, moan)

Meanwhile, c’mon you well travelled lot – Berlin.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 12:10 am
SDFC

You don’t understand macro. You should be publicly flogged for the crap you post.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:11 am
While on the subject of floggings…I saw the movie Savages last evening on pay per view.

It received poor ratings but I thought it was a pretty decent if very violent movie.

It’s a story about 2 laid back southern Cal dudes running a dope business and a Mexican cartel decides it wants a piece of the action.’

Great looking blond and the Mexican cartel chick played by Salma Hayek proves she continues to have the best rack in Hollywood.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:16 am
Possibly deflationary. You’re talking about destroying money and issuing new shares. There is no doubt about it. Deposits are money.

Cypriot banks have access to LTRO money, if they can’t survive on that they’re fucked

sdfc

24 Mar 13 at 12:16 am
Possibly deflationary.

Yea possibly deflationary depending on the number of failures and size of course.

EU wide Cyprus by itself is no big deal.

You’re talking about destroying money and issuing new shares. There is no doubt about it. Deposits are money.

Are we talking about Cyprus or bank failures in general. Be specific, you idiot.

Cypriot banks have access to LTRO money, if they can’t survive on that they’re fucked

Okay, so they’re fucked. As I said EU wide Cyprus is small potatoes. It’s the deviation from past convention that has upset the markets. In other words is the Cyprus solution going to be the way forward, because if it is then the very first thing people are going to do is take their money out of risky banks thereby creating potential bank runs.

The problem that Cyprus poses as I see it is that any other EU problems that come up will be very fast moving as the Cyprus action may cause fast moving bank runs.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:24 am
We all love good racks

Tiny Dancer

24 Mar 13 at 12:30 am
“Any suggestions/advice as to what things/attractions the progeny should look at?”

Unfortunately the Love Parade was cancelled. Otherwise they might have met Techno Viking.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 1:02 am
Surely it means the onus is back on the depositor to pick a sound bank.Banks going belly up now and then keeps the rest of the herd alert and fit. Sad for the few who lose everything, but on balance better for us as a whole.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 1:29 am
Re gillard’s sham apology.
The ones who should be apologising are the parents of the girls who allowed their daughters to be pressured and coerced by the hospitals and groups like the Salvos to give their kids up.
I realise it was a different era, and the stigma of having unwed daughters with offspring was something many wanted no part of, the shame and embarrassment insurmountable, but doing that to your daughter and grandchild is reprehensible.
How can people not see the apology for what it is? Nothing but a cynical ploy to garner votes, induce a few tears, crocodile tears if any fell from tls.
I still give whenever I see the tin rattlers for the Salvos at the footy or cricket, but this period almost stains them irrevocably.
I say almost because even though they are bible bashers they do a lot of good in the community.

Peter55

24 Mar 13 at 6:27 am
Luke Foley of the NSW ALP combined seamlessly with the ABC TV news to attack the arts! Well, actually, they were so hard up for something to attack that they went for the open air production of Carmen.
Foley was given time in the major evening bulletin to whinge about the disruption to the foreshore near the Botanic Gardens caused by the opera.
Neither he, his government back then, or the ABC had any problem with closing the entire Sydney Harbour Bridge for the stupid breakfast on the bridge thing.
This was a pissweak bit of conservative government bashing, but that’s what they’re reduced to.

Blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 6:38 am
For Clover Moore’s Green bureaucrats, this small business guy was the wrong type of immigrant celebrating the the wrong type of culture:

NICHOLAS Zisti thought he’d get into the Australia Day spirit by decorating the family cafe in patriotic colours – so the City of Sydney hit him with $5000 in fines.

Mr Zisti organised a beach barbecue complete with sand, surfboard and a massive Australian flag printed on plywood panels, which were affixed to the Alexandria shopfront around the January long weekend.

The council decreed he should have lodged a development application first.

“For our contribution to Australia Day the council have given us $5000 worth of fines,” Mr Zisti said. “I registered the event on the Australia Day Council of New South Wales website, and the City of Sydney council website as a free event. I did all the right things.

“The business next door builds stages and sets and did the work (for us) on separate sheets of plywood, which was easily attached and detached with screws without causing any permanent or even cosmetic damage. They were incredibly secure.”

Mr Zisti and his mother, who owns Alexandria Food, got a $3000 fine for not getting development consent for the Australian flag-themed sign. They were also fined for obstructing the footpath and “water pollution”.

“I can’t believe we had to have a development consent for a temporary decoration. To be honest I didn’t think we needed one,” he said. “I’m too scared to put up Xmas decorations now. But I am fighting these fines – it’s like being fined for being Australian.’

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 7:09 am
News that a Florida Atlantic university student was suspended for refusing to take part in a Jesus-stomping class exercise has drawn attention to a little known skill called “intercultural competence”. According to the Daily Caller, ”Ryan Rotela, a devout Mormon”, was told by his professor “ to write the name JESUS in bold letters on a piece of paper, then drop the papers and stomp all over them.”

He objected, which was a bad move.

Blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 7:16 am
Belmont club (at link above) also has a piece on the declining deterrence of the USA’s defences while the threats from various nuclear players grows. See The Fourth Chainsaw, and check the video at the end of it for some awesome chainsaw juggling.

Blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 7:30 am
Their ABC has hit the jackpot in the crackpot mumbo jumbo stakes: they’ve found a female Aboriginal climatologist, who (it being the ABC) looks as white as Captain Cook!

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 7:47 am
So…how are insiders going to blame abbott for this mess? Hasn’t been my sunday morning fare for a good while, but I’ll make an exception today!

Dianne

24 Mar 13 at 8:06 am
STOP PRESS!!! ABC Insiders invaded by aliens:

Episode Synopsis

Episode 08
A not-to-be missed analysis of the week’s political news, with interviews, discussion & analysis. Barrie Cassidy is joined by Laura Tingle, Gerard Henderson & Niki Savva on the panel, plus Christopher Pyne & Andrew Meares.

For the first time in the program’s history, conservatives aren’t outnumbered on the panel (2 vs 2) — and the guest is a conservative. Next week’s square up will be unwatchable.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 8:30 am
Insiders will elaborate the line that the ALP has such a depth of talent that elevating people like Kate Ellis is a natural progression, in fact another master-stroke by the toughest PM ever, and a further advance in the wimyns cause. Down with evil Mysogyny.
I must be channelling hammy!

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 8:32 am
Make that “some of the Insiders …”

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 8:33 am
Tom

24 Mar 13 at 8:30 am

Nah, Hopalong Cassidy couldn’t find any other welded on ALP goons because they are still drunk from Thursday’s cleanout

Mike of Marion

24 Mar 13 at 8:37 am
Tell said progeny to go on this tour and thank God Australia didn’t go down the same path.

There’s still time for that one, Splat, when the offspring brings home school projects that require listing our eating habits (meals, snacks) for a week and comparing them to a fictitious foodie who’s all about junk food.

The next task is to document all the things wrong with the foodie’s menu for the week and what sort of things foodie requires before they cark it due to obesity related conditions.

Ah, primary school in Victo

nilk

24 Mar 13 at 9:08 am
bloody laptop.

Ah, primary school in Victoriastan. I’d hate to be a child today with all the busy-bodies and do-gooders.

They’d suck all the fun out of the air itself if they could.

Oh, wait, Earf Hour.

nilk

24 Mar 13 at 9:10 am
Holy cow, the abc couldn get two leftards to minf leathery

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:14 am
Why are leftards in short supply?

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:16 am
Has someone neen Pol-potting them?

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:16 am
La Tingle will need to be a bit more careful when she goes the AbbottAbbottAbbott with Ol’ Leathery than simply quoting the mincing David Marr after her mid-week Cut & Paste (literally) effort.

H B Bear

24 Mar 13 at 9:19 am
Tingle needs to go on Snog, Marry, Avoid and get some of that make-up off her face.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 9:20 am
Leather thinks Alby is a problem. Maybe Leather wants to fly into Sydney later at night.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:20 am
Froot Tingle reckons Alby is wonderful

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:21 am
hendo reckons TLS is now ‘deauthorisied”!
After all the cretinous stuffups she’s made he reckons that NOW she’s deauthorised.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:26 am
Pyne shedding tears for Rudd’s being cut down.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:27 am
Leather blaming Rudd and Pyne blaming TLS

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:28 am
Pyne reckons Albo’s done a good job but has to go.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:31 am
This is one of the proudest days of my life.

A couple of my humble comments criticising the methodology of Lewandowsky’s still unpublished “climate change sceptics are moon-landing-denying conspiracy theorists” (I paraphrase) paper have made it into the data provided with his latest paper, “Recursive fury: conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation”. I am in a table of comments which allegedly demonstrate conspiracist ideation and general nuttiness with luminaries like Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts and several well-known and well informed commenters on climate blogs.

I am not worthy.

But I am absolutely delighted to have managed to get up the nose of Lewandowsky with a couple of points that anyone who has done a first year TAFE course on survey methodology would be aware of.

Woo-hoo!

The paper is here and the table of honour is in the supplemental data linked on the right hand side of the page.

(Does a happy little skip)

johanna

24 Mar 13 at 9:31 am
nilk,

I can remember my daughter doing a similar ‘project’ of her eating habits around 1988. The lunches were also checked each day and the children told what was ‘bad’.

Of course in those days most Mums (or Dads) made their child’s lunch. There was no school tuckshop, although there was a milk bar across the road for those who needed a bought lunch.

Although I think it was a pet project of the teacher, the school had no problems with sending home boxes of chocolates for fundraising purposes.

We are also in Victoria

eam

24 Mar 13 at 9:33 am
Ol’ Leathery throws in the compulsory gotcha to Pyne about Torbay’s candidacy in New England: how embarrassed are you, etc, etc. Segueing to the Torbay bad-for the Coalition talking point and the Bananaby gotcha.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 9:33 am
Yes, I noticed that Johanna, congratulations! So what is the latest conspiracy that has your ideation?

Biota

24 Mar 13 at 9:35 am
eam, I’ve got no issue with educating kids about healthy eating habits. It’s just that these days you can’t trust the educators to not make a fuss about things. An imaginary character called “Ima Foodlover” sets the alarm bells ringing.

Some schools have practically outlawed gladwrap on kids’ lunches, as another example, and school lunches are checked. My girl’s last school had the occasional “nude food” days where no plastic wrap was allowed at all.

On those days I used twice as much gladwrap and sent a mini packet of chips along with the fruit. I also told her that if anyone had complaints to give them my number.

I never got a call.

Mind you, there are so many airtight sandwich containers around that you don’t need the plastic wrap I use them anyway. Beats squashed sangas for lunch.

nilk

24 Mar 13 at 9:41 am
Laura reckons giving armidale a heated swimming pool to promote Torbay is not corrupt. Macquarie Dictionary on standby to redefine corrupt.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 9:42 am
Thanks Biota.

As for your question – dunno yet – so many conspiracies, so little time …

johanna

24 Mar 13 at 9:43 am
Tingle showing the whites of her eyes – could be doing an Al Jolson impersonation soon. A make-under probably wouldn’t help.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 9:50 am
Tingle tried to talk over everyone again

Mike of Marion

24 Mar 13 at 10:13 am
Bolt’s been reading the Cat.

He was pushing AbbottAbbottAbbott real hard on shrinking the government and IR reform.

Myrddin Seren

24 Mar 13 at 10:16 am
Is Cassandra Wilkinson the daughter of Nikki Savva? She looks like a younger version and has the same facial expressions and manner of speaking.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 10:20 am
Very well done, Johanna.

Keep up the good ideations and recursive fury. They should know that we will never give up. Tooth and nail, every inch of the way, on the beaches etc ….

A big woo-hoo from me to you.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

24 Mar 13 at 10:22 am
Bolta on the Rudd legacy

“I loathed the 20/20 Summit, I thought it was soft fascism !”

He is nicely in stride today.

Myrddin Seren

24 Mar 13 at 10:25 am
This is one of the proudest days of my life.

johanna, I am green with envy. Well done!

mct

24 Mar 13 at 10:26 am
The whole country is talking about Torbay!

Barrie Cassidy, you are a sad, sad little lizard.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 10:30 am
Gutless Albanese says he’ll stay.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 10:32 am
Also needs the money for dental work.

Infidel Tiger

24 Mar 13 at 10:33 am
Anyone else notice that the lady reading assistant in the Gonski TV advert is the same actress suffering through her husband’s blubbing in the ‘New Car’ TV advert?

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 10:34 am
Anyone watch Insiders? Tingle has real man hands. Wow, they’re huge.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 10:36 am
Mark 50 – Berlin stuff. There is an Egyptology museum with a whole bunch of others on an island on the river near the Berliner Dom. Have breakfast on top of the Reichstag (need to book). The topography of terror is very good (history of nazi Germany). Museum below the holocaust memorial. Monument to the red army (its called something else). Bits and pieces of the Berlin wall. Checkpoint Charlie (go to the museum there). Go on a bicycle tour – I think its called far wheels bicycles or red wheels ( located at the base of the telecommunications tower). Have curry bratwurst. Berlin zoo is good. Sex shop owned by first German woman fighter jet pilot just around the corner from zoo.

Sinclair Davidson

24 Mar 13 at 10:40 am
Federal government ad heard on radio yesterday…

Second round of free money coming the way of those receiving government ‘assistance.’ Just do the paperwork and get the cash.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 10:41 am
Sex shop owned by first German woman fighter jet pilot just around the corner from zoo.

LOL. God love the Krauts.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 10:43 am
You know what they say about women with large hands?
If so tell me as I’d be interested

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 10:46 am
The whole country is talking about Torbay!

Barrie Cassidy, you are a sad, sad little lizard.

You gotta laugh. Yea Barrie, we couldn’t stop talking about it all week at home. I’m expecting it will be the topic of conversation for the next 3 months.

You stupid clown, Barrie. Get out from under the ray lamp as it’s frying the few brain cells you have left, you twit.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 10:46 am
Man hands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSL4cmFW_GU

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 10:47 am
I am absolutely delighted to have managed to get up the nose of Lewandowsky with a couple of points that anyone who has done a first year TAFE course on survey methodology would be aware of.

Lewandowsky is a political zealot lining his pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money through the Australian Research Council to wage his jihad against civilisation. And he makes UWA look like a bush trade school.

Sic him, Johanna.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 10:48 am
“curry bratwurst”
God have mercy!
Bratwurst is a war crime.
Curried?
What word is left to describe an offence larger than a war crime.
‘Gillard’ perhaps?
Yes, that food is a Gillard

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 10:49 am
Thanks Lizzie and mct.

The irony is that my alleged “recursive fury” has resulted in in me being one very happy little camper, thanks to him. I never expected to see li’l old me listed with some of the giants of rational science, let alone in a published paper that so admirably demonstrates our point.

johanna

24 Mar 13 at 10:50 am
I would have though three blokes having beers and a larf on a Friday arvo ought be lauded and applauded not derided and blindsided.

I’m sure the great Bracks drew inspiration for “Collins st 5pm” from such observation.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 10:51 am
Hi johanna

Great to see you get an honourable mention in what will be a poster child non-paper for ages to come.

I note from comments on a couple of other blogs that UWA is frantically attempting to ignore written complaints from bloggers quoted under their screen names and who write under their blog handle to point out how bad the Lew/Cook mash is.

Not like anyone at UWA could look at the two papers and see any problems.

Myrddin Seren

24 Mar 13 at 10:53 am
In the last century when they let righties into uni we had a thing called Science Citations and they started performance reviewing papers based on the citation count rather than on the quality.
So this presumably is one Citation for Johanna. So leridinsky has helped your career.

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 10:55 am
1st time watched Insiders in years. Barry worked very hard to find any silver lining for Labor he could.
Tingle was gutless when squared up against 2 people with some intelligence.

Hendo was agreeing with everyone – I wonder if he’ll have to do another round of Maurice v Holmes – nikki agreed with Laura who agreed with Hendo who violently disagreed with Leather who got smashed by Pyne.

Good stuff!

pete m

24 Mar 13 at 10:56 am
“I am in a table of comments”

You did better than that – you’re in the main body of the study, as the first example of the claim survey responses were scammed. The initial wording even seems positive:

Whenever people express their opinions it cannot be ruled out that they are “faking” their responses by providing answers that are intended to please (or deceive) the experimenter. This possibility may be exacerbated with internet surveys that are completed outside a controlled laboratory environment. In a politically charged context, such as climate change, the further risk arises that groups of respondents may “scam” the survey by “faking” responses to deliver a “desired” outcome. This risk was instantly perceived by the blogosphere, and almost immediately (on 29 August, 2012) the concern was expressed that: “The survey was so transparently designed to link climate skeptics with ‘conspiracy nutters’ it would hardly be surprising if a percentage of alarmists readers of those blogs understood what was required, and dutifully performed3.”

Although it’s unsurprisingly dismissive at the end of that section:

The pursuit of the scamming hypothesis without clear a priori statement of what response pattern would represent a “faked” response, and the continual shifting of the criteria for what constitutes “scamming,” reveals either an inconsistent and purely ad hoc approach to data analysis or hints at an agenda-driven effort to invalidate the LOG12 data8. Several of our earlier criteria for conspiracist ideation point toward the latter possibility. For example, the blogosphere’s response appeared driven by the need to resist the “official” explanation of an event (i.e., the LOG12 results in this instance; criterion MbW) and propose a sinister hidden alternative (i.e., “scamming” in this instance; NI). The scamming theory was also explicitly motivated by the presumption that the LOG12 survey was intentionally designed to make “skeptics” look like “nutters”; this meshes with criteria NI and PV. Finally, without a priori specification of what constitutes faked responses, the scamming hypothesis is in principle unfalsifiable: there exists no response pattern that could not be considered “fake” by an innovative theorist. This self-sealing attribute of the hypothesis (criterion SS) may explain its longevity (Figure 2).

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 11:01 am
Tingle was gutless when squared up against 2 people with some intelligence.

Tingle, Tingle’s man hands and ol’leatherface looked out of place on the show.

Tingle seemed very demure on the show

JC

24 Mar 13 at 11:02 am
You know what they say about women with large hands?
If so tell me as I’d be interested

That they’re not recommended for prostate exams… at least, so says Tim Mathieson FFB.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 11:06 am
How could you spot her behind the hands?

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 11:07 am
So Tim’s sphincter isn’t tingled by Lara these days?

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 11:08 am
So a Lara Sphincter Tingle isn’t in for Tim

WhaleHunt Fun

24 Mar 13 at 11:09 am
That they’re not recommended for prostate exams… at least, so says Tim Mathieson FFB.

oh yea. lol.. you wouldn’t want her doing prostate exams, would you? You’d be able to hear the screams on a jet at cruising altitude.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 11:10 am
There’s a photo of Tim at the doors of the jet doing that hang loose hand signal. The one with the the little finger and thumb extended. “hey Tim how’d the prostate exam go?” .. “She got all her fingers in except these two!!!”

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 11:20 am
Can we move on from the toilet humor? Tingle was good today. Not having watched insiders in yonks it was better than I expected.

Sinclair Davidson

24 Mar 13 at 11:21 am
oh yea. lol.. you wouldn’t want her doing prostate exams, would you?

The worst part is after the exam, when you’re back home, you suddenly realise that during the procedure, she had both hands on your shoulders.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 11:22 am
Apologies, Sinc… both for the toilet humour and for my overuse of commas.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 11:24 am
Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 11:22 am

Nah!!! That how Pickering depicts TLS

“With rogering tool”

Mike of Marion

24 Mar 13 at 11:25 am
Need a dedicated poo and wee joke thread.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 11:28 am
Meanwhile, serious shenanigans in the national capital

entropy

24 Mar 13 at 11:29 am
The dinosaurs are coming to life. I hope some great big lizard monster crawls out of Burley Griffin and gobbles them all up.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 11:38 am
I liked Kroger’s analogy on Bolt today, referring to Ferguson’s resignation, that Labor once contained the cream of the working class, but it’s now the dregs of the middle class.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 11:40 am
That’s Beazley Snr’s line from years ago Tom. It’s a goody still.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 11:43 am
Thanks, Pickles. I knew he was sourcing someone else, but he didn’t specify. It’s so accurate. I’d feel creeped out having a beer with any of them.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 11:46 am
Stolen dinosaur? The beginning if the academic year? The good old days. Most students are far too serious for that sort of stuff these days. I blame continual assessment.

Sinclair Davidson

24 Mar 13 at 11:46 am
CL 10:41

Naaah. Not the ad here. You just get the money, no need to do any paperwork!

kae

24 Mar 13 at 11:46 am
Thanks Jarrah. What a buzz – I got even further up Lewandowsky’s nose than previously realised.

I skimmed through the main paper, but must admit that my tolerance for closely reading claptrap is much diminished in my old age. I used to have to do it for a living, but now that nobody is paying for my time, there are always better things to do.

johanna

24 Mar 13 at 11:46 am
Thanks Sinc, email sent!

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 11:48 am
Now that she has clear air, the class war reign of terror gets underway in earnest:

In an exclusive interview to outline her plan to “move on” from the leadership fiasco and deliver a fairer deal for school funding, Ms Gillard also revealed a “no losers” policy would apply to private schools.

Her plan to deliver a big funding boost to struggling public, Catholic and low-fee independents will come with a big price tag. Ms Gillard hinted they’ll be funded by tough budget cuts targeting the rich.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 12:17 pm
Woops! Version one of this went off in my hands:

Now that she has clear air, the class war reign of terror gets underway in earnest:

In an exclusive interview to outline her plan to “move on” from the leadership fiasco and deliver a fairer deal for school funding, Ms Gillard also revealed a “no losers” policy would apply to private schools.

Her plan to deliver a big funding boost to struggling public, Catholic and low-fee independents will come with a big price tag. Ms Gillard hinted they’ll be funded by tough budget cuts targeting the rich.

RTWT

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 12:20 pm
Jonathan Green at The Drum:

‘Hey, how about we publicly fund all media so it’s all government-controlled’?

As an added bonus, he calls those defending a free press “Goebbels.”

Yes, he really did.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-21/green-medialaw/4584388

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 12:31 pm
Crean latest:

Dinosaur stolen from Canberra museum.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 12:34 pm
So the slapper starting another class war. That’s going to be fun to watch.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:37 pm
Pickering in fine form!

She is taking Labor to new lows with female venom always supplanting sound judgment.

This time, the damage to the Labor brand is immense and there is no-one left to turn to for electoral recovery.

And that’s just how our Julia wants it.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 12:38 pm
Pickering is wicked.

But a whorehouse is an apt comparison.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 12:42 pm
Much of the accumulated campaign could best be described as a feverish work of elaborate misinformation. If Stephen Conroy was Stalin, then the Australian media was doing its best to be Goebbels.

What a bald evil twerp he is.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 12:46 pm
Labor government splurge on all their pet projects and send the states broke, as a result of which Liberal state governments are elected to repair the damage. Now a dying federal Labor government, up to its neck in debts and deficits, attempts to veto state spending cutbacks:

“We are certainly putting it to the states that they have to guarantee not to cut schools funding,” Ms Gillard said.

“What I am indicating is the benchmark, they can’t keep taking money out as we keep putting money in.

“We are doing that because there are some incredibly worrying trends in state expenditure, and if you look around the country, you see state governments cutting back expenditure in schools.”

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 1:00 pm
What the heck does “recursive fury” mean?

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 1:02 pm
Shit. This is a really important breakthrough.

The gel that stops bleeding instantly

http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11409/the-gel-that-stops-bleeding-instantly/

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:12 pm
I didn’t like the way that Andrew Bolt treated Cassandra Wilkinson on the Bolt report today he seemed to be not listening to her and she had some interesting things to say. I know he is trying to get across all he’s talking points but the point of a panel is to sometimes enlarge on what somebody has had to say

entropy

24 Mar 13 at 1:15 pm
Ms Gillard hinted they’ll be funded by tough budget cuts…

OK…

…targeting the rich.

Oh – so, by budget cuts, they more likely mean “increased taxes”.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 1:18 pm
From Jonathan Green’s considered thoughts at The Drum, to which the Lad linked:

On Tuesday The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age published identical copy with headlines just two words apart, arguing – for the story was not the simple reporting of fact – that senior ministers had shifted their allegiance from the Prime Minister. ‘Ministers turn on PM’, said the SMH, ‘Ministers desert PM’ said The Age.

By early morning the stories, hardly dry in their newsagent shrink wrap, had been discredited by both key Cabinet ministers concerned, Mark Butler and Bob Carr, Carr making the point that he had never been asked about his support for the PM, and that if he had been he would have been strenuous in his denials that it was anything but solid. That, he reasoned would have killed the story.

Such insight! And Green wants the taxpayer to support more of the same.

areff

24 Mar 13 at 1:20 pm
Ent, that’s one of Bolt’s extremely bad habits. He also talked over, interrupted and tried to put words in Abbott’s mouth in the earlier segment.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 1:21 pm
Mead touches on exactly the problem I see. He talks about healthcare as that’s an important hot button issue in the US these days. However it also applies here.

When supporters of command and control modelers think about stuff going forward they have to think in context of what is around today and build on that. However healthcare will be as different this century as it was at the end of the 19th C compared to 2000. In fact the difference will be even more stark.

The world is in the early stages of a golden age of biotech innovation, one that has the potential to revolutionize everything from health care and manufacturing to energy production. And the biotech revolution will build on and add to the infotech revolution that has been shaking the world for the last 50 years. The 21st century will be more different from the 20th than the 20th was from the 19th. And the 22nd century will be something else again, if we don’t kill ourselves en route.

VM never gets tired of pointing this out for one very simple reason: wonks who don’t keep the innovative dynamism of our age at the forefront of their minds as they think up new policies are likely to do more harm than good. Trying to build elaborate models for the future of healthcare based on today’s delivery systems and economic models is as futile as trying to build a national transportation model in 1830 based on the success of the Erie Canal.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/23/medical-breakthroughs-and-smart-policy/

That’s why smart policy is to actually get out of the fucking way and leave the markets alone.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:21 pm
Ent, Tom…

I don’t watch the program, but from what I have seen of it, he really is pressed for time having ads and only 1/2 an hour to contend with.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:23 pm
entropy @ 1.15pm

Bolt is too interested in pushing his own view. What he did to Wilkinson today he also did to Costa 2 weeks ago (but much worse – he just rudely shut Costa out while he carried on a discussion with Costello). Also, the way he handled today’s interview with Tony Abbott was particularly painful.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 1:24 pm
Dinosaur stolen from Canberra museum

I’m innocent, I tells ya!

Rabz

24 Mar 13 at 1:25 pm
Yeah, Bolt program should have been extended before MtP….

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 1:25 pm
Don’t marry. Do not marry under any circumstances….

Striking rich! $11.2B oil fortune at center of largest potential divorce in history

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:27 pm
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/striking_rich_oil_fortune_history_b0dpsFVYFdLc69f2eMmNOK

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:27 pm
If he doesn’t have time Bolt should change the format. Just have a panel, or just have an interview.

entropy

24 Mar 13 at 1:32 pm
Why change the format when his viewer base is building and continuing to do so? You gotta be careful changing stuff when the existing formula is working.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:34 pm
Stolen dinosaur? The beginning if the academic year? The good old days. Most students are far too serious for that sort of stuff these days. I blame continual assessment.

One must ask what was Tony Abbott’s role in this.

Keith

24 Mar 13 at 1:36 pm
Don’t marry. Do not marry under any circumstances…

Doesn’t matter, JC. The state deems you as married as it sees fit. Break up with a girlfriend, and you can still get sued if you’re rich enough.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 1:36 pm
I didn’t like the way that Andrew Bolt treated Cassandra Wilkinson on the Bolt report today he seemed to be not listening to her and she had some interesting things to say.

b.s.
Wilkinson had drunk the Gillard cool-aid. For instance, in answer to a question on Crean’s about-face on Kevin Rudd (he went from ‘should be prime minister’ to ‘shameless’), Wilkinson explained how Gillard’s in power because she’s so popular with other pollies. This not only ignored the spirit and topic of the question, but also showed an ignorance of the power structure within the ALP.

Then later she tried to argue that Rudd is more left wing than Gillard. The implied reciprocal of this was that Gillard’s a moderate and centrist. That was Wilkinson’s message, and she got it out loud and clear. Neither Bolt nor Kroger agreed with her.

Bolt should facilitate, sure, but it’s not his role to sit there wide-eyed and credulous at everything his panelists say.

dd

24 Mar 13 at 1:37 pm
Fleeced

Don’t stay with the same girl for longer than the family law dictates it becomes a relationship.

A friend, a decent sized hedge fund dude was sued for millions by a woman he saw once a week for sex. However because it ran for over the period, she was able to sue.

Run a diary on dates etc and boot her before the expiry.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 1:40 pm
A friend, a decent sized hedge fund dude was sued for millions by a woman he saw once a week for sex. However because it ran for over the period, she was able to sue.

That’s ridiculous… how could such a casual relationship be considered a dependancy? Getting to the stage where rich dudes need a pre-nup for a date…

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 1:44 pm
Why do women deserve millions they didn’t make or earn just because there’s a divorce? Western softcock males need to re-assert some kind of authority and control, they really do.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 1:44 pm
But the point is that they did not put very much effort into discrediting those memes dd. so it just looked like Bolt ignored her points because he found them inconvenient.

As for Abbott, he should have just said”look Andrew, you might want the coalition to go all hairy chested and claim they are going to ratfuck public servants, but they are people with families too. We will only cut public servants where it is necessary”.

I can’t believe he doesn’t have a prepared line, because for a boxer he isn’t too quick on his feet.

Entropy

24 Mar 13 at 1:44 pm
So what if they’ve got families?

The sooner they cut the drip and enter the real economy the better for everyone.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 1:48 pm
I can’t believe he doesn’t have a prepared line, because for a boxer he isn’t too quick on his feet.

They figure they can’t have a prepared line for every scenario, and don’t want to waste time preparing one that may never be needed anyway… so he instead learns how to obfuscate without “causing offense”[1], which is used as a catch-all.

[1] A tough call, since being offended is apparently in the eye of the offendee, e.g.: “birth mothers”

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 1:50 pm
We will only cut public servants where it is necessary

Bolt was taking issue with the size of cuts that are “necessary.” He repeatedly asked him if he thought the level of government expenditure on salaries and pensions was sustainable. He didn’t really get an answer.

dd

24 Mar 13 at 1:55 pm
I can’t believe he doesn’t have a prepared line,

Exactly. It’s not as if they are unaware of the criticism and opposition to PS cuts. This is basic and he should have a line prepared to handle such questions on these controversial issues.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 1:57 pm
Marry a good fundamentalist girl and then don’t piss her off.

wreckage

24 Mar 13 at 2:00 pm
being offended is apparently in the eye of the offendee, e.g.: “birth mothers”

That “birth mother” / “true mother” BS was a set-up of Tony Abbott by a bunch of loud-mouthed activists in the audience, probably orchestrated from Dullard’s office (hence her ‘mysoginist Tony is back’ jibe later in Question Time). Terrible bad luck that it’s been mostly drowned out in Labor’s self-inflicted leadership fiasco, hey?

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 2:01 pm
That “birth mother” / “true mother” BS was a set-up of Tony Abbott by a bunch of loud-mouthed activists in the audience, probably orchestrated from Dullard’s office (hence her ‘mysoginist Tony is back’ jibe later in Question Time)

Ya know, I suspected that all along. Is there any way to find out who was the harridan yelling out. No fucking wonder she was dropped like a hot rock at birth.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 2:10 pm
If that was me instead of Abbott that’s what I would have told her. With the obvious exception of everyone else, I could fully understand why the birthmother got rid of her the moment she was out of the birth canal. In fact the birthmother dodged a bullet with that.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 2:12 pm
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/bolt_report_today12/

Bolt asks a direct question to Abbott on whether he will do anything with his mandate. Finally it’s happened. Answer wasn’t terrible by Abbott, but it was very careful as always.

ANDREW BOLT: Well let’s go to your plan. Now, your critics say that Labor’s going so badly that you are under no pressure to release detailed costings or detailed policies. I mean, you’ve got your plan – but detailed. My concern is a little different. You are not building a mandate. You look like having a terrific – going in, the chances are you will have a terrific majority. You don’t want to waste it on a do-little mandate. Are you doing enough? Take about – take IR, for example, you could really make a difference.

TONY ABBOTT: And I believe the commitments that we have already announced, to fully restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission – a tough cop on the beat, in a difficult industry – to have a registered organisations commission, that will act as a kind of an ASIC for unions, a corporate cop for unions, to have the same penalties for dodgy union officials as we have for dodgy company directors. These are very significant steps in the right direction. They will improve the culture of our workplace. And, look, there will be careful, cautious, responsible changes to the Fair Work Act to address the militancy problem, the flexibility problem, and above all else, the productivity problem. And we will be saying more on this in weeks rather than months.

James B

24 Mar 13 at 2:17 pm
The person who came out worst frm the Bolt report was Abbott. He didn’t answer a single question, he waved his little book pathetically, and treated the viewers as if they were all idiots. He has obviously been told to deliver his prepared lines at all costs and was quite prepared to repeat them ad nauseam. He established beyond all doubt that he is nothing more than a conventional power hungry creep. If this is the best the libs can put up we are fucked. And judging by Turnbull and Hockey,it is.

DrBeauGan

24 Mar 13 at 2:23 pm
Lol Turnbull. What a complete and utter sack of shit. He should go join the Greens.

James B

24 Mar 13 at 2:26 pm
Answer wasn’t terrible by Abbott, but it was very careful as always.

As should be expected. It didn’t suit Bolt who is trying (a bit desperately IMHO) to get a scoop, but what the hey? Bolt was emasculated by Dullard’s phone call to his boss at News early last year and has been pretty much the wrongologist of choice ever since.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 2:50 pm
An ASIC-type body for unions is a good idea, though I’m ambivalent about a fully restored ABCC. Their s52 power took away the right to silence long before O’Farrell and the SFP did, and more directly.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 2:53 pm
Why do we need/want the right to silence?

James B

24 Mar 13 at 3:00 pm
Just getting rid of he cabin tax will be a bug step forwards. Because it should stop the trend of taxing and regulating in the name of ‘climate change’. Death of the climate meme is the most important issue rig now, because so much spending and idiocy is done in its name.

If Abbott gets in, Gets rid of the carbon tax and the ets, and ther is barely a whimper, we can start campaigning for opt out of kyoto and tearing up the ret. to me this is more important than IR right now.

brc

24 Mar 13 at 3:16 pm
Dullard’s phone call to his boss at News early last year

Ha. My Bad. Dullard’s phone call to Hartigan was actually 18 months ago, on the morning of 29 August 2011. Time flies when you’re having fun

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 3:25 pm
Why do we need/want the right to silence?

Because if you talk to the cops you’re boned.

wreckage

24 Mar 13 at 3:56 pm
James B..rule number 1 is never talk to the police without legal representation.

Steve of Glasshouse

24 Mar 13 at 4:04 pm
Why do we need/want the right to silence?

If you are really really interested in learning the answer to your question, I suggest you watch this vid by law professor and former criminal attorney James Duane who is followed by Officer Bruch, agrees with what Duane said and explains why.

Even though Duane talks about the Fifth Amendment, the essence of what he explains is applicable here.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 4:09 pm
Why do we need/want the right to silence?

Silence itself shouldn’t used or construed as a sign of guilt in any possible way. It’s a hallmark of our judicial system and shouldn’t be tampered with. Fatty O’Barrell can go fuck himself for what he’s done.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 4:09 pm
I’ve got a case of the irrits..if we have such great relationships with our northern neighbours, why don’t we have access to their passport control photos. What a great way to put names to faces for those asylum seekers who lob into Indo first up.Has anyone in the immigration dept even asked if they can get some IDs verified in Indo/Malaysia etc? The dark side of me sees too much money being made made corrupt gov officials up that way to see this come to anything useful, hence the irrits..

Steve of Glasshouse

24 Mar 13 at 4:19 pm
I really want one of these.

Micro-beltfed machinegun 1919a4 Lakeside Machine Miniature beltfed 22LR.

Eddystone

24 Mar 13 at 4:32 pm
Man, I don’t go for guns much these days, but I’d love one of those micro machine guns.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 4:37 pm
Imbecile Cuomo Seeks to Repeal His Own New Gun Law

Well, he was looking out outfox those frothing “extemists” back when he rammed these absurd new gun laws through in the dead of night a couple of months ago.

Gun control activists hailed New York lawmakers in January for quickly passing the first tough gun restrictions since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

“Common sense can win. You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense,” boasted Cuomo to reporters in January before he signed the bill.

Intelligence, reason and common sense, three traits Cuomo obviously doesn’t possess.

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/imbecile-cuomo-seeks-to-repeal-his-own-new-gun-law/

JC

24 Mar 13 at 4:38 pm
Had to happen I guess.

James Holmes converts to Islam

The man who shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” last summer has reportedly converted to Islam and prays up to five times a day. A prison source say the beard James

JC

24 Mar 13 at 4:40 pm
Eddystone, just stripped and reassembled the Martini henry .303

I am delighted with it! Superb condition, 90% plus bore. It’s a converted Mk I. Ejects cleanly and crisply. Lovely.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 4:43 pm
I hope that Bob Ellis woke up to something this morning other than a resigning federal minister. Ok. I’ll make an allowance for KEllis

Tiny Dancer

24 Mar 13 at 4:51 pm
The internet reveals that everyone talks their book.

LP reckons that the ALP can win the election with a primary vote of 38% or less.

Homer Paxton thinks it’s not Swan’s fault for not balancing the budget, cutting spending is inexplicably impossible, what we have is too much real growth and not enough inflation, and productivity improvements made as unemployment falls show that despite Gillard being the only PM since Hawke to preside over negative productivity growth, there is no problem with employment or wages growth.

Homer is still pimping the ‘youse never had it so good’ nonsense.

The participation rate falling then going stagnant is of no consequence to Kouklas or Paxton.

They’re probably very lucky no one publishes long term discouraged worker stats except in a raw form.

Remember, In August 2008 when unemployment was 3.9% (and the next month the participation rate shot up to 66%), the “extended underutilisation” (or total unemployment) rate was 10.9%.

The “real” unemployment rate now is 12.64%.

Since Kevin Rudd hit his peak popularity, there have been a net 211 000 people who have been made unemployed, even with massive employment growth during the 2009-2010 pump priming (and in mid 2010-late 2012 the labour market was very tough for job seekers).

It doesn’t seem like much save for the fact that these people were never welfare addled mendicants and many were workers with families and mortgages.

Those 211 000 compare strongly to the tens of thousands of jobs apparently created every month.

They will look back at August 2008 whilst we still had workchoices contracts in effect, with 3.9% official unemployment and remember when their husbands or wives had jobs, parents had jobs or what job they expected to get when they started university or TAFE.

It might seem insignificant against total population, but the number with a spouse and a now adult child versus enrolled electors comes close to explaining the post 2010 swing against the ALP.

What should be very strongly noted now is that Abbot is leading 49-43 over Gillard as preferred PM.

Remember we were told Abbot was too unpopular, especially with women.

It’s a lie. Gillard is universally reviled.

.

24 Mar 13 at 4:53 pm
Why are your hoping Ellis woke up? I hope the fat foul lardball is still asleep.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 4:54 pm
That’s awesome Mark.

Looking forward to a range report.

Just back from Service rifle shoot.

200m down to about 25m, prone, kneeling, sitting and standing.

Deliberate, snap, rapid and moving target. The old Lithgow performed flawlessly as always, bless her.

Eddystone

24 Mar 13 at 4:55 pm
Did the ABC crack in it’s rock solid support for the ALP? Insiders had two non Lefty panelists. I think the ABC now realizes it’s unlikely Abbott will stuff it up now and the ALP has no hope of pulling it together for the election. Will the ABC now start showing some more balance as a hedge against the growing chorus for the ABC to be broken up and privatized. I think the ABC has started to put its own survival above it’s forlorn efforts to help the ALP win.

John Comnenus

24 Mar 13 at 4:56 pm
John C

Naaaaa

Old leather face must have had lefties with conflicting schedules and last minute no shows.

There’s no way ole’leatherface is deserting the liars party. He’s too fucking stupid to read the tea leaves.

Ol’ leatherface would be the first platoon member to die in a war as he would be too stupid to survive.

You’re not dealing with very smart people here, John.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 5:02 pm
“Why do we need/want the right to silence?”

Freedom of speech means freedom to be silent. Then there’s the “innocent until proven guilty” thing.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 5:05 pm
What did he convert from

Insanity , I would imagine.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 5:06 pm
Ol’ leatherface would be the first platoon member to die in a war as he would be too stupid to survive.

He was interviewed on ABC24 on Friday morning by the jiggling Michael What’s-his-name and Beverly (she refers to Dullard as ‘Julia’) O’Connor. His theory for Thursday’s Liars Pardy leadership debacle was that it was all the media’s fault (excluding the ALPBC, of course).

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 5:12 pm
First guesses

L/NP 107

ALP 40

KAP/IND/GRN 3

http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2013/calculator/?mode=overall&overall=-6.1&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringmps=false&lyne=nat&neng=nat&ocon=lib

I’d override a handful of outer suburban seats and give the Coalition six more.

If someone had state by state figures, they’d probably be pretty accurate outcomes.

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:19 pm
Old leather face must have had lefties with conflicting schedules and last minute no shows.

It must be disheartening for lefties with the current mob… I’m surprised he gets the numbers as it is.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 5:22 pm
Crazies will find something in any religion/ideology to justify their actions… though some religions seem geared for them.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 5:25 pm
Eddystone.

Cool. Iron sight comps are a bucket of fun. You have no idea how anxious I am to get the MkII sight refitted. I am tempted to rock along to the local service comp and pull her out.

Hey, she’s a .303 AND the Victorian Army was still an army, yeah?

have to do a lot of range work first.

I have a mad mate who’s considering a rolling block Snider. Another service rifle as far as I’m concerned. OK, 1850s, but let’s not quibble.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 5:26 pm
Even with the “best” poll the Green Ant has the ALP, the Coalition get 75 seats with Bandt, Katter and Wilkie on the cross benches, and perhaps 76 if the Liberals get O Connor from Crook.

The Green Ant calcs. tap out at 117 L/NP, 31 ALP and 2 Other.

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:26 pm
Even 31 seats is far too high for them, Dot. Those electorates need to go into Fisk doctrine re-ed centers where they learn that the APS is not the job to aspire to, Tubbsie Milne isn’t very bright and the Lying Slapper is a dishonest political troll.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 5:32 pm
JC

The preferences flows are hard to judge and the actual voting intentions (think revealed preference vs stated preference data) are also are a bugger.

The ALP could realistically end up with anything from 20 to 60 seats Federally.

This is why they are shit scared.

FFS. I had a really good post that mentioned ReachTEL. It has been moderated/retconned out of existence.

The ReachTEL poll basically says the L/NP is on 60% 2PP throughout Tasmania.

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:36 pm
I’m back baby, back.

I see the Q&A open thread went well and a few new lunatics have joined the fray.

Carpe Jugulum

24 Mar 13 at 5:36 pm
Thus, excluding Denison, on the latest poll data which seems to be somewhat stable, we can estimate a result of

L/NP 111

ALP 36

OTH 3

I assume only Bandt, Katter and Wilkie will get in as cross benchers.

The Green Ant also reckons it will take Abbot two elections or a double D election to have Coalition control of the Senate.

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:39 pm
That “birth mother” / “true mother” BS was a set-up of Tony Abbott by a bunch of loud-mouthed activists in the audience, probably orchestrated from Dullard’s office (hence her ‘mysoginist Tony is back’ jibe later in Question Time)

Ya know, I suspected that all along. Is there any way to find out who was the harridan yelling out. No fucking wonder she was dropped like a hot rock at birth.

Agree JC.
Bolta had a post yesterday citing seven (7) instances where the Age used the term “birth mother” but now criticise Abbott for using the term.
I think a couple of these sooks (who need to harden up and get on with their lives) were playing PC word bingo, waiting for Abbott to say any one of several phrases and then attack him.
I am reminded of the farce of the apology to the ‘digenous brudders where a team of dickheads turned their back on Nelson.
Fucking turds.
I am sick of members of these professional victims pressure groups having a friendly and sympathetic hand extended to them and slapping it away.
We need a term to distinguish between the person who carried the child and the people who raised the child.
I think it is disrespectful to the adopting parents to call the birth mother, simply “mother”.
As soon as I heard of both instances of this grandstanding, I thought the same as you …. whoever gave these dick-wits away truly dodged a bullet.

Leigh Lowe

24 Mar 13 at 5:43 pm
[You're not here anymore. Sinc]

Crean-Satisficer

24 Mar 13 at 5:53 pm
BIRD?! You crazy motherfucker. In how many years do you think we ought to start repressing Jews, you clonazepam and thorazine deprived fuckhead?

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:54 pm
Waratahs finally win a game after desperately trying to lose. They would be dangerous if they could catch.

John Comnenus

24 Mar 13 at 5:55 pm
No More Apologies.
Unless it’s to apologise to all those demonised for adopting, fostering, or otherwise looking after kids of any colour, and those who spent substantial parts of their lives trying to give part-aboriginal kids an alternative to wasting away out in the never-never.

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 5:57 pm
It don’t take much to get bird up there.

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 5:58 pm
The tahs are actually, on paper, a hell of a team.

Let’s hope they don’t bottle it this year like back in 2005/2006.

They’ve basically had four chances in the previous decade, I wonder why this is why I was/am a Balmian/Wests fan as well?

.

24 Mar 13 at 5:59 pm
No More Apologies.

I am actually totally against it except for institutionalisation of, or institutionalised cover ups, of child abuse.

We should still be removing children from abusive, mendicant parents.

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:01 pm
Thanks, Dot, for your fine instincts. Good to see you back. I hope Sinc is reading.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 6:07 pm
JC
I don’t think we are in fundamental disagreement over the issue of taxing deposits and the dangerous precedent it sets or is perceived to set. The EU seems to be basically picking on Cyprus because they are too small in and of themselves to pose a systemic problem. I agree, the danger is in the perception that it will occur elsewhere.

If the Europeans are set on this course they need to move to a position as to how to manage the transition of Cyprus out of the euro rather than just finger pointing.

I’m a little less sympathetic to the foreign depositors than I am to the Cypriot deposit holders.

Iceland did the right thing in burning the foreigners while maintaining their internal credit flows. But then again they could do that because of their sovereign currency.

sdfc

24 Mar 13 at 6:08 pm
Abbott!!! Not that I have watched TBR, but I’ve gone off Bolt, for a few years now, as he is but a shell of what he once was. His whitey blackfella court case sucked it all out of him, and he is forever whining, ‘Wahwahwah, they can say it but it is now too dangerous for me to do so’, forever having no comments on any articles to do with blackfellas.
As for Abbott. Well, at least he has come out from hiding behind his wife’s and Bishop’s skirts, but he still will not defend his wife and daughters from that lying slapper’s misogyny tirade. I guess it is too late now, it would make him look even more foolish than he was on the day, even if the mincing poodle and others were righteously angry last week after the slapper’s cowardly jibe as she finished droning on.
If they can get angry now, why not when it was in full, off the cuff, mcternan supplied, rant mode, when it should have been done?
As for his policies, who could vote for someone with a stupid Direct Action Plan, his parental leave plan (there should be no parental leave at all for government workers, but if private companies want it, it’s their money), and he also wants to up the baby bonus again.
No baby bonus period. Bloody Costello was a fool for bringing it in, and it was mostly abused by ferals sucking on the generational welfare teat shooting out more generational welfare parasite sprog.
Sadly, Abbott is the only choice, and I wouldn’t even vote for Bishop, not after her pathetic effort brandishing those papers purportedly showing the slapper to be a thief and liar. As for Brandis, what a coward.
Thank christ it makes my task of just showing up and having my name ticked off for my postal vote so easy.

Peter55

24 Mar 13 at 6:13 pm
Not sure whether to laugh or weep.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/the-sexual-politics-of-meat-20130320-2gfx0.html

Eating meat is associated with male power in its most vile and repugnant forms. … In rejecting meat, feminists – both women and men – are rejecting a potent symbol of patriarchal power. … The ill treatment of animals makes the abuse of women tolerable.

And then, after professing to care about language, she does this:

We say chicken leg, rather than leg of a chicken, because it helps us not to think of the dead animal, and we say foie gras rather than force-fed geese with exploding livers because the latter is rather off-putting.

Foie gras literally means ‘fat liver’, ya nong. And how exactly is ‘chicken leg’ euphemistic??

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 6:14 pm
Why I love Malcolm Turnbull.

Conservative god botherers and slack jawed, success-hating ALP voters who either work in dead end jobs or who are mendicants can go fuck themselves.

The NBN would be nice to have as a hypothetical, but as a reality it is a piss poor piece of crap run like an ALP owned brothel.

http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/speeches/speech-to-parliament-fourth-progress-report-on-the-rollout-of-the-nbn/

We have a remarkable lack of transparency on the cost of the NBN’s construction. The NBN Co. will not tell the committee what it is costing them to pass or connect each premise. As we have set out in this report, they have hinted at costs but they do not even include the cost of getting the fibre into the premise, which, as everybody in the industry knows, is actually the single largest part of the civil works. That is why so many telco firms terminate the fibre at the kerb or in the basement of an apartment building or on a street corner. What is most remarkable about this is that here you have the NBN Co., which is a government owned business that is being set up as a monopoly, so it does not have to worry about competitors, and is wholly owned by the taxpayers of Australia, and it will not provide basic information that telcos in other markets do. Chorus, which is the structurally separated customer access network company that was formerly part of Telecom New Zealand, discloses precisely what its cost is to pass each premise and to connect each premise. You have to ask yourself why NBN Co. is not producing those figures. I think the reason is pretty clear: they are not prepared to own up to the huge and growing cost of this rollout.

I have talked about the cost here, but the speed of the rollout is a matter that we have also expressed great concern about. In 2010 the NBN Co’s business plan said that they will have passed 1.3 million premises by 30 June 2013. In August last year they reduced that down to a figure somewhat in excess of 300,000. Now, it is 286,000, and we understand they will shortly be announcing that they have not been able to meet that target either. At that rate it could take in excess of 20 years to complete this network. So what does that mean for somebody who has lousy broadband? At least two million premises in Australia do not have sufficiently fast broadband to be able to watch a YouTube video. So, yes, there is a real need to address it, but it has to be done in a speedy and cost-effective way. If the government had had an ounce of rational responsibility and an ounce of business sense before embarking on this project it would have done a thorough cost-benefit analysis, but I have spoken to the House about that before.

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:14 pm
A link to that article only just hit my FB feed, so apologies if it’s already been brought up here.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 6:15 pm
Thank christ it makes my task of just showing up and having my name ticked off for my postal vote so easy.

Peter

I recommend the LDP to you.

If you are still unhappy, you are a very principled person and I support your non participation as well.

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:16 pm
The avian can’t go more than a week without a dive-bombing attack. Thanks, Doomlord.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 6:20 pm
1. Eating meat is associated with male power in its most vile and repugnant forms.

In a logic that sounds positively mystical, real men, we are told, should be physically strong and virile, which means killing and eating strong animals.

No love. It means factory farming and fishing. Only rich hippy moonbeams can afford brutally hand slaughtered ethical meat.

2. The ill treatment of animals makes the abuse of women tolerable.

This is utterly stupid since you declare that women are not animals but we all are animals. Get off the dolls, love.

3. Vegetarians, like feminists, care about language.

Then why are so many semi literate teenagers?

4. Feminists and vegetarians share a common project of ending discrimination based on arbitrary distinctions. We are all, at our base, animals. So why should one animal species be outside the realm of our compassion?

Except for women. They aren’t animals. It is sexist to say so.

5. Feminists and vegetarians believe that the personal is political.

I know some vegetarians who don’t give a shit about politics. They are either religiously vegetarian or just hate meat (after growing up on cattle farms and associating the taste of meat with the stench of cattle trucks etc).

My God. That Daily Life is an indulgent expression of FXJ’s desire to self destruct.

No one would pay to read that crap.

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:21 pm
I’ve gone off Bolt, for a few years now, as He is but a shell of what he once was.

ridiculous.
This is the right wing version of “I liked [popular band] before they became popular but then they got big and sold out.”

dd

24 Mar 13 at 6:24 pm
I liked catallaxy when it was on blogspot servers and Teresa Fels was a blogger!

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:26 pm
dd..non sequitur..you are on troll watch

Steve of Glasshouse

24 Mar 13 at 6:31 pm
Not sure whether to laugh or weep.

Jarrah, a hint for reading Fairfax: always look first at the byline.

Alecia Simmonds’ arrival on the scene as a Green left fruitcake activist fresh from university has been noted here before. She is a symbol of FXJ’s immolation of its AB demographic — the demographic necessary for the survival of newspapers — which the company frog-marched out the front door about eight years ago.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 6:32 pm
Holy crap. She needed to earn a degree to be able to have the grounding to write such an article?

I guess under the ALP there has been progress on equity. Even the severely mentally retarded can earn a quid.

.

24 Mar 13 at 6:34 pm
dd..non sequitur..you are on troll watch

It wasn’t a non sequitur. I disagreed and made my point by way of analogy.
I’m on “trollwatch”? WTF is that, and according to who am I on it?

dd

24 Mar 13 at 6:36 pm
No More Apologies.

I am actually totally against it except for institutionalisation of, or institutionalised cover ups, of child abuse.

We should still be removing children from abusive, mendicant parents.

I am seeking an apology and compensation from the Catholic Church. I was an altar boy in Western Victoria in the 70′s and our then parish priest is doing 25 in the Big House for his fiddling exploits.
He didn’t molest me, and I often lie awake and night wondering why he didn’t find me attractive.
It has knocked my self esteem sideways big-time.
I want an apology ….. oh, and some cash would nice too.

Leigh Lowe

24 Mar 13 at 6:37 pm
He didn’t molest me, and I often lie awake and night wondering why he didn’t find me attractive.

South Park s03e17:

The third grade class of South Park elementary is invited to play “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at the “4 Million Child Blow 2000″ event. When he hears that it’s in Arkansas, Mr. Garrison tries to get out of the trip, to avoid contact with his estranged family. After Mr. Mackey forces him to confront his problems, Mr. Garrison reunites with his parents. He tells his father that he has emotional problems because he didn’t molest him as a child, giving him a poor self-image. Meanwhile, Cartman is in search of a note on the recorder that causes people to lose control of their bowels.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 6:40 pm
Leigh..survived the nuns, christian brothers and the priests. It’s interesting to watch who get throws in the klink..

Steve of Glasshouse

24 Mar 13 at 6:47 pm
Fleeced..can relate to the recorders…and warm sour milk and nuns who made us eat discarded sangers out of the pig bin. APOLOGY NOW!!!

Steve of Glasshouse

24 Mar 13 at 6:49 pm
As for Abbott. Well, at least he has come out from hiding behind his wife’s and Bishop’s skirts, but he still will not defend his wife and daughters from that lying slapper’s misogyny tirade. I guess it is too late now, it would make him look even more foolish than he was on the day, even if the mincing poodle and others were righteously angry last week after the slapper’s cowardly jibe as she finished droning on.

That’s a very confused tirade, Pete55.

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 6:51 pm
Leigh..survived the nuns, christian brothers and the priests. It’s interesting to watch who get throws in the klink..

I certainly don’t want to make light of abuse. I am just sick and tired of the Victims Industry wanting an apology for every fucking thing, ably assisted by Pollies like the Droner who are only too ready to apologise for someone else. Funnily enough they are highly reticent when it comes to apologising for their own fuck-ups ….. and she has plenty to choose from.
Speaking of the nuns and brothers, I got a good thrashing for my shitty behaviour on a regular basis, and I know corporal punishment is frowned upon these days ( as it probably should be).
However, it does no-one any good – least of all me – to attribute any current day ills and misfortunes to the fact that the norms for child discipline were different back then.

Leigh Lowe

24 Mar 13 at 6:56 pm
Peter55 @ 6.13pm

I think you just outed youself as a troll with that comment.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 6:59 pm
So now we have nother bleat-week about bullying. The ABC’s Compass program has just been devoted to it. It seems a long time since Compass was about the main religion in this country, at least in a good way.
Their advice to combat bullying seemed to come down to asking other kids to go to the bullied one and say “I disagree with the way you have been treated. Here, have a Chupa Chup.”
I blame the parents for the bullying. The wrong-thinking about social cohesion is down to the left. They have reprogrammed a substantial proportion of the populace. End of story.

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 7:00 pm
Judging by the opening of tonight’s ABC News, the Easter Bunny is in the running for a ministry.

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 7:02 pm
Meanwhile, Cartman is in search of a note on the recorder that causes people to lose control of their bowels.

Fleeced we have been admonished earlier for toilet humour. And swearing.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 7:22 pm
In rejecting meat, feminists – both women and men – are rejecting a potent symbol of patriarchal power

Yum yum, more meat for me. I am a big meat eater. It goes so well with the red wine. Just starting a very nice West Australian cab merlot. Quite meaty.

Da Hairy Irish Ape is firmly of the view that it adds to feminine attractiveness when a woman shares his culinary tastes.

You didn’t look too good cracking away at dat whole crab, Lizzie, he says of a memorable meal on our South Pacific excursion which ended in one of our rare arguments, when firstly I walk out (sit in ladies and huff for two minutes then return) and then he walks out (to bar for ten minutes) then returns. Both refreshed.

Nonsense, I replied. I was very elegant about it.

Both hands in up to your wrists darlin’, he reminisced. An’ coconut sauce all over your nose an’ bits on the floor. An’ you can’t handle any kitchen implement more complex than a tin opener.

That shell-cracking thing was plastic-coated, and slippery, I recall to him, defending myself.

We disagree about the culinary virtues of devoting precious eating time to crustacians. He tries to put me off by mimicking their shrieks as they are boiled alive.

Doesn’t work though. I just go moooo at him.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

24 Mar 13 at 7:23 pm
Both hands in up to your wrists darlin’, he reminisced. An’ coconut sauce all over your nose an’ bits on the floor.

I’m just not seeing the problem. There is no delicate way to devour decapod crustaceans.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 7:28 pm
Alecia Simmonds’ arrival on the scene as a Green left fruitcake activist fresh from university has been noted here before. She is a symbol of FXJ’s immolation of its AB demographic — the demographic necessary for the survival of newspapers — which the company frog-marched out the front door about eight years ago.

yeah, well seeing as even da murdoch papers employed Jessica Irvine, the blonde too bimbo even for your run of the mill blonde bimbos, and as a senior economics editor no less, you can see how mistakes can be made.

entropy

24 Mar 13 at 7:29 pm
Sit on a kerosene tin in the back yard and smash them with a hammer, Russ Hinze style. The you can hose the crab guts off on the lawn.

Pickles

24 Mar 13 at 7:34 pm
Elizabeth: Regarding boiling lobsters alive, do you really think it’s not a bit cruel?

James B

24 Mar 13 at 7:40 pm
A lobster would eat you without caring if your dead or not.
Fuck em I say.

jumpnmcar

24 Mar 13 at 7:47 pm
The fight Marx outlined continues for Moscow Lee Rhiannon

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

You can bet the KGB instructed Lee on what to do with Bourgeoisie like this.

THE owners of a live-music themed bar are worried they will be closed down after a series of noise complaints from Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon.

…Many of the complaints made against the bar have happened outside normal business hours.

Ms Vuong said she could not understand why Ms Rhiannon continues to complain when steps are being taken to remedy the problem. “We’ve got one shot to make this work and we’ve put our life savings into this,” Ms Vuong said. “We don’t want to be closed down over an issue that we’re working very hard to solve. They (Ms Rhiannon’s office) are not being very neighbourly about this matter.”

Lee must be proud of the Watermelon mayor of Sydney’s action here to keep the march of history moving forward:

NICHOLAS Zisti thought he’d get into the Australia Day spirit by decorating the family cafe in patriotic colours – so the City of Sydney hit him with $5000 in fines.

Token

24 Mar 13 at 7:50 pm
James B, yes I do. I don’t like to think about it, but I do like lobster and big South Pacific crab. I’d prefer them to be put to sleep in a quick freeze first and then boiled.

I certainly cannot go into a restaurant and pick out one to kill. That just personalises it too much.

I guess I just think that I cannot be responsible for every living thing that dies in order to sustain me and I cannot generally supervise the manner of its death, although I can attempt to politically create systems that produce animal food without misery for the animals.

Some say lettuce shriek when they are pulled if you know how to properly listen to them. Where does it end? We were never evolved to be vegetarians anyway.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

24 Mar 13 at 7:52 pm
Fleeced we have been admonished earlier for toilet humour. And swearing

Yeah, but you forget the journalism defence: you can say whatever you like, as long as it’s not you saying it. In this case, it woz South Park wot dun it – I’m just reporting the facts.

Fleeced

24 Mar 13 at 7:57 pm
Perhaps dismantling lobsters and crabs could be a handy career opportunity for Laura Tingle come the uprising?

Tracey

24 Mar 13 at 8:02 pm
And how exactly is ‘chicken leg’ euphemistic??

Because it is a euphamism for the leg of a chicken or ‘spindle shanks’ the chicken leg. I honestly don’t know what these idiots are on about.

I think it is the same as oysters mornay is a euphemism for oysters with bacon.

I do like lobster and big South Pacific crab

Can Lady Jugs and i come to your house for dinnner?

Carpe Jugulum

24 Mar 13 at 8:03 pm
The lying slapper turning hypocrisy up to 11 as she calls mysogeny wherever she sees it

Tiny Dancer

24 Mar 13 at 8:24 pm
We are having big baked pig tonight, Jugs.

They do that a lot in the South Pacific too.

Lobster and crabs are strictly restaurant fare for me. The only seafood I cook is prawns and fish. I do recommend the big crabs from Vanuatu (old New Hebrides and a great place for a holiday) and the way they do their big crustacia in coconut with mild chilli.

Hairy Ape says, you tell ‘em Lizzie.

He is not all bad.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

24 Mar 13 at 8:24 pm
Yup, Tiny. There is only one MISOGYNIST!!11!! in the world for gillard and that’s Abbott.

Peter ‘female genitals are like mussels’ Slipper and Kyle ‘ watch your mouth, girlie, you piece of shit, I’ll hunt you down’ Sandilands are gillard’s good buddies.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 8:30 pm
Psst

Jugs, kilpatrick is with bacon I think.

(I don’t eat oysters.)

kae

24 Mar 13 at 8:33 pm
We are having big baked pig tonight, Jugs.

They do that a lot in the South Pacific too.

You’ve just set off a magnificent food memory, Lizzie: roast pork slices at 5am on a Sunday morning at the farmers’ market in Papeete, Tahiti (after a 4am swim under a waterfall about 20 kms out of town).

You’re right, the South Pacific love their pig, especially the francophone bits.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 8:37 pm
Global warming update from the UK:

UK’s coldest spring since 1963 claims 5,000 lives: Pensioners worst affected – and experts say final toll could be ‘horrendous’.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 8:44 pm
They’ve historically been quite fond of ‘long pig’ in that area too.

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 8:47 pm
Yup. Moray is with the cheesy sauce.

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 8:48 pm
I’ll bet they’re glad they shut that power station. Just look at the savings from the pension and health budgets.

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 8:49 pm
‘An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It’s a scary prospect.’

I despise them all.

Factio Virides delenda est. never forget.

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 8:53 pm
Like I said here

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/03/23/open-forum-march-23-2013/comment-page-11/#comment-770195

at 4.53 today.

Homer is still pimping the ‘youse never had it so good’ nonsense.

The participation rate falling then going stagnant is of no consequence to Kouklas or Paxton.

They’re probably very lucky no one publishes long term discouraged worker stats except in a raw form.

Remember, In August 2008 when unemployment was 3.9% (and the next month the participation rate shot up to 66%), the “extended underutilisation” (or total unemployment) rate was 10.9%.

The “real” unemployment rate now is 12.64%.

Since Kevin Rudd hit his peak popularity, there have been a net 211 000 people who have been made unemployed, even with massive employment growth during the 2009-2010 pump priming (and in mid 2010-late 2012 the labour market was very tough for job seekers).

It doesn’t seem like much save for the fact that these people were never welfare addled mendicants and many were workers with families and mortgages.

Some people have no idea about data. Some adolescent, twerpish, temeritous ALP troll is back biting Overington. He reckons ’70 000 jobs added in February’.

“Ex journalist, studying masters of public policy”

Yet he’d be better off copping some brain damage in a 3rd grade scrum collapse in rural QLD, obviously. At least he’d stop talking shit and might become an honest, upstanding citizen.

.

24 Mar 13 at 8:55 pm
Moray is with the cheesy sauce.

Cato – I have caught skinned and cooked many an eel, but never a moray, and never with cheesy sauce.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 8:57 pm
Lizzie,

Vanuatu (old New Hebrides and a great place for a holiday)

There is a very nice wreck dive site in Port Vila Harbour. The ‘Konanda’, a small cargo ship that has the deck plates removed for easy access, sits on the bottom at 26 metres in warm water with good visibility. Well worth it if you are a scuba diver.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 9:06 pm
Jugs, kilpatrick is with bacon I think.

Crap – you are right Kae, but in my defence i only flew back this morning so i’m kind of tired.

As an aside, Lady J and I went to chinatown in Kobe and had oysters with a light honey & ginger sauce (absolutely lush).

Also the new house is rather smaller than what you get in Oz.

Carpe Jugulum

24 Mar 13 at 9:07 pm
(I don’t eat oysters.)

You have no idea what you are missing, the food of kings.

Carpe Jugulum

24 Mar 13 at 9:09 pm
Elizabeth: Regarding boiling lobsters alive, do you really think it’s not a bit cruel?

Humanising animals is a sign of the decline of our society.
Seriously, if I punch and kick a dog I am more likely to get jail time than if I ouch and kick the owner.
Understand this.
Animals have no sense of their own mortality.
Sorry to sound grumpy, but I am hanging out for a whale steak and chips.

Leigh Lowe

24 Mar 13 at 9:17 pm
I’ve read the script of Bolt’s interview today with Tony Abbott, at his site.

It shows he is no more credible or serious minded than any other commentator/newsreader/”journalist”, basically pursuing Tony Abbott to say something controversial, anything will do. He needs a scoop.

I’ve commented here before that Bolt runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds and I reckon it’s only ratings, loot and fame that drive him.

I’m pleased to see others here do not laud him as the only honest man speaking up for the little old dears who tell him that there.

“He was pushing AbbottAbbottAbbott real hard on shrinking the government and IR reform.” (Myrddin Seren 10:16am)

“Ent, that’s one of Bolt’s extremely bad habits. He also talked over, interrupted and tried to put words in Abbott’s mouth in the earlier segment.” (Tom 1:21pm)

“Bolt is too interested in pushing his own view. What he did to Wilkinson today he also did to Costa 2 weeks ago (but much worse – he just rudely shut Costa out while he carried on a discussion with Costello). Also, the way he handled today’s interview with Tony Abbott was particularly painful.” (Septimus 1:24pm)

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 9:17 pm
(I don’t eat oysters.)

You have no idea what you are missing, the food of kings.

Too true.
I didn’t touch them for years, but now love them.
Although I have got to say, oysters Kilpatrick is sacrilege. It bloody kills the oyster taste.
Best with a touch of lemon/lime juice or vinegar ….. a few seconds on top to just cure them a bit and down the hatch.
Any decent cold wine to go with them and …… Heaven

Leigh Lowe

24 Mar 13 at 9:21 pm
“He was pushing AbbottAbbottAbbott real hard on shrinking the government and IR reform.”

So, he’s not supposed to ask Abbott the hard questions?
Why not?

“Ent, that’s one of Bolt’s extremely bad habits.

To which he has admitted time and again. He admits also that he’s not a good interviewer.

He needs a scoop.

noo, really? Someone in the media is after a scoop? Imagine that!

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 9:22 pm
I am sorry Mick, but do you think Andrew Bolt should give Abbott a very easy interview just to kick the Government? Bolt was spot on to pursue Abbott on issues such as IR.

Andrew

24 Mar 13 at 9:23 pm
Cato Major, viridis—non virides—est nominativus singularis, nimirum.

Deadman

24 Mar 13 at 9:25 pm
Has anybody else in Sydney seen posters on power poles for Red & Black Forum

The Brisbane Self-Management Group (SMG) of the 1970s was the largest libertarian socialist organisation in Australia to exist in recent decades, with members in universities, high schools, industrial and white-collar workplaces agitating around the politics of daily life.
Today, revolutionary activists still face the same sort of dilemmas as did the SMG. What insights into contemporary radical practice can be gained from an examination of this organisation’s strengths and weaknesses?

Who are they?

stackja

24 Mar 13 at 9:26 pm
I’ve commented here before that Bolt runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds and I reckon it’s only ratings, loot and fame that drive him.

I’ve heard him stand his ground in the face of cheap populist protectionism, class warfare and bigotry to accept that.

Token

24 Mar 13 at 9:32 pm
They’re a bunch of arseholes.

.

24 Mar 13 at 9:33 pm
You’re right, the South Pacific love their pig, especially the francophone bits.

Those would be la derriere, or le snout?

blogstrop

24 Mar 13 at 9:35 pm
I am sorry Mick, but do you think Andrew Bolt should give Abbott a very easy interview just to kick the Government? Bolt was spot on to pursue Abbott on issues such as IR.

Exactly. The Coalition is better at governing because it is held ferociously to account.

If Abbott put on the record that the Coalition will address IR problems they will have less problems implementing critical reform against Green / ALP / Independent intransigence in the Senate.

Token

24 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
They’re a bunch of arseholes.

Brisbane Self-Management Group (SMG)?
Never knew they existed. I have led a sheltered life it seems.

stackja

24 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
I’m pleased to see others here do not laud him as the only honest man speaking up for the little old dears who tell him that there.

He’s a very good journo, Mick. He has a snout for stories that many miss, especially the Fairfax ferals who wear their activism and lack of credibility like a badge of honour. His blog has a big hand in setting the daily news agenda.

The news media’s job is to tell us what is going on in the world. There are many crucial stories that would have not been reported at all were it not for Bolta. Having said that, he also wears his bias on his sleeve, so he has limited use; his TV program, for example, isn’t journalism but counter-propaganda, which has a market because of the dreadful bias of most of the rest of the media.

Tom

24 Mar 13 at 9:38 pm
Carpe

So kings like eating snot bags?

If I want to eat snot…

kae

24 Mar 13 at 9:43 pm
You have to hand it to Bolt on the following topics IMHO:

Climate Change
Stolen Generations

He held firm to his beliefs for years when most other conservatives just gave in and went with the fashionable opinion. More Australians than 5 years ago are now accepting many of his arguments regarding these issues.

He is not perfect and can be a bit bitchy when he wants to be but least he can formulate an argument and prove his case.

Bear Necessities

24 Mar 13 at 9:44 pm
My Dad loved them and I used to get them off the rocks for him.

kae

24 Mar 13 at 9:44 pm
Their advice to combat bullying seemed to come down to asking other kids to go to the bullied one and say “I disagree with the way you have been treated. Here, have a Chupa Chup.”

A feminist inspired fascist ideology that has ensured that thousands of decent well adjusted boys live a life of absolute terror and condoned-by-authority abuse while at school.

The only way for a boy to deal with violent bullies (as they always become) is to punch the lead bully in the face then follow them to the ground wildly swinging come what may (come what may being vastly worse punishment than the bully ever got despite doing far worse things over a prolonged period to the victim).

Nothing else works.

A rape victim doesn’t need to “reach out” or “talk to” their attacker, neither does a victim of violence / harrasment / bullying.

twostix

24 Mar 13 at 9:46 pm
He doesn’t own IR Andrew, the other mob does. When the likes of Bolt pursue the gummint with as much vigour then I’ll hear him out on AbbottAbbottAbbott.

For the moment the gummint has sent the media sycophants out to lie in wait for AbbottAbbottAbbott to say something “controversial” about IR for their fishwives can shriek about.

Bolt will not go anywhere near as hard on them in person though because to be fair he’d rather wring his hands.

If he’s not a good interviewer he ought to become one quick smart or get out, ‘cos that’s what his show purports to offer.

“easy interview” and “no hard questions for Abbott” is not what I wrote.

As to the Oh-My-Gosh-a-scoop! gabrielle, Bolt touts himself as above the common media herd, better. He behaves just like them. He either is or he isn’t.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 9:48 pm
“Global warming update from the UK”

Still having problems with the basic concepts, aren’t you?

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 9:48 pm
“Elizabeth: Regarding boiling lobsters alive, do you really think it’s not a bit cruel?”

How else do you eat lobster except the chinese or japanese way where they eat it as sashimi live on ice? ie its not dead so very fresh.

We are predators and carnivores are we not? (most of us) When did concern for how the lobster dies somehow confuse people?

Aliice

24 Mar 13 at 9:49 pm
My Dad loved them and I used to get them off the rocks for him.

Me too kae down at the Brunswick River many decades ago

Tintarella di Luna

24 Mar 13 at 9:50 pm
“Global warming update from the UK”

Still having problems with the basic concepts, aren’t you?

STOP PRESS: Jarrah has expelled UK from globe.

C.L.

24 Mar 13 at 9:51 pm
“easy interview” and “no hard questions for Abbott” is not what I wrote.

As to the Oh-My-Gosh-a-scoop! gabrielle, Bolt touts himself as above the common media herd, better. He behaves just like them. He either is or he isn’t.

If he was looking for a scoop, he would be launching that scoop on his daily newspaper article, which is his main job and not on a TV show which is not a high rating program, due to the time slot. Your idea of him looking for a scoop for his TV show is flawed.

Andrew

24 Mar 13 at 9:52 pm
“Global warming update from the UK”

Still having problems with the basic concepts, aren’t you?

so the UK isn’t part of the globe, is that right Jarrah?

tell me about falsifiability.

tell me about the predictive abilities of scientific theories

AR4 – “fewer cold events and more warm ones”

you really are clueless

Will

24 Mar 13 at 9:53 pm
“STOP PRESS: Jarrah has expelled UK from globe”

And

“so the UK isn’t part of the globe, is that right Jarrah?”

So now the components are the same as the whole? Tsk tsk.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 9:55 pm
Poor CL and Will are struggling to understand the difference between averages and data points. No wonder they’re in the ‘sceptic’ camp.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 9:56 pm
Jarrah

The UK is meant to be up to 2 degrees warmer roughly by now (IPCC 4 TAR).

That modelling is globally based – countries fit in on the globe. The north of Europe is meant to be up to 2 degrees warmer on average by now – and it is only one data point – but it is the coldest winter in 50 years.

My understanding is that the 1960s was a cold decade, globally.

I think they have an update by now but the stern report etc were based on the IPCC TAR 4.

If the physical modelling is out, then the policy stuff is way out.

It never passed an honest CBA, and should be all repealed.

.

24 Mar 13 at 10:00 pm
So now the components are the same as the whole? Tsk tsk.

Tell us more about the much heralded “Angry Summer” – in Australia.

twostix

24 Mar 13 at 10:00 pm
Carpe

So kings like eating snot bags?

If I want to eat snot…

Oh Kae, when you have the chance, come visit Lady J and I and i will show you the joy that is the oyster.

Natural with a dash of lemon is lush, with honey and ginger you would kill for, with bacon you will just pig out.

Trust me.

Carpe Jugulum

24 Mar 13 at 10:01 pm
“Elizabeth: Regarding boiling lobsters alive, do you really think it’s not a bit cruel?”

James B: when conflicted by such deeply troubling issues for those of us trapped at the top end of the food chain I refer them to our family’s retained food efficist.

If he comes back with professional advice that conflicts with the jumpnmcar doctrine

“A lobster would eat you without caring if your dead or not.
Fuck em I say.”

he knows he’ll be sacked and we’ll go to the National Institute of Efficists yellow pages listing to find a replacement.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 10:01 pm
Femenazi hippy greenfilther says:

1. Eating meat is associated with male power in its most vile and repugnant forms.

Cool. I’d better eat more of it just to piss you off.

2. The ill treatment of animals makes the abuse of women tolerable.

Shooting an animal, gutting it, skinning it, breaking it up and putting it in my freezer, then making rendang or a roast out of it is not ill-treating it. It’s making dinner out of it and you treat it very carefully. I have also beaten the tripe out of a few bastards I know who who have struck or beaten a woman, as I refuse to tolerate this behaviour.

Sorry to cause you such cognitive dissonance, femenazi greenfilther: now tell me about your stance on muslim FGM, their chattel ownership of females, and ‘right’ to marry and rape 9 year old girls hmmmm?

3. Vegetarians, like feminists, care about language.

So do I, so carrot-snafflers and femenazi greenfilthers can f*** off. See? That’s langauge too.

4. Feminists and vegetarians share a common project of ending discrimination based on arbitrary distinctions. We are all, at our base, animals. So why should one animal species be outside the realm of our compassion?

I would be delighted should carrot-snafflers and femenazi greenfilthers be legally recategorised as animals. As an introduced species they would be classified as non-native invasive vermin. A year-long hunting season could then be announced, and with luck both vermin species could be made extinct on this continent.

Even a Tanna cannibal won’t want the meat, though. carrot-snafflers and femenazi greenfilthers have no brains, no spines, extemely thin skins and no guts, yet are totally fill of sh*t. Best use I can think of for the bodies is as compost to assist life-forms superior to them intellectually and economically, life-forms which are infinitely more useful and valuable than a carrot-snaffler or femenazi greenfilther… something like grass for cattle to graze on. (Tasty, tasty cattle.)

5. Feminists and vegetarians believe that the personal is political.

Are not the carrot-snafflers and femenazi greenfilthers lucky that others are free to consider that the political is personal then! As therefore, we can tell you worthless morons to bugger off. Go cry over a mung bean and a soy latte, losers.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 10:02 pm
Christopher Booker, “It’s payback time for our insane energy policy”:

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.
The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history. […]
This is all insane in so many ways that one scarcely knows where to begin, except to point out that, even if our rulers somehow managed to subsidise firms into spending £100 billion on all those wind farms they dream of, they will still need enough new gas-fired power stations to provide back-up for all the times when the wind isn’t blowing, at the very time when the carbon tax will soon make it uneconomical for anyone to build them.
So we are doomed to see Britain’s lights going out, all because the feather-headed lunatics in charge of our energy policy still believe that they’ve got to do something to save the planet from that CO2-induced global warming which this weekend has been covering much of the country up to a foot deep in snow. Meanwhile, the Indians are planning to build 455 new coal-fired power stations which will add more CO2 to the atmosphere of the planet every week than Britain emits in a year.

Deadman

24 Mar 13 at 10:03 pm
I don’t know why you bothered quoting me, twostix, since your interjection is a total non sequitur.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 10:03 pm
http://prickwithafork.com/2013/03/23/every-time-you-eat-a-burger-a-nutcase-shoots-up-a-school/

Sinclair Davidson

24 Mar 13 at 10:04 pm
If he’s not a good interviewer he ought to become one quick smart or get out, ‘cos that’s what his show purports to offer.

He’s not an especially good interviewer, I agree with Bolt on that however so far it hasn’t destroyed his ratings. Maybe it will in time or maybe not. It’s not like he’ll be able to develop it though given his show is only 20 minutes with three or four segments. It’s not the David Frost Hour by any means.

As to the Oh-My-Gosh-a-scoop! gabrielle, Bolt touts himself as above the common media herd, better. He behaves just like them. He either is or he isn’t.

He does? Never heard him say that, but at least he does ask the Libs on his TV show and radio show the hard questions and he has said he will not shy away from that. He’d ask current Labor politicians the hard questions to but they’re all too chicken shit to appear on his show. Wonder why that is? Could it be perhaps he’d ask them hard questions too?

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:07 pm
I don’t like to boil crayfish or crabs alive. The legs and claws come off. Normally I chuck them into the seawater ice slurry with the fish (after the fish are quickly killed and bled of course). kills’n'chills, then when you boil the buggers the limbs don’t drop off.

Dunno how many times I’ve seen idiots chucking crabs and crays into a bucket of luke-warm seawater sitting in the sun and leave ‘em for hours, and later wonder why they taste like crap. The stress chemicals in their blood turns the flesh to mush when you do that.

Used to be people knew this.

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 10:10 pm
Meanwhile, the Indians are planning to build 455 new coal-fired power stations which will add more CO2 to the atmosphere of the planet every week than Britain emits in a year.

China and India will basically make any ETS or carbon tax programme utterly futile. Other major middle incomes and LDCs such as Bangladesh, Russia, Brazil, Vietnam, South Africa, Ukraine and Mexico will absolutely hammer these indulgent policies.

Nuclear power, hydro power and afforestation are the only viable solutions. Most of these can be market based without subsidies if the Government merely got out of the damned way.

.

24 Mar 13 at 10:10 pm
If he was looking for a scoop, he would be launching that scoop on his daily newspaper article, which is his main job and not on a TV show which is not a high rating program, due to the time slot. Your idea of him looking for a scoop for his TV show is flawed.

Oh, come on Andrew. I know I already had a bit of a say upthread, but what do you reckon Bolt was looking for with this line of questions?

ANDREW BOLT: I’m not arguing about that. I’m not arguing. I’m saying 4 million – or 6 million – Australians on pensions or public service, that’s unsustainable, isn’t it?

TONY ABBOTT: What we need to do is to grow the economy, expand employment – as we did under the Howard Government – because then you will get fewer people living on benefits and more people living on wages.

ANDREW BOLT: But you are not saying anything about actually cutting public service, you’re not saying anything about cutting entitlements?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, we are talking about cutting the public service, Andrew. We will trim the public service by at least 12,000, because we don’t need the 20,000 extra Commonwealth public sector employees now, on top of those that we had back in 2007.

ANDREW BOLT: A drop in the bucket. I’m thinking, more needs to happen. But we will see, I guess

Would have helped the ratings immensely to get a live on air response from Abbott that he was going to do more than a ‘drop in the bucket’ by cutting pensions and sacking lots more public servants, hey? I can just see and hear Bolt: “You heard it here first, folks!” Bit hairy chested, even for Bolt, to expect the answer he was after. He was painful to watch and listen to.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 10:10 pm
ALPBC 7pm news features Gillard’s upcoming visit to Perth in an attempt to sandbag Gary Gray’s seat after her enforced exile prior to the State Labor wipeout.

Another futile exercise.

H B Bear

24 Mar 13 at 10:14 pm
>

Would have helped the ratings immensely to get a live on air response from Abbott that he was going to do more than a ‘drop in the bucket’ by cutting pensions and sacking lots more public servants, hey?

If Abbott cannot handle questioning about his policies from a conservative leaning Bolt then it’s no wonder he avoids appearing on the ABC.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
Well mK50 when you are not out blind on the booze you do have some interesting information to convey

“I don’t like to boil crayfish or crabs alive. The legs and claws come off. Normally I chuck them into the seawater ice slurry with the fish (after the fish are quickly killed and bled of course). kills’n’chills, then when you boil the buggers the limbs don’t drop off.

So I gather you can only get lobsters with a boat and some pots having never caught a lobster myself.

Aliice

24 Mar 13 at 10:17 pm
Dot. – haven’t seen anything in Tas re a poll showing the whole state at 60%… There was a poll of Bass ( Launceston ) showing 60%+ though.

I think the state is at about 55% overall . Still a pretty big swing from last election. May pick up 3-4 seats here, as well as 1-2 senate.

Driftforge

24 Mar 13 at 10:18 pm
If Abbott cannot handle questioning about his policies from a conservative leaning Bolt then it’s no wonder he avoids appearing on the ABC.

Abbott is playing defense with the media. It’s entirely the wrong strategy. He needs to take risks.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
All I’m saying is, Abbott should have had a response to the misogynist tirade, on the day. Not go into hiding, or laugh it off, as he did. And because nothing was said, why were they so outraged when the slapper put her little jibe in last week? It makes them look foolish.
But that’s enough. Evidently I am now a troll.

Peter55

24 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
Formal announcement: I will not be putting myself through the ordeal of watching Qanda tomorrow night nor posting with you on here in protest to the new thread being made;)

Only kidding about the protest part, but a panel preview is in order, so here goes.

We will be in Werribee for tomorrow’s Qanda, which is quite amusing considering that suburb is in Julia Gillard’s electorate.

AC Grayling – leftie philosopher and UN stooge.
Brendan O’Connor – lefite for Labor and failed Immigration minister.

Kelly O’Dwyer – economic dry, good debater but will be getting a lot of love from the Qanda audience due to her change in stance on gay marriage last week.

Christine Nixon – former Chief Commissioner of Police who thought that having lunch and getting a haircut was more important than being at the Rescue Centre for Black Saturday. Supporter of the ALP.

Brendan Gale – Former AFL footballer, CEO of Richmond FC and on the board of the Victorian Human Rights Commission, so probably a bit pink.

Andrew

24 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
http://www.reachtel.com.au/blog/tasmanian-state-poll-puts-liberals-well-clear

I believe I did say 2 PP though.

.

24 Mar 13 at 10:28 pm
C.L. 24 Mar 13 at 12:42 pm

I actually think pickering is scum

NoFixedAddress

24 Mar 13 at 10:28 pm
“Your idea of him looking for a scoop for his TV show is flawed.”

Turn it up Andrew, that is not what I said. My comment was “… stuff about Abbott on TV, then “He needs a scoop. … I’ve commented here before that Bolt runs with the foxes and hunts with the hounds and I reckon it’s only ratings, loot and fame that drive him.”

He needs a scoop, to write about in his newspaper column (to attract more readers, more advertising dollars and his editor’s approving gaze), or to write about on his web site (increased site hits, potential advertising dollars I suppose) or to breathlessly announce on his TV show (to attract more viewers, produce higher ratings, more advertising dollars and the producer’s approving gaze). It’s a modern world – perhaps he’d ni-twit it!

You’ve flawed me Andrew. I always thought journalists ran about like headless chooks the instant they got lucky with a scoop, terrified the competition would somehow get it out under their banner before they did.

“… No Mr Bolt, you cannot say anything about Comrade Albanese spluttering “We simply must ditch the witch” just before appearing on your TV show today. Now toddle off and complete your column for tomorrow’s paper. That’s the place for that sort of skewp.”

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
All I’m saying is, Abbott should have had a response to the misogynist tirade, on the day. Not go into hiding, or laugh it off, as he did. And because nothing was said, why were they so outraged when the slapper put her little jibe in last week? It makes them look foolish.

I agree. Nor should have he run out of Parliament. That did look silly.

.

24 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
Gab:

If Abbott cannot handle questioning about his policies from a conservative leaning Bolt then it’s no wonder he avoids appearing on the ABC.

Septimus, upthread:

Answer wasn’t terrible by Abbott, but it was very careful as always.

As should be expected. It didn’t suit Bolt who is trying (a bit desperately IMHO) to get a scoop, but what the hey?

Point being that Abbott did handle the questioning, but Bolt didn’t like it that the responses were not what he wanted. And Bolt’s parting comment seemed a bit churlish to me.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
If Abbott cannot handle questioning about his policies from a conservative leaning Bolt then it’s no wonder he avoids appearing on the ABC.

Meh, he handled it fine. My main problem with what he said is that he is not cutting more, but c’est la vie.

I think he can handle the questioning, but the fact is that the Coalition do not need to get sucked in to releasing all their policies too early. They can come out in good time. General ideas of policies are fine for now.

Andrew

24 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
entropy 24 Mar 13 at 1:15 pm

Totally agree.

The Bolta had an agenda today that did not include Cassandra.

NoFixedAddress

24 Mar 13 at 10:30 pm
It’s entirely the wrong strategy. He needs to take risks.

I agree however I can see why given he has been mercilessly pummeled by the media since he was Health Minister. But you’d think he’d learn by now to just be himself and not formulate every answer in the hope the media will not misrepresent him and will instead pat him on the back like they do with Labor pollies.

To hell with the media. Abbott should just be Abbott and let the cards fall where they may. Being defensive at this stage of the proceedings is a little cowardly, imo and yet Abbott is no coward in other areas of his life. He cannot continue to walk on eggshells in the hope of not offending the media or giving the media cause to become outraged. The media will do that regardless.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:30 pm
Cripes Malice, are you still upset that people have friends?

Mk50 of Brisbane

24 Mar 13 at 10:31 pm
“All I’m saying is, Abbott should have had a response to the misogynist tirade, on the day. Not go into hiding, or laugh it off, as he did. ”

I think he was in a bit of shock, Pete. I mean, the misogyny rubbish was totally bizarre and out of the blue.

Definitely though he should have responded appropriately the next day on behalf of his wife and daughters. But he let it go.

candy

24 Mar 13 at 10:33 pm
Why next day? He should have ripped her limbs off as soon as she made the accusation.

JC

24 Mar 13 at 10:35 pm
“He’s not an especially good interviewer, I agree with Bolt on that”

Best interviewer I’ve ever seen – Andrew Denton. Then again, he never did hard-hitting stuff. But for the style of interviewing he did, he was great.

Jarrah

24 Mar 13 at 10:35 pm
Andrew Denton

He was okay in the fireside Oprah-style chats that he did.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:36 pm
Thanks Deadman, Latin was never my strong suit

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 10:37 pm
Cripes MK50 dont come that line…its pretty weak.
You should be glad you have some friends.

I am relieved for you.

Aliice

24 Mar 13 at 10:37 pm
Sept

I meant mornay, of course

Now I’m wondering what moray mornay would taste like

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 10:38 pm
He should have ripped her limbs off as soon as she made the accusation.

He couldn’t do that in parliament at the time due to the process.

And if he did “rip her limbs off” outside of parliament then it’s handing gillard and the Gal Qaeda the ammunition for a “see, proof he’s a brutish misogynist” one week media hysteria and a 30 second election campaign ad by the ALP.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:41 pm
Let Tony be Tony?

What if he’s naturally cautious on camera?

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 10:42 pm
What if he’s naturally cautious on camera?

He never used to be.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:44 pm
“but the fact is that the Coalition do not need to get sucked in to releasing all their policies too early. They can come out in good time. General ideas of policies are fine for now.”

I agree Andrew, whole heartedly.

AbbottAbbottAbbott is on a hiding to nothing with the media. They’re not in the least bit interested in comparing and contrasting gummint/opposition policies. The bimbos wouldn’t know what a policy is.

They’re continuously only ever on the lookout for an AbbottAbbottAbbott quote they can giggle at together while they poke it with sticks.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 10:44 pm
Cato

Actually, eel mornay would probably be ok. Skin the eel, cut into 50mm segments, boil in water with a handful of salt for 10 minutes, dry with paper towel and deep fry the eel segments until golden brown, then serve with cheese sauce and fresh green salad and a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc.

Septimus

24 Mar 13 at 10:46 pm
“but the fact is that the Coalition do not need to get sucked in to releasing all their policies too early.

Agreed, however when they do release policies they need to be well explained and not back away from them the minute media/Labor start criticizing the policies. (cf. “Troppo Tony”).

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:47 pm
Agree, Gab,it was a sub-par performance from Abbott on Bolt today. He did that irritating trick of not answering the question, but giving a prepared spiel on something else instead.

He seems to lack confidence when he is being interviewed, which is odd as he was a champion debater at university. Even absolutely predictable questions which he is asked again and again seem to flummox him – like the one today about cutting welfare dependency and public service numbers. He gets all waffly and prolix – a slight attack of the Kim Beazleys.

He needs to formulate direct answers to these types of questions and repeat them every time he is asked. That is what he will face daily for the next six months, but it is as though each time he is either lost for an answer or tries to formulate a new form of words. I think he badly needs a top notch media adviser to help him sort this out, soon.

johanna

24 Mar 13 at 10:48 pm
“He does?”

He does Gabrielle.

In his web site reports Bolt touts himself as above the common media herd, better, all week long.

A goodly component of his posts feature poor work by other “journalists” – he writes that it is poor work, he criticises them for it.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

24 Mar 13 at 10:53 pm
MK50
- just fess up (and then apologise and make amends to all the people you have hurt through your drinking)

This is the size of the schooners you and Tiny down on friday nights

http://daveshomemadebeer.blogspot.com.au/

Aliice

24 Mar 13 at 10:53 pm
And the LPP vision release …

dismissive

24 Mar 13 at 10:53 pm
whoops – too many Ps

dismissive

24 Mar 13 at 10:54 pm
Malice. How hard is it. Most of us have friends. You’re a lying drunk. Go figure. I suspect you’re a cross dressing beta male living out a fantasy. Go eat some more arse darling.

Tiny Dancer

24 Mar 13 at 10:55 pm
seem to flummox him

The media has beaten him up more than anyone I’ve ever seen being treated that way. When he goes to answer a question you can almost see the cogs going at it flat out screening his answer. Scenario planning on the spot. ‘If I say it this way, some activist group will be upset. If I answer another way the media will have a field day’. Like I said, I believe he’s walking on eggshells trying to prevent a media meltdown on everything he says. That’s no way for a leader to be, however much he has been excoriated and vilified by his opponents and the media.

He does speeches well, he performed very well at the election debate in 2010 but in interviews he’s getting worse, more and more cautious to the point of almost seeming to be tongue-tied.

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 10:59 pm
Talking about cutting the public service and welfare would be disastrous for Tony Abbott.He can’t go anywhere near it.
Campbell Newman can only do it because he’s actually in government even so he’s had to backtrack.

candy

24 Mar 13 at 11:01 pm
Bolt didn’t like it that the responses were not what he wanted.

A lot of people here have admitted Abbott didn’t answer the question and are disappointed and miffed by that. Why should Bolt be any different?

Gab

24 Mar 13 at 11:01 pm
On the telly just now – every ad during the break was a government ad.

Just a quiet word to you idiots – stop spending money we don’t have you morons!

The ad however that made me angriest was the new family assistance package – now, the party that says – you know it is borrowed money, so if you have received that money you get to pay the money back – will get my vote!

Dianne

24 Mar 13 at 11:05 pm
Malice. How hard is it. Most of us have friends. You’re a lying drunk. Go figure. I suspect you’re a cross dressing beta male living out a fantasy. Go eat some more arse darling.

I LOL’d hard.

.

24 Mar 13 at 11:05 pm
– stop spending money we don’t have you morons!

But it’s all they know how to do!

Cato the Elder

24 Mar 13 at 11:08 pm
Even a Tanna cannibal won’t want the meat, though

Last instances of canibalism on Tanna said to be during the 1960′s. The island is still extremely traditional. Recently, HIA and I planted taro and kava in a village ceremony (me taro, him kava, natch), where HIA was made the chief for a half hour, and had to drink kava in a ceremony from which I, as a possibly menstruating and thus polluting woman, was very seriously excluded. HIA most impressed with the real chief and the way they instantly recognised the dignitas in each other. Another village put on a show of traditional warfare for us, ambushing us in surprise, and I was genuinely frightened, realising how frail I was as a woman surrounded by ferociously painted guys in grass gear thwatting great heavy sticks on the ground next to me. Hid behind HIA, my protector. Elemental roles immediately to the fore.

We went to Tanna to its one proper resort (besides its beautiful setting, its main claim to fame was it had fans and 24 hour hot water) and to see the Volcano there, one of the most active ones around, currently in one of its more dangerous periods. We climbed up the steep ash and lava sides via a cinder pathway to stand on the narrow rim and look into the absolute hell fire of the cauldera. It was rumbling and groaning pulsing red lava and shooting up red balls of fire one hundred metres or more into the air. If this was Australia, they wouldn’t have let you within five km of this place; on Tanna you are on your own. Sign here, says the tour guide, and the best advice is if you look up and see something hot and red approaching, step sideways. Strict instructions not to step back, or you risk going down off the five foot wide totally unfenced rim backwards, and going forward is not any sort of option at all (someone tell Julia). Da Hairy Ape was hopping around gleefully till I gave the Look of Death which I didn’t have to invent, because I was terrified.

His Apeness is also going to learn Skuba Diving so I will pass on your dive recommendations Septimus. There are apparently many old W11 wrecks to dive on Espiritu Santo and a place called Million Dollar Point where you can see all the equipment the Yanks dumped underwater at the end of the War because the French had counted on getting it for nothing and the Yanks were very miffed by this. This latter piece of information came from a book I kindled down called ‘Michener’s South Pacific’ by Stephen J May, a very good account of how and why Michener wrote his famous ‘tales’ from real characters, with a lot of locational and historical information, and good chapters too on how the musical South Pacific was born and staged. HIA and I just love the magic of Some Enchanted Evening (when we met) from South Pacific and will return to spend time on Santo where much of the events he wrote of actually took place.

Not far from our first resort stay near Port Vila is a very touching ‘museum’. An old Melanesian man has spent the last 40 years collecting remnants of when the US 7th Fleet all hung out in Havannah Harbour near Vila. He has built his own little open-railed wooden shanty (and I do mean shanty) to house his collection of WW11 coke bottles (carrying the names of some of the 350 US cities where they were manufactured) and other salvage, mostly labelled in Bislama (basically pigeon). For example, corroded bullets are labelled in red paint as ‘pullits’ and a corroded battery is labelled ‘plane butery’ plus there is a part of a Gruman F.48 Wildcat and other things. Outside a few metres away he has set up two old round white lifebuoys on wonky poles that are basically two small felled trees painted with red and white bands. Between these poles on a carefully hand-painted white crossbeam looking over Havannah Harbour he has written beside his hand-drafted symbol of an anchor and a cross the words “Welcome to Havana Harbour World War 11 Naval Base”.

I have been to American memorials all over the world, and this one was the most touching of all. It probably cost less than ten US dollars to make it.

I want to go to Tahiti as my next Pacific holiday (I have already been to New Guinea, New Caledonia and Fiji), and also want do a cruise around the Hawaiian islands, but I think my heart for the South Pacific will remain in Vanuatu with its friendly people and still extant traditions, as it struggles with poverty and attempts development. It is in Australia’s backyard. Worth seeing.

Disclaimer: I have no connection to any tourist industry.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

24 Mar 13 at 11:18 pm
Today was the first time I have seen Tony Abbott sitting in Andrew Bolt’s studio.

Why the hell would Tony Abbott say ANYTHING to distract from the cluster fuck the Gillard Party have got themselves in?

NoFixedAddress

24 Mar 13 at 11:39 pm
But the libs have released their new vision. Advertising on sky news and all.

dismissive

24 Mar 13 at 11:44 pm
Poor CL and Will are struggling to understand the difference between averages and data points.

No, we’re struggling with your startling claim that the UK and the sizeable chunk of the earth its weather systems encompasses is no longer part of the globe.

But we’ve seen and laughed at all this before, of course.

Cold is local weather, heat is “The Angry Summer” portending planetary catastrophe.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 12:07 am
It’s a big document – I can’t be bothered reading it all tonight. I’ll wait for the screaming tomorrow in the MSM to see the bits worth doing more than a quick skim.

dismissive

25 Mar 13 at 12:08 am
Hey disabled, dismissed, what ever it is, I suspect you know what it feels like to be suffocated by scrotum. Get used to it gag boy. You’ve got at least a decade of it in front of you. The ALP will probably use it in a campaign add in about 15 years. Bob Ellis will be in the add as well. Should be a hit.

Other than that you’re looking up sunshine.

Tiny Dancer

25 Mar 13 at 12:12 am
Blistering intro of the year:

Julia Gillard’s egg hunt with the other Mr Rabbit.

FOR a woman who can spot a misogynist at 10 paces – “misogynist Tony is back”, she muttered across the parliamentary chamber last week – Julia Gillard is spending a lot of time in the company of Kyle Sandilands.

The radio DJ who questioned a 14-year-old rape victim on-air about her sexual experiences, and who called a journalist a “fat slag” without enough “titty” to carry off a low-cut blouse, is fast becoming a favourite with the Prime Minister.

On Friday, Sandilands and his 2DayFM offsider Jackie O landed one of only two radio interviews given by Ms Gillard after the Labor caucus had re-endorsed her leadership the day before.

Yesterday, she fulfilled a promise by inviting him to her official Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, to take part in an Easter egg hunt for a children’s charity, even posing with the DJ, who was dressed as a giant Easter Bunny, for “selfies” pictures that she later posted on Twitter.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 12:18 am
Tiny, what’s your damage? The Libs released their vision doc today. I have given you the link as shown on their adverts on sky tonight. Its http://realsolutions.org.au It repoints to http://www.liberal.org.au/real-solutions.

Its a large glossy doc that I can’t be buggered reading tonight. Is that OK with you. I think I am rightly expecting it to be torn apart by the MSM tomorrow desperate to take about someone other than the ALP.

Don’t see why that makes you want to mouth of at me?

dismissive

25 Mar 13 at 12:21 am
take => talk
of => off

dismissive

25 Mar 13 at 12:22 am
Bolt has written a good article about Abbott:

So he’s been risk averse, making few promises to end what shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey called the “Age of Entitlement”, with an astonishing six million Australians living off benefits or state salaries.

He does not dare risk the fear campaign Labor would wage among public servants and pensioners.

Nor is he promising big changes to Labor’s controls over workplaces which are strangling productivity. He’s stuck mainly to promising a crackdown on rogue unions, fearing another union scare campaign if he went much further.

He is even sticking to the expensive renewable energy target that jacks up power prices without cutting the global temperature, which hasn’t risen in 16 years anyway.

Worse, he’s still promising to waste billions on green schemes, including a whacky plan to close “dirty” coal fired power stations, for fear of further enraging green voters.

Fear has kept Abbott from promising all the cuts and workplace freedoms this country badly needs.

That may be clever politics in a tight contest. But it means Abbott is not winning a mandate for change. He is not getting a “to do” list with the voters’ tick of approval.

But Labor is now so dysfunctional, and the Prime Minister so despised, that chances are Abbott won’t simply win, but win big.

It would be a shame, a waste, for Abbott to be Prime Minister with a huge majority in Parliament but a tiny mandate for change.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 2:28 am
The communist wing of the Greenfilth is proceeding unhindered in its program to bring the resources economy to a standstill using a tangle of regulations and bureaucracy:

EXPORT projects worth $200 billion are being shackled by overlapping state and federal laws, according to a new report, which challenges both major parties to remove “green tape” that discourages huge investments.

Gas exporters are warning of long-term damage to the nation’s resources boom as the federal government adds to duplicate regulation rather than removing it in the way it promised less than a year ago.

The industry report argues federal and state officials often repeat each others’ work to check on projects before approving them, leading to lengthy delays and adding to projects costs.

Adding new heat to a long-running dispute, industry executives are infuriated at the government’s move last week to implement new powers over coal-seam gas projects in a deal struck with regional independent Tony Windsor.

Part of the new regime includes a provision that would prevent a future commonwealth government from streamlining some of the rules – those specific to concerns over water quality – by referring the responsibilities to the states. While Labor and the Greens have the numbers to get the legislation through the Senate in May or June, industry executives are urging the Coalition to find a way to stymie the changes or repeal them if Tony Abbott wins power.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 7:13 am
On what day of this week will the doomed Lying Slapper rabble commit its first major stuffup? The contenders are already lining up:

FORMER federal speaker Peter Slipper is due to face the ACT Magistrates Court to be formally charged over alleged fraudulent use of government-issued taxi vouchers.

Mr Slipper’s case will be mentioned in the ACT Magistrates Court this morning.

Mr Slipper faces three charges alleging he dishonestly used a taxpayer-funded Cabcharge card for $1000 worth of trips to wineries and restaurants outside Canberra in 2010.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 7:22 am
Just dropping in for a second ’cause I’m on the road, but this one’s for Mk50, in recognition of the beautiful way he drives some of our resident Lefties into fits of sputtering “I’m offended on someone else’s behalf” rage whenever he uses Paco’s trademarked gangsta name for L’il Barky, “Preshizzle”.

I give you Gizoogle.

I be tellin ya, bro, it even pimps up Steve from Brisbanez B-to-tha-L-O-Gizzay by bout 300%.

Catch up wit you all later, playas, gots a pimped out week

sdog

25 Mar 13 at 7:29 am
Catch up wit you all later,

thanks for that sdog, stay well

Tintarella di Luna

25 Mar 13 at 7:36 am
Abbott is being critiqued for being too careful. Is it any wonder?
After the union-funded scare campaign ran for a year or more prior to the 2007 election, telling everyone that Work Choices was destroyinglife as we know it and not one media organisation ran any sensible commentary on it – can you blame him for not wanting to be completely open about what it’s going to take to fix the mess we’re in? Have a look at those ads now, and see how ridiculous and fake they look.
We have a media that’s willing to inflict any amount of damage on Tony to witness the Mark Riley incident and the misogynist one, plus the 7.30 Report beat up about what statements are wholly true. If the media want honesty in responses thaty have to offer honesty in reporting and integrity in questioning. They have devalued the game.
Is anyone seriously saying that Tony should outline now the entire scope of the savings and cuts that they’ll have to undertake? That would play right into the hands of the complicit media and the unions and the ALP/Green mob. Is he going to tip his hand re reeforms to IR now?
Bolt asks too much. Normally I appreciate his work, and admire the persistence he shows. It’s a vital role that he plays, along with the small number of similarly inclined journos. I gave up reading the comments on his blog sometime ago, and rarely make one there any more. But I’ll always check what he’s doing. In this instance he’s being unreasonable, just as it would have been unreasonable to expect Howard in 1996 not to adopt his small target strategy.
I agree in small part, that there may need to be some waffle about reform during the campaign proper. But given the sheer bloody mindedness of a large section of the media, who seem to share the view that retaining power is a good thing in itself as long as it,s the ALP/Greens, and stuff the national interest (which must remain subservient to PC orthodoxy in any event) there will be a need for careful statements.
As I’m going to keep saying, there can be no properly functioning democracy without honest media.

Blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 7:54 am
On the telly just now – every ad during the break was a government ad.

Just a quiet word to you idiots – stop spending money we don’t have you morons!

Does this explain why the financially tenuous Ten has given more time to the lefty circle jerk Meet the Press and have cut the 4:30pm Sun showing of Bolt?

Its been like that for over a week now. Ads about how people will be given FREE money for NOTHING.

In addition to the reduction on the TV license feess, it looks like the majority of the profits of the TV companies will receive will be government propaganda.

The useful idiots (Oakes, Riley, Borngiorno) are here to stay!

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:06 am
Talking about cutting the public service and welfare would be disastrous for Tony Abbott.He can’t go anywhere near it.

The Coalition need to announce these policies during the election campaign to wind back the disgusting IR policies shoved through in the past 5 years.

Now, with the Gillard government’s establishment of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, restrictions on competition in road transport are back. They are not as crude as those the High Court disallowed; but their direction is unmistakable. So are the interests they serve. In the 50s, it was the heavily unionised state rail systems; now it is the Transport Workers’ Union, which has long campaigned for controls on contractors and owner-drivers.

That pain would do nothing for safety. But there would be real gains for the TWU. It has prospered under Julia Gillard, with the amount it spends on salaries more than doubling since 2009. Once contractors’ rates are controlled and higher, it will be easier for it to gain wage rises for employed drivers.

The Federal Government is not a backward third world country with only 1 house of parliament like QLD.

The Coaltion will have a hostile senate no matter the result of the election so they need a mandate.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:13 am
Pick up just about any Australian magazine and you’ll see plenty of govt ads there too. An absolute eldorado for the advertising companies, publishers, and of course those thousands of PR flunkies that are employed in the public service.

Keith

25 Mar 13 at 8:23 am
If privatised the ABC and SBS will still contain the same leftard staff. So until they fail, will still behave as they have done till now. The blessed mercy of their annihilation us still many years away.

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 8:30 am
Once again, its the contractor’s fault the NBN is over budget and under target:

NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley has blamed delays in the broadband rollout on contract workers who are “used to building bridges and roads”, without explaining whether the best companies were selected for the lucrative tenders.

In a lengthy interview yesterday, Mr Quigley defended the three-month delay to the National Broadband Network announced last week during the Labor leadership turmoil, saying the problem was due to “mobilisation” of workers.

“There is a learning curve as you begin to roll out into places all around Australia; remember the construction contractors are used to building bridges and roads and the like,” he told the ABC. “What they’re doing is ramping up a learning curve to build this very, very large telco network.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:31 am
You’re exactly right, Blogstrop: 80% of the media barracks for the Green left instead of doing its job and reporting the news; 80% of the media will do whatever it takes to destroy Abbott and the conservatives, even though a near record majority will vote for the conservatives this year. There are a lot of very naive and incompetent media owners about who haven’t thought through the end game of having their staff raising the index finger at their customers.

I hope that, on election night, Libs like Michael Kroger unload on the jackals of the media business with a gigantic serve about their dereliction of duty.

And the ABC, which has next to no accountability, must be privatised.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 8:32 am
Just a bit of context on the NBN tender process:

Faced with much higher than expected tender bids from contractors, the NBN Company pulled the process indefinitely to mull over another plan to get the $36 billion dollar project built on budget.

It wasn’t just a rogue bid or two. After months of haggling, 14 of the nation’s biggest infrastructure builders were all told that their prices for building the fibre optic network around the country were too high.

So what’s plan B?

I spoke to communications minister and holder of the NBN purse strings, Stephen Conroy.

Stephen Conroy, the NBN announced on Friday that it’s suspending indefinitely negotiations for tenders over the construction of the NBN after four rounds of tenders, and saying it won’t proceed on the basis of prices being offered. So doesn’t that suggest that the budget for it is too low?

STEPHEN CONROY, COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER: Well, we support NBN in seeking to get the absolute best value for Australian taxpayers.

We now know the solution of Senator Red Underpants was to give the contract to companies which employ:

…contract workers who are “used to building bridges and roads”,

FFS!

Will 1 journalist in this country pick up this multi-billion dollar clusterf**k?

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:35 am
Pick up just about any Australian magazine and you’ll see plenty of govt ads there too. An absolute eldorado for the advertising companies, publishers, and of course those thousands of PR flunkies that are employed in the public service.

One of the hidden truths one could unearth while watching The Gruen Transfer is how the big government subsidy sucking leftards dominate the industry.

One of Gruen subsidy whores is now a senior executive of Channel Ten if I recall. Is that so they can ensure they get as much of the government cheese as possible this year?

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:39 am
If privatised the ABC and SBS will still contain the same leftard staff.

Good. Let a privatised ABC try to make money out of its Green left hysteria. There is a market for it, as demonstrated by Crikey, which hasn’t yet gone bankrupt.

However, the ABC in its present form serves only the most politically radical 10-30% of the population. It currently has 4600 staff. I’d be surprised if the Green left demographic would profitably support more than 1000 staff. Because the Greenfilth who run the ABC have no idea of how to create a profitable media business, I have no doubt it would be bankrupt within three years of being cut adrift.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 8:42 am
Paul Sheehan follows upon on his tweet last Friday:

At 6.02 pm last Wednesday I received a text sent from Parliament House in Canberra. It said: ”I’m hearing Labor has been asked to stay in Canberra on Friday. Crean to challenge as a stalking horse to facilitate a change to Rudd. Apparently this is solid.”

It was solid enough. Note the timing. On Friday, Kevin Rudd claimed he was shocked by Simon Crean’s ”spontaneous combustion” on Thursday. How is it that I can be told on Wednesday that Crean is going to call for a spill yet Rudd can claim that he was shocked by the turn of events? Crean could not possibly have acted without Rudd giving him the green light, directly or indirectly. Crean was also clearly misinformed about the level of support for Rudd. He should have known better.

The text message, in its timing, provides yet more evidence that Rudd cannot be trusted and it is time for the electorate to stop treating him as a prime ministerial option. There are compelling reasons why the majority of his colleagues don’t want him back.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:47 am
Ha. Bolt quotes Myles Allen this morning as authority for global warming not accelerating.

What he won’t quote is the same guy in The Guardian last week:

But I also explained that doubling pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations, which we are almost certain to do now, was just the beginning. Increasing use of fossil carbon at the current rate would drive atmospheric concentrations towards four times pre-industrial figures by 2100. So even if the “climate sensitivity” is as low as 2C, as some lines of evidence now suggest, we would still be looking at 4C plus by the early 22nd century.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 8:48 am
Absolutely frigging disgraceful.

Heads must roll, starting with inverarity, arthur and phat ‘rugby background’ howard.

Certain ‘players’ need a rocket put up them as well.

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 8:55 am
At 6.02 pm last Wednesday I received a text sent from Parliament House in Canberra. It said: ”I’m hearing Labor has been asked to stay in Canberra on Friday. Crean to challenge as a stalking horse to facilitate a change to Rudd. Apparently this is solid.”
The text message, in its timing, provides yet more evidence that Rudd cannot be trusted and it is time for the electorate to stop treating him as a prime ministerial option. There are compelling reasons why the majority of his colleagues don’t want him back.

Bill Glasson the LNP candidate in Griffith should order 20,000 drink coasters with this quote printed on it and distribute it to every pub,club,coffee shop in the electorate.

Splatacrobat

25 Mar 13 at 8:56 am
Heads must roll

Remember when the hard left blocked Cricket Australia appointing John Howard? The more time goes by, the better that decision looks…;)

Token

25 Mar 13 at 8:57 am
What about James Sutherland, Rabz? The little prick authored the whole thing, but has survived by playing cricket board’s old world politics better than anyone else. A complete cleanout is required, not another “report”. It won’t happen. No-one is in charge.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 9:01 am
Stupidity cubed. This is the demographic reality in NSW:

Age profile of teachers

The age profiles of the permanent teaching workforce in 2007 and 2012 and the projected profile for
2017 are shown in Figure 2 and Table 1 below.
The figures reveal the effect of the baby-boomers, currently in the 45 and over age-group. The
projections for 2017 indicate the continuance of recent trends as the baby-boomers leave and the effect
of increased new appointments becomes evident.

Note the demographic problem created by long term tenure? We are working through a clean out of the baby boomers out of the profession.

The fix it the state government created a bubble:

Universities graduate about 16,000 new teachers every year across the nation, half of whom are primary teachers, but … about 90 per cent of teachers graduating university in NSW and Queensland fail to find a job, while about 40,000 teachers in NSW and 16,000 teachers in Queensland are on departmental waiting lists for a permanent job.

Note, watch for the games by the Teachers Union as this occurs.

Logically the clear out will result in the average & median income of teachers to fall (i.e. replacing people at the end of their career with people at the start).

Token

25 Mar 13 at 9:05 am
“Reader Gab” exposes the Green left media’s shameful, immoral protection of the Gillard rabble by refusing to report on the latest developments in the illegal immigration crisis.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 9:50 am
SfB and even if that were true it places it in the same category as the London horse manure problem
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/29/the-horse-manure-problem/
Without destroying economies and peoples lives to protect from some theoretical problem way off in the future, the automobile was invented.

Biota

25 Mar 13 at 9:57 am
Biota: the solution may well be a completely new technology, or the rapid expansion of a form of existing technology (nuclear).

Carbon pricing gives an incentive for both.

Sitting on your arse and saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out OK, it always does” shouldn’t cut if for most people when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:03 am
…when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

Preposterous, catastrophist drivel.

Stop it, or you’ll go blind.

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 10:08 am
The political doctrine du jour, CAGW, was designed to suck in simpletons like Dogshit QC, without a shed of causal evidence establishing that CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature. Instead it’s an “opinion” by a corrupt pseudo-scientific elite welded to the Greens political movement which stands to lose a trillion-dollar empire if the human race can’t be blamed for fluctuations in global temperature.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 10:16 am
Preposterous, catastrophist drivel.

Stop it, or you’ll go blind.

Notice how SoB is using the old 100-200 year time frame since the science is now unsettled.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:17 am
But I also explained that doubling pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations, which we are almost certain to do now, was just the beginning. Increasing use of fossil carbon at the current rate would drive atmospheric concentrations towards four times pre-industrial figures by 2100. So even if the “climate sensitivity” is as low as 2C, as some lines of evidence now suggest, we would still be looking at 4C plus by the early 22nd century.

Like all of Steve’s heroes, another walking, talking, breathing monument to the conditional mood.

James in Melbourne

25 Mar 13 at 10:19 am
I use it because I just quoted a scientist who was talking in the same time frame.

The world is not expected to close shop at midnight on 2099.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:20 am
Do the London police use all these techniques for every suspicious death?

Boris Berezovsky was discovered dead yesterday afternoon at his home in Berkshire.

Early this morning police said they had called in specialist officers to investigate whether he had been killed by a chemical or biological agent or by radiation.

A cordon was put around his home last night after his body was discovered by a bodyguard. Reports from Russia said he was found in the bath at his house in Ascot.

Do you think this is a message to the EU klepocrats from you know who?

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:22 am
Did someone suggest last week that the Russians may not need Assad any more?

Unconfirmed reports that the Syrian dictator has been shot, and possibly killed:

[H/t Bolta]

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:25 am
SfB be happy with your conviction but don’t expect most of us to be uncritical of it.

Biota

25 Mar 13 at 10:26 am
Sitting on your arse and saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out OK, it always does” shouldn’t cut if for most people when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:03 am

So, Steve, people in 1813 or 1913 should have been dreaming up ways to make life more expensive because they could foretell the future? I wonder how that would have worked out?

Go away. You are a clown. Your lack of grasp of history is only exceeded by your utter incomprehension of science.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 10:33 am
Polar Bears and Awarmists:

The Perfect Symbol

Cold weather, without
adequate energy for
heating, snatches lives

but the awarmists
complain of the plight of the
polar bear, which thrives.

That animal is
thus a perfect symbol for
awarmist alarm …

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 10:34 am
So, Steve, people in 1813 or 1913 should have been dreaming up ways to make life more expensive because they could foretell the future? I wonder how that would have worked out?

Someone was making such claims around 1813, and how correct was he again?

Of course this was a foundation believe for Marx so it is no wonder true believers like SoB still believe in junk science built upon those fallacies…

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:38 am
Simon Crean’s interview with Alan Jones from this morning.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:42 am
Fatty O Barrel has erred greatly and has not walked with the angels on this one:

Shocking. I am writing to my MP about this.

Should have been the LDP on the cross benches. We’re pro gun and against onerous police powers.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/oppn-slammed-over-nsw-right-to-silence-law/story-e6frfku9-1226601328430

There ought to be a week of blog entries about this issue alone.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:46 am
Sitting on your arse and saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out OK, it always does” shouldn’t cut if for most people when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

LOL.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 10:47 am
johanna: last time I looked, chemical rockets were still the only way to get into orbit despite having been invented (in their largest version) about 60 years ago, and despite their being pretty expensive and having an occasional tendency to blow up.

Hence, we don’t have have anything like the technological advances in space exploration as appeared quite on the cards in the science fiction I used to read and watch as a kid in the 1960′s.

Technological advance has not stopped – it’s just that it has happened in other areas such as day to day computing, where the speed with which it arrived was not much foreseen.

Hence the true lesson of history seems to me that technological bottlenecks do sometimes take place, despite the best efforts (think fusion, for example.)

I do not see that there is any solid reason for believing that any dramatically different form of energy generation from what we have now will suddenly come and save us, as the “horse and car” example is meant to illustrate.

Gradual improvements in what we do now are of course going on all the time, and carbon pricing helps encourage that.

Sitting on your arse and saying “something new will save us” is not something sensible people advocate.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:47 am
Greg Combet angrily defends Julia Gillard but appears to have forgotten how she came to power. Utterly hilarious:

“The concept that has developed in recent years .. that somehow or other it’s legitimate to deliberately undermine and destabilise your own side of politics, to undermine your own leader, your own political party, particularly while it’s in government, so that you can bring about some leadership change – I think is a disgusting disgrace.

“And that culture that has developed in backgrounding journalists, in leaking information in order to promote some individual’s ambition, has to be wiped out of the Labor party.

“It just cannot continue. No-one has any respect for that, and it must stop.”

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 10:50 am
Sitting on your arse and saying ~~“something new will save us”~~“OMG we need saving” is not something sensible people advocate.

There – FTFY.

Can you not see this?

James in Melbourne

25 Mar 13 at 10:54 am
Delingpole takes aim at the windies

our political class, in league with the bankers and corporatists (and their inevitable battery of lawyers) are conspiring against the people and adopting measures absolutely guaranteed to make things worse. Energy is a case in point. I think Booker is absolutely right to describe the crazy quest for CO2 reduction at all costs as “arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.” There is no logic to it. It’s insanity. And I think everybody in the country – barring the spivs in the renewables industry, the green activists and the bubble-enclosed political class – is fully aware of this. Which, really, makes it only scarier still because if so many of us know it’s wrong, how come this ugly business is able to carry on regardless?

I’m trying to think what consolation we can draw from this. Not much, I’d say: only what the title says. We’ve all grown far too complacent about the political process, we’re insufficiently demanding of what we have a right to expect from our political class (and I don’t mean crap like “being a good constituency MP” and making sure there are no potholes in Acacia Avenue), and until we’re shaken properly out of our comfort zone I don’t think meaningful change can occur.

I would really like to see Abbott scrap the useless RET

val majkus

25 Mar 13 at 10:55 am
In your example dumbo, Finite resources, not taxation, will improve the rate of technology.

I do not see that there is any solid reason for believing that any dramatically different form of energy generation from what we have now will suddenly come and save us, as the “horse and car” example is meant to illustrate.

But then you give as a solid example carbine pwicing.

Stop chroming man

Dan

25 Mar 13 at 10:56 am
In that discussion Simon Crean is very frank. In 5 years of this uselss Labor government I have not heard a Labor Minister present such a honest and substantive interview.

Interesting how at 16:30 he unloads on the stupidity of ratcheting up the tax on superannuation.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 10:57 am
Dan I cannot see the point in your last comment.

Anyone else who can understand it is invited to explain it so I can then respond.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:01 am
“High priest” revealed: the David Miscavige of the atheism cult…

CNN: The money man behind atheism’s activism.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 11:03 am
Sitting on your arse and saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out OK, it always does” shouldn’t cut if for most people when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

That is the funniest statement I’ve seen in ages on AGW.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:09 am
“High priest” revealed: the David Miscavige of the atheism cult…

CNN: The money man behind atheism’s activism.

Just another rich kid trying to buy himself “meaning” in an empty life with absent and demanding parents he sees as hypocrits.

The studying of psych is a “tell”.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 11:10 am
Dramatic change in electrical generation is going from man burning coal, man using fission to create steam and turn a turbine to relying upon an intermittent breeze or the sun shining long enough into the night to power people homes.

Taxation is not driving that change, it is subsidising it because it is a dog of an idea pushed by fuckwits who reside in our parliaments.

Dan

25 Mar 13 at 11:11 am
… I think is a disgusting disgrace.

Zombet then went further:

…and I’m outrageously outraged, I tells ya!

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 11:15 am
Steve

The modelling from the IPCC TAR 4 is rubbish.

Britain is meant to be an average 1.5-2 degrees warmer by now. We’ve had about three years of well below average temps and it is getting colder – now the coldest winter in 50 years – and I remind you the 1960s-1970s which the current cold is being compared against were a very cold time period, compared to the ex ante time series average.

We’re almost 1/7th of the way in and the modelling is already about 300% wrong.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:17 am
Feminists shocked by honest advertiser that doesn’t want to break hearts of struggling jobseekers:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/coal-companys-controversial-job-advertisement-posting-on-aussie-mining-industry-website/story-e6frfro0-1226601453862

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:26 am
“I closed it as soon as I saw (the requirements) because I want to be hired for my skills, not my looks.

I’m too cynical to make a reasonable reply.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 am
Who have you been reading lately, dot? Seems your statements are likely from somewhere else.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 am
Falkland Islanders stand up to Cristina Kirchner at the UN: ‘we have no desire to be governed by Argentina’

Why would anyone want to be ruled by that crony capitalist kleptocrat?

Despite the overwhelming vote rejecting Argentina’s groundless claim of sovereignty over the Islands, Buenos Aires remains firmly in denial. Argentina’s delusional and menacing president Cristina Kirchner continues to dismiss the Islanders as “a bunch of squatters” who are “occupying a building illegally,” against a backdrop of mounting economic decay and social unrest at home.

Sounds like a great neighbour, eh?

Token

25 Mar 13 at 11:33 am
It sho ain’t from da white boy nigga blog y’all bee runnin Steve dogg

Dan

25 Mar 13 at 11:36 am
Who have you been reading lately, dot? Seems your statements are likely from somewhere else.

Yes Steve, when you get transmissions like this, adjust your tin foil hat.

Sincerely, Cancer Man for the MIB World Service.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:36 am
Feminists shocked by honest advertiser that doesn’t want to break hearts of struggling jobseekers:

Its a cultural thing, poor naive Koreans.

Australian employers employ girls for the exact same reason in Aus & OS, but would never put it in writing…

Token

25 Mar 13 at 11:37 am
Kirchner is a war mongering fucking idiot.

I want to see the unwashed hippie masses allied with their religious long eared sandal wearers march in Sydney to protest her provocation of a peace loving, inclusive, nuclear armed power.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:38 am
Its a cultural thing, poor naive Koreans.

Australian employers employ girls for the exact same reason in Aus & OS, but would never put it in writing…

Like the “personality test” that Virgin Ausrtralia have.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:39 am
Sitting on your arse and saying “don’t worry, it’ll work out OK, it always does” shouldn’t cut if for most people when it means a dramatically changed world in 100 – 200 years time of a kind we haven’t seen since civilisation began.

This is a corker of an idiotic statement.

For one, nobody can predict the future. For two, the ‘wait and see’ method has always worked better than the alternatives, which is always to take an existing, failed technology and throw taxpayer money at it,which causes lower living standards for all, a dangerous research dry gully expedition, and general skepticism on the part of the public about the problem.

For two, while it is true that much progress is of the incremental type, in the last 40 years, this progress has been blocked by useless idiots who insist that certain technology paths are somehow ‘wrong’ with no real evidence to back up their claims

Exhibit A is nuclear fission. This important and life-giving technology has been all but banned for the last 30years, while research has been sent up the garden path with tide,wind and solar boondoggles. The initial reactor designs were not optimized for failure and were designed around weapons production as a byproduct. But instead of allowing newer,better designs, the greens have been focussed on banning it outright.

Exhibit B is GM crops. This life giving and important technology has managed to feed the world and solve important problems. Yet at every step of the way, the greens have tried to blocks and stop its development.

So sitting back and waiting for important problems to be solved is the right strategy, As long as you let the winners keep their winnings and as long as you Do not let hysterical Luddites ban the new technology based on feelings and emotion

The answers for energy are all there. But those wedded to a new-Marxist-green ideology where factories and large scale energy don’t exist, and everyone is a fully-engaged multi-talented artisan continue to stop, block and stymie efforts.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 11:44 am
Token,

While I can understand (not necessarily condone) Crean, Bowen and Ferguson for wanting to hang around long enough to attempt some sort of reform after the coming electoral wipeout, I simply cannot understand some of the younger, recent arrivals on the Labor back bench, sitting on 6% or less. They are facing a certain wipeout and they won’t be there to help rebuild, they will be looking for employment. If and when the ALP succeeds in rehabilitating itself, they will be a distant memory in any future preselection contest, and will be tarred with the “loyal Gillard foot soldier” brush. Surely they know that their political aspirations have been turned to dust irrevocably.
Now if say a few of these were to resign from the ALP and go and sit on the cross benches at the Budget sitting…..just maybe they would be accorded some respect by their electorates with a possible return as an independent or even an endorsement deal with the liberals.
Maybe some of those young back-benchers might teach the others what “the honourable thing” really looks like when country is put before party. Of course they would have to deal with the trademark labor hatred for their “treachery”, but this should be weighed against the Gillard party’s treachery to Australia.

Keith

25 Mar 13 at 11:53 am
Dot, hadn’t seen that one; it’s not recent and is targetted at state politics. Although wierdly, Denison votes there for 20% other, which I suspect is the Wilkie effect. Hobart’s a pretty confused place though.

Still, I think that is a reasonable reflection of what will happen federally. Bass and Braddon are givens, Lyons will be a surprise Lib win, and Franklin I’d tip staying Labor. Denison is a multi way and will depend on preference flows.

The big surprise could be a change of +2 to the Libs in the Senate.

DriftForge

25 Mar 13 at 11:53 am
Possibly more important, too, given a potential +2 L/NP seats in WA.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:57 am
This is a corker of an idiotic statement.

Proudly brought to you by this site’s most clueless, bombastic wrongologist.

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 11:58 am
That’s the paradox Keith. Agitate for change, lose your seat and find a real job, or, toe the line, lick arse and hope you get employed as a staffer.

For these clowns, it’s a no brainer. Brown lipstick all the way.

Dan

25 Mar 13 at 11:59 am
Maybe some of those young back-benchers might teach the others what “the honourable thing” really looks like when country is put before party. Of course they would have to deal with the trademark labor hatred for their “treachery”, but this should be weighed against the Gillard party’s treachery to Australia.

Yeah. Crean is now a “rat” because he tried to put the adults in charge and give the demos what they want. Gillard and the faceless men are “honourable”.

It’s almost tragic they don’t understand why they are losing touch with the public. Formerly unpopular Abbott is 49% as preferred PM now.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:59 am
brc: even Reason had an article arguing that nuclear had slowed because it is freaking expensive:

The chart above uses data from a 2009 interdisciplinary study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to compare the costs of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity using nuclear, coal, and gas power. Looking at this data, the cost differential is clear—nuclear-powered energy costs 14 percent more than gas to produce a unit of electricity, and it costs 30 percent more than coal. Furthermore, according to Gilbert Metcaf’s recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper on energy, this increased cost of nuclear energy includes a baked-in taxpayer subsidy of nearly 50 percent of nuclear power’s operating costs.

While the nuclear industry in the United States has seen continued improvements in operating performance over time, it remains uncompetitive with coal and natural gas on the basis of price. This cost differential is primarily the result of high capital costs and long construction times. Indeed, building a nuclear power plant in the United States has cost, on average, three times as was originally estimated.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 12:07 pm
Marxism, alive and well and taught in universities today for a better brighter tomorrow:

Note how many speakers at the Marxism 2013 conference are warehouses in our universities:

Gary [Foley] lectures in history at Victoria University…

Antony Loewenstein is … a board member of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies.

Jeff Sparrow is … editor of the left wing journal Overland [sponsored by Victoria University].

Rick Kuhn … is a Reader in Politics at the Australian National University.

Diane Fieldes … teaches at the University of New South Wales.

Tom Bramble has been a socialist activist since the late 1970s. He is a senior lecturer in industrial relations at the University of Queensland.

Max Lane … is a now a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party [and is a lecturer at Victoria University].

Roz Ward is a delegate in the National Tertiary Education Union at La Trobe University.

Jane Kenway is a Professorial Fellow with the Australian Research Council, a Professor in the Education Faculty at Monash University and an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; Australia.

John [Passant] has been a socialist for over 30 years. He has worked in the Australian Tax Office and academia. [He tutors at the Australian National University.]

Susan Price is the current national co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance… A member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for over 13 years, Susan was NTEU Branch President at the University of NSW from 2006-2008 and has been Branch Secretary since 2010

Because people do not learn from history.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 12:08 pm
…to compare the costs of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity using nuclear, coal, and gas power…

Notice how the unicorn fart power of Big Green crony capitalism was not included in this list?

Token

25 Mar 13 at 12:10 pm
It’s almost tragic they don’t understand why they are losing touch with the public.

They know perfectly well why they stink like an outside dunny. But they can’t change. They’re working for a cabal of union fixers who are now calling in their favours like a bunch of mafia dons. These neanderthals aren’t suddenly going to become non-criminals for the sake of respectability. A deal is a deal and the deal is going go down. For them, it’s just regrettable the public accidently found out how the ALP really rolls.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 12:10 pm
Nuclear is still expensive because the market has essentially been killed by bans for 30 years. It is expensive because idiots won’t let it be developed.

Thank you for proving my point.

If ‘green’ attitudes had been applied to cars or airplanes, royalty would still be the only ones using these technologies.

The only way to lower the cost of anything is to allow its development. If your argument is that banning nuclear plants has led to nuclear plants being expensive, well, no shit sherlock.

Who knows what might have been developed without anti nuclear hysteria? Could we have sealed-unit shipping container sized commercial reactors? Could we have a merchant marine fleet powered by reactors?

I guess we will never know. It’s expensive because nuclear hysteria has priced it that way.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 12:13 pm
brc is right.

The cost of any energy supply comes down to one thing – scale.

Oil shale, scaled up, a few years ago, could produce at a long term average of $40/bbl.

If you combine the irrigation duality of hydro and the energy density of nuclear with scale – they become the rational choice for electricity. Labour intensity falls with both.

Powering personal vehicles from fossil or electrciity comes down to the convenience, available range & power and reliability of batteries & charging.

.

25 Mar 13 at 12:19 pm
Looks like News is shutting up its sheltered workshop for the special needs kids.

I’m guessing all those legacy contracts are coming to an end and they are no longer stuck having these nuff-nuffs on its payroll.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 12:26 pm
Could we have sealed-unit shipping container sized commercial reactors?

We could.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 12:27 pm
The cost of any energy supply comes down to one thing – scale.

And feasibility. The scale argument was behind subsidies for wind and solar.

Biota

25 Mar 13 at 12:30 pm
That’s the paradox Keith. Agitate for change, lose your seat and find a real job, or, toe the line, lick arse and hope you get employed as a staffer.

For these clowns, it’s a no brainer. Brown lipstick all the way.

Labor staffer – somehow I think that’s going to be a very crowded market. There are only going to be so many billets available, and the survivors will have to reduce the numbers of staffers they currently have.
Similarly, there won’t be many jobs back where they came from in the unions and laborite legal firms. But clearly the delusion that they’ll be looked after is strong.

Keith

25 Mar 13 at 12:31 pm
In 2010 I wrote to Hyperion (now GEN4Energy), asking whether it could sell and even produce its Small Nuclear Reactors in Australia. I received an answer within an hour from its Vice President, Business Development:

Thanks for your inquiry regarding the Hyperion Power Module. Like the US, Australia will have to revisit nuclear power with a view to bridging the gap between sustainable wind, water, solar, hydrogen, etc. There is growing awareness of the advantages of safe nuclear fuel that can be largely recycled and with a very small amount of waste. But, yes….we plan to sell the Hyperion Module in Australia, with much interest from remote mining and exploration companies all ready. We will certainly look to locate a facility somewhere in Oceanea if not Australia.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 12:34 pm
Breaking News:
Gillard announces ne Ministerial line up. First picture of the new team assembling to be sworn in.

News at 11.00

Splatacrobat

25 Mar 13 at 12:36 pm
gillard has announced her ministry reshuffle – her sixth since 2010 – and the Climate Scam department is no longer important and no longer a stand-alone, being diluted and merged with Industry department.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 12:36 pm
Well said, brc. We have had nuclear-powered military submarines for decades, yet the hysteria even prevents them from docking in many places. Imagine if that technology had been free to develop to a commercial level.

The lengthy and onerous regulatory impediments to building even the most modern and safe nuclear power stations are a heavy impost which drives up the cost of nuclear power.

sfb seems to think that we can’t rely on future technological developments because his boyhood comics weren’t scientific crystal balls. There is really no point in attempting to have a rational discussion with someone like that.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 12:43 pm
gillard ministry 2010

gillard ministry 2013

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 12:46 pm
From the Financial Times last year:

Nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy that it has become “really hard” to justify, according to the chief executive of General Electric, one of the world’s largest suppliers of atomic equipment.

“It’s really a gas and wind world today,” said Jeff Immelt, referring to two sources of electricity he said most countries are shifting towards as natural gas becomes “permanently cheap”.

“When I talk to the guys who run the oil companies they say look, they’re finding more gas all the time. It’s just hard to justify nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point, really, economics rule,” Mr Immelt told the Financial Times in an interview in London at the weekend. “So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar … that’s where we see most countries around the world going.”

Of course regulation of it is going to be tight: when it goes wrong, it is enormously disruptive to anyone living within scores of kilometers.

Idiots who play down the seriousness of Fukushima have never had to abandon their home/town/farm because of an industrial accident 40 km away.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 12:49 pm
No, this, is the 2013 ministry.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 12:49 pm
Must be a difficult moment for Chris Bowen and the others, seeing their careers out the window, having done the hard work in their portfolios.

candy

25 Mar 13 at 12:52 pm
Yes well MK50 and TINY BRAIN I see upthread that you have been quite rightly castigated by Alice for being a pair of no good piss heads whose excessive drinking and carousing has harmed many people throughout your miserable lives. She doesn’t know the half of it.

Here I was walking down George St whistling a happy tune after a good day and thinking about having a quick Pimm’s and Lemonade when I was set upon by these two brigands.

When Norman Lindsay wrote of the Pudding Theives, he described them as “low men, hiding behind a wall”. That was them. They saw me coming down the street, a simple country boy lost in the big city, a latter day Albert, or The Man from Ironbark if you will.

They sprang from behind the wall and the next thing I knew I was being force fed a lot of beer. The next thing I knew I was at Greebank RSL, then in a garage nearby, in charge of the plasticine.

This sort of thing happens to me a lot in Brisbane. Maybe because I have a kindly face and a trusting nature. I always think the best of people and often get let down.

Pickles

25 Mar 13 at 12:55 pm
In Homer Simpson style Labor MP Julie Owens mixes up her briefing notes with her talking points memo by suggesting 50% of her electorate don’t read the news & hence won’t be bothered by Labor’s leadership shambles.

‘Wait, did I just think that, or did I say it? Quick Julie think…AbbottAbbottAbbott’

Rousie

25 Mar 13 at 12:57 pm
The Man from Ironbark if you will.

Or The Loaded Dog, if you will. hehehehe.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 12:58 pm
That accident homo was caused by a tsunami, not malpractice

Dan

25 Mar 13 at 12:59 pm
Hilarious ~~Gillard~~ McTernan spin:

While purpose has driven us on, unity has eluded us,” she said.

“That unity spectacularly eluded us last week.

“Like Australians around the nation, I was appalled by the events of last week. Our eyes were on ourselves rather than … being focused on the nation. It was an unseemly display. But out of that has come clarity.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-25/julia-gillard-announces-cabinet-reshuffle/4592338

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 1:02 pm
The guy from GE is correct, of course. Gas is cheap and will be the cheapest method of producing electricity for decades.

I think he is missing the larger point though, that Nuclear Power is renewable and has zero-emissions, whereas gas is not. That is the only reason people are looking at it seriously.

Yobbo

25 Mar 13 at 1:05 pm
Idiots who play down the seriousness of Fukushima have never had to abandon their home/town/farm because of an industrial accident 40 km away.

Neither did people in Fukashima, but they were forced to by Government. Fucking moron.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:06 pm
Gas lends itself to cheap infrastructure as well.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:08 pm
Fantastic to see the universally hated Australian cricket team humiliated in India.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 1:08 pm
When I got my first job at fourteen, putting my age up to sixteen, it was in the back office of a department store and my looks were against me, as the old bat in charge really hated me for them and gave me the worst parts of an already unbelievably tedious job. After six weeks I left, because I had scored a job as a receptionist, where I eventually took over quite a bit of the running of the place and learned a lot. My looks definitely helped me to get this job. My brains carried on from there to expand the job and do better things. My start in life.

Good looks obviously help, and it is unfair that some are less good looking (although inventiveness can help overcome most deficits). But ten minutes spent with a good looking dill puts most employers off employing on the basis of good looks alone. That Korean ad wanted more than good looks.

The other issue with that inter-cultural ad had to do with being young and unmarried, understandable in cultures where married women don’t have autonomy over the times they are available for work, whereas this is less the case in our society.

Maybe. Working time-tugged mothers have it tough everywhere.

Could also be that the Korean guys just like having younger chicks around. Now that is sexist (unless you are a young chick, when it is often quite nice at first).

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

25 Mar 13 at 1:08 pm
Deadman @ 12.49pm

No, this, is the 2013 ministry.

Heh. The living dead. And there is a demented redhead in the centre of the frame.

Septimus

25 Mar 13 at 1:10 pm
That accident homo was caused by a tsunami, not malpractice

What’s “homo” referring to in there?

Fukushima was a reactor built in an earthquake and tsunami prone area. That it started blowing up can ultimately be attributed back to design features which meant a tsunami could take out its back up power for coolant water to the reactors.

And besides, if it was gas powered place, complete destruction would have had little effect 1 km away, let alone 45km.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 1:12 pm
Crean is just the latest to join Tanner and the other Labor ministers to denounce the factional system as soon as it ceases to work in their own interests. From there it is just a short jump into a high paying job in the private sector (Arbib, Hawke, Carr etc) that they have largely spent their former political life working against.

Utter hypocrites.

H B Bear

25 Mar 13 at 1:18 pm
Ha! Dot thinks the displaced from Fukushima are just itching to get back to their homes and farms and think that it’s the government that is exaggerating the danger?

What a clown.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 1:19 pm
That’s right, Dogshit QC, the Fukushima accident killed thousands of people as the fruitcakes like you warned us it would … didn’t it?

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 1:20 pm
Fukushima was a reactor built in an earthquake and tsunami prone area

Shitfer, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Most of Japan sits on fault lines, ground tremors are a fact of life, Fukushima was desingned and built to earthquake standards and had a 6 metre retaining wall. Also let us not it was in the process of being decommissioned. BTY there is no such thing as a tsunami prone area fucknuts.

You can’t tsunami proof against a 10 metre swell following an earthquake of a magnitude beyond any design specifications.

Perhaps you could share with us why Kamaishi with no power station got flattened.

Seriously you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 1:26 pm
the Fukushima accident killed thousands of people as the fruitcakes like you warned us it would … didn’t it?

There are very very many doomed to a slow death though cancers and other radiation illnesses. It will be decades before the full horror of this nuclear disaster manifests itself fully.

hammy

25 Mar 13 at 1:29 pm
gillard has announced her ministry reshuffle – her sixth since 2010 – and the Climate Scam department is no longer important and no longer a stand-alone, being diluted and merged with Industry department.

Climate Change is dead.

Prepare for the next five years of memory holing, walk backs and “we never said it was going to be that bad” lies.

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 1:31 pm
Doom, and more doom!

There are very, very many doomed to a slow death from cancers and other radiation illnesses, and angry sharks, and killer weeds, and acidic seas, and Gaia’s wrath, and just the general bad vibe of things. It will be decades before the full horrors of global warming and every other pseudo-scientific scaremongering manifests themselves fully; so, until then, give me and my self-serving mates billions in research funds!

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 1:34 pm
“It’s really a gas and wind world today,” said Jeff Immelt

What would you expect from the crony capitalist CEO of GE, who swallowed the Kool Aid on globall warmening and hangs with the Magic Negro to snaffle government subsidies and whose massive bets on wind farms are going sour like the rest of the “ethical investment” zombies who didn’t do their sums properly?

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 1:35 pm
You can’t tsunami proof against a 10 metre swell following an earthquake of a magnitude beyond any design specifications.

Careful, Carpes – our beloved wrongologist might promptly blame the earthquake on Gerbil Worming!

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 1:36 pm
It will be decades before the full horror of this nuclear disaster manifests itself fully.

Peak stupid has just happened.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 1:38 pm
The Climate Change Department merger is just a last-ditch attempt to make it harder for an Abbott government to get rid of these parasites, who are all Labor supporters. I just hope that Abbott has a plan to ensure that they are winkled out of wherever they are hiding and removed.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 1:38 pm
There are very very many doomed to a slow death though cancers and other radiation illnesses. It will be decades before the full horror of this nuclear disaster manifests itself fully.

Bullshit.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 1:38 pm
Mortality

According to UNSCEAR (2000), 134 liquidators received radiation doses high enough to be diagnosed with acute radiation sickness (ARS). Among them, 28 persons died in 1986 due to ARS. Other liquidators have since died but their deaths could not necessarily be attributed to radiation exposure.

An increased number of cancer deaths can be expected during the lifetime of persons exposed to radiation from the accident. Since it is currently impossible to determine which individual cancers were caused by radiation, the number of such deaths can only be estimated statistically using information and projections from the studies of atomic bomb survivors and other highly exposed populations. It should be noted that the atomic bomb survivors received high radiation doses in a short time period, while Chernobyl caused low doses over a long time. This and other factors, such as trying to estimate doses people received some time after the accident, as well as differences in lifestyle and nutrition, cause very large uncertainties when making projections about future cancer deaths. In addition, a significant non-radiation related reduction in the average lifespan in the three countries over the past 15 years caused by overuse of alcohol and tobacco, and reduced health care, have significantly increased the difficulties in detecting any effect of radiation on cancer mortality.

Although there is controversy about the magnitude of the cancer risk from exposure to low doses of radiation, the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII Committee, published in 2006, a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence, and concluded that the risk seems to continue in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold (this is called the “linear no-threshold” or LNT model). However, there are uncertainties concerning the magnitude of the effect, particularly at doses much lower than about 100 mSv.

The Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4 000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240 000 liquidators; 116 000 evacuees and the 270 000 residents of the SCZs). Since more than 120 000 people in these three groups may eventually die of cancer, the additional cancer deaths from radiation exposure correspond to 3-4% above the normal incidence of cancers from all causes.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure, or about 0.6% of the cancer deaths expected in this population due to other causes. Again, these numbers only provide an indication of the likely impact of the accident because of the important uncertainties listed above.

Chernobyl may also cause cancers in Europe outside Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. However, according to UNSCEAR, the average dose to these populations is much lower and so the relative increase in cancer deaths is expected to be much smaller. Predicted estimates are very uncertain and it is very unlikely that any increase in these countries will be detectable using national cancer statistics .3

Get some knowledge into you, hammy you disseminater of false and fabricated “information”.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 1:39 pm
Must be a difficult moment for Chris Bowen and the others, seeing their careers out the window, having done the hard work in their portfolios.

I think he would be happy to have the immigration millstone off his neck.

On his watch there have been riots, community disasters like Macquarie Uni, over 1,000 deaths at sea & the process of running the navy into the ground by using it as a taxi service.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 1:39 pm
Fucking bullshit, dogshit Steve.

No one in fukushima got sick. No one exceeded recommended radiation levels.

Rense.com is in your league, predicting 100 000 deaths.

Gen IV nuclear is safe. Stop bringing up non events from ancient technology.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:39 pm
There are very very many doomed to a slow death though cancers and other radiation illnesses. It will be decades before the full horror of this nuclear disaster manifests itself fully

Nice to see the Hammburglar channelling another legendary imbecile…

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 1:40 pm
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/index.html

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 1:40 pm
Crean is just the latest to join Tanner and the other Labor ministers to denounce the factional system as soon as it ceases to work in their own interests.

Simon was leader from late 2001 to late 2003, and during that time I recall him making noises about reviewing the links to the unions. Labor were unelectable at the time, and there was a bit of a chance to suggest such a thing in the post-election disaster navel gazing phase. But it would have been a bridge too far, and he was replaced by Latham.
The time may be right for another split, and for the remnants of old Labor to start anew, preserving a “social concern” position but not actually having a union tether. After all, with the low rate of unionisation of the workforce, it is totally unjustified for the links to be such as they are now.
The power of the unions to run things could be defeated by strict governance rules and retuning Fair Work Australia.
Re-introduce the oversighting bodies that watch out for union misbehaviour in the building industry and any where else. Unions should be shrunken to the power of a minor lobby group, with no legal power to disrupt anything. They can represent their members interests, but no large levers should be left in their hands.
This includes OH&S, and superannuation. After the HSU, who would trust the unions to administer anything? Union dues should be only enough for admin, not for 26 million bucks worth of anti-Work Choices TV ad propaganda as an elelction looms.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 1:43 pm
Fucking bullshit, dogshit Steve.

No one in fukushima got sick. No one exceeded recommended radiation levels.

Remember Stepford is a 60yo house-husband who fills his day playing the Zombie fantasy Day Z:

The mod places the player in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus, where an unknown virus has turned most of the population into undead, violent zombies.

Chernarus…Chernabol…

Token

25 Mar 13 at 1:44 pm
Stop it Gabs!

They’re all gunna die, I tells ya!

Gerbil Worming, decades of nuclear milk irradiation, plague, pestilence, famine, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 1:44 pm
You can’t tsunami proof against a 10 metre swell following an earthquake of a magnitude beyond any design specifications.

You don’t need to with modular Gen IV reactors which require no extensive cooling system.

Furthermore, you could simply – build on higher ground or build a big concrete wall around the plant.

‘You can’t…”

…fucking mouthbreather.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:46 pm
Err, sorry about that li’l outburst, people.

Now for some numptyism:

Stalinism is not Marxism.

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 1:48 pm
While I was away, did I miss anyone saying where the Good Professor Bunyip had disappeared to, and whether he was OK?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

25 Mar 13 at 1:48 pm
Gerbil Worming, decades of nuclear milk irradiation, plague, pestilence, famine, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Where are the Ghostbusters when you need them.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 1:49 pm
Ah, Gwee Run-del.

An expert on nuclear engineering and energy economics.

Anyone who wants to cut fossil fuel and says no to nuclear and hydro is rightly called a moron and a charlatan.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:49 pm
This is pretty typical of an anti-Work Choices ad.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 1:49 pm
My argument wasn’t gas vs nuclear. if Gas is better, go with gas. My aragument was allowing technologies to evolve, which a thought-free commenter said wasn’t happening, and we shouldnt rely on the market sorting things out. My point is that the market hasn’t been free to sort nuclear out, because Luddites run around freaking out about everything and spend their days saying no to technological progress. Nuclear is not successful because it has been regulated to be not successful. Chernobyl was a terrible disaster for those who got misplaced and those who perished. But In itself it should have been a call for better designs, not a total ban and the kind of fact-free idiotic hysteria like the hamster has already shown. If nuclear-hysteria had been applied to all sorts of disasters, then a lot of technological progress would have been stopped, to our detriment. When early commercial planes crashed, they made better planes. When early coal mines exploded, they made better coal mines (incidentally coal mining is far more lethal than nuclear power)

The point is that the major halts on technological progress right now are religious campaigns against better technologies in favor of quaint-sounding but useless technologies, and the diversion of research and capital away from promising fields into discredited fields. This gives the impression of a lack of progress – when in reality all it does is confirm the futility of trying to central-plan your way to a solution. It takes a special type of idiocy to point to an excessive handicap a horse is carrying and proclaim that it proves the horse was no good in the first place.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 1:52 pm
Yes, Lizzie – Sinc said he was just taking a break.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 1:52 pm
The 2013 Web Bloggies.

Weblog of the Year.
Watts Up With That?

Best Science or Technology Weblog.
Watts Up With That?
Finalist/Runnerup:- JoNova.

Best Weblog About Politics.
James Delingpole.

Best-Kept Secret Weblog.
Michael Smith.

Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog.
Australian Climate Madness.

Best Canadian Weblog.
Small Dead Animals.

Next year. The Cat. Best Libertarian Web Blog.

Rudiau

25 Mar 13 at 1:52 pm
brc – you were right. We ought not to pick winners. I simply state what I think I’d back as an investor. I shouldn’t force my preferences on investors and consumers though.

I know however right now that renewables – are simply a false hope, other than hydro which has seen so much regulation and activism against it in Australia to the point where it is effectively banned – despite the fact that we still cannot properly mitigate floods or manage water resources effectively in droughts.

.

25 Mar 13 at 1:55 pm
“Like Australians around the nation, I was appalled by the events of last week. Our eyes were on ourselves rather than … being focused on the nation. It was an unseemly display. But out of that has come clarity.”

How many times have Gillard and the ALP needed to try on the this “right, this time you’re going to see the real us”?

There’s been at least twenty “meet the Real Gillard” attempts (currently something to do with inner city mummy bloggers and glasses, I dunno) and I suppose this is the sixth time we’re meeting a new “this time we mean business” ALP government.

Perhaps somebody will twig that there’s is something rotten to the absolute core of the ALP and that there’s nobody in it from this generation who is even remotely competent or even marginally “normal” by community standards? As in didn’t go to Uni, didn’t find a place in a “special” union position despite never actually having worked in a trade in their lives and didn’t get drafted from that into the ALP? Hell lets just settle for somebody who doesn’t have a million dollar property portfolio. What about simply “was never a raving communist”. Is there anybody in the ALP who fits that description?

Is there one person in the current lot who has ever held a normal job or existed outside of the ALP walled garden?

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 1:56 pm
For carpe jugulum:

By contrast, a wall built to withstand a 5.7-metre tsunami offers no protection from a 15-metre wave. And according to those who have analysed Japan’s history of tsunamis, the engineers who built Fukushima Daiichi should have known that their protection was inadequate (see graphic).

Johannis Nöggerath, president of the Swiss Nuclear Society, seismologist Robert Geller of the University of Tokyo, and Viacheslav Gusiakov, who heads the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Tsunami Laboratory in Novosibirsk, have looked at the historical record of tsunamis that was available when Fukushima Daiichi was designed in the mid-1960s (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol 67, p 37).

They note that tsunamis rising up to 38 metres had already hit parts of Japan’s Pacific coast some 200 kilometres to the north, and say that it would have been prudent to plan for a similar onslaught. Instead, based on waves seen at Fukushima in 1960, generated by a magnitude-9.5 quake across the Pacific in Chile, the plant’s designers initially assumed that the worst-case scenario was a 3.1-metre tsunami. That figure was revised to 5.7 metres in 2002.

In a bitter irony, before construction at Fukushima Daiichi began, the site was excavated by more than 20 metres. This was done in part to allow the reactors to be built on bedrock to improve their seismic resilience, but it put the plant directly in harm’s way when the tsunami hit.

Worse, the diesel generators needed to power emergency cooling systems, and switching gear that connects the plant to the electricity grid and controls core cooling, were not in waterproof buildings. Once they flooded, a disaster was almost inevitable.

The diesel backup should not have been where it was and in buildings prone to flooding if a wave did breach the wall.

This is a design flaw.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 1:56 pm
Props to Australian Climate Madness for their award. Simon, the volunteer who runs it with help from other volunteers (still waiting on their Big Oil cheque!) did a lot of the heavy lifting in exposing the lies about climate scientists being “threatened” by nasty sceptics.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 1:58 pm
Shitfer – the plant was built to design specifications, the retaining wall was to design specifications. The quake was of a magnitude that could not have been predicted. The retaining wall and surrounding pine trees could not mitigae the tsunami.

You have no idea what you are talking about, and don’t link to alarmist horseshit.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 2:03 pm
Right wingnuts obviously like to give themselves validation by circle jerk awards in which only other wingnuts participate.

So, yeah, “props” for that.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 2:04 pm
Worse, the diesel generators needed to power emergency cooling systems, and switching gear that connects the plant to the electricity grid and controls core cooling, were not in waterproof buildings. Once they flooded, a disaster was almost inevitable.

The diesel backup should not have been where it was and in buildings prone to flooding if a wave did breach the wall.

This is a design flaw.

Fuck me you are stupid.

Build on high ground (about 10 km inland is 200 m above sea level – you panicking princess). Build a wall if you have a tinfoil hat like steve. Redesign the cooling mechanism. Make all of these redundant by using a modular Gen IV reactor like a Hyperion etc.

A poor and failed attempt to convince people to use unfeasible, expensive and unrelaiable renewables, Princess.

.

25 Mar 13 at 2:05 pm
Right wingnuts obviously like to give themselves validation by circle jerk awards in which only other wingnuts participate.

…and you blog about buttplugs, semen and heirloom garlic.

.

25 Mar 13 at 2:05 pm
Anyone who wants to cut fossil fuel and says no to nuclear and hydro is rightly called a moron and a charlatan.

This. It’s a good tell regarding whether the person is one of the few enviros who is capable of thought. CO2 a concern; nuclear the solution.

There’s a few dams in Tassie that are just waiting for a co-located nuclear plant.

For additional head popping fun with enviros who reject nuclear power, the line ‘Ah well, there are a couple of dams downstream of Strathgordon that will have to be built then…’ works a treat.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 2:07 pm
No shit, their were design problems at Fukushima. Hindsight tells us that.

The problem is that hysterics wouldn’t allow old, outdated designs to be replaced with new designs.

They would rather they just be switched off together, and the Japanese people should sleep with their pets instead of having electric heating.

The reason ancient plants like Fukushima that require active cooling are still around is because there has been a virtual ban on new plants for 30 years. So the old ones are kept in commission beyond their design life because they are the only thing that works.

All these idiotic references just reinforce the point : modern green Luddites are hampering technological progress and endangering human lives. But it was always thus, and wrongologists can be counted to pick up the wrong end of the stick, apply some post-hoc analysis and get it 180 degrees incorrect.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 2:08 pm
carpe jughead: give up. You’ve been shown up as wrong and are too stupid to admit it.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 2:08 pm
Right wingnuts obviously like to give themselves validation by circle jerk awards

You mean like the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney…………oh wait.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 2:08 pm
SoB, stick to what you do best.

Predicting doom in a vague 100-200 years in hessian sack on a soap box (i.e. your boring blog).

Token

25 Mar 13 at 2:09 pm
From The Australian:

“Ms. Gillard’s supporters describe their goal as an attempt to instil ‘Labor values’ in government policy, declaring that this would continue through to the election.”

Never interrupt your worst enemy when he is busy writing a suicide note.

James in Melbourne

25 Mar 13 at 2:12 pm
You’ve been shown up as wrong and are too stupid to admit it.

Incorrect shitfer, you are commenting on a place and a power source where you have no knowledge. You have no understanding of Japanese building regs or earthquake standards for construction.

Face it, you are a sad caricature of a man living in brisbane who has no idea of a foreign country.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 2:12 pm
Hindsight is always 20/20. That is the design flaw of human beings.

Lloyd

25 Mar 13 at 2:15 pm
I must say, the merging of the flagship climate chAnge department has happened quicker than I expected. Gillardknows that agw is electoral poison, but those overpaid staffers will still be hiding out in their new building, drawing big salaries and making presentations to each other.

She can try and hide them away, but they will still be up,for the chop come election time. I bet the transfers and resignations are running at full clip.

It’s funny, really, the AGW crowd always thought the skeptics wee their biggest enemy, But in reality it is pollies like Gillard who are the worst, because they use them until they get new taxes and power structures in place, then dump the activists as soon as politically viable. The dreams of the AGW crowd will never be fulfilled, but they allowed themselves to be used like cheap hookers in the meantime. Gillard and Combet never really believed any of it. They just wanted the ability to tax and regulate, and the catastrophists handed it to them on a plate. They’ll learn in the next few years what it’s like to be sidelined and never have their calls returned. Their cause ruined, turned into an international joke, all because they thought they could dance with Marxist devils and not pay the price.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 2:18 pm
Putrid pile of mud Julia Gillard spins dying children:

PM defends Sandilands’ bunny gig.

Ms Gillard made world headlines last year after using a 15-minute speech in parliament to accuse Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of being a misogynist.

She told reporters in Canberra on Monday, making the group of seriously ill children from Bear Cottage “happy for an hour” was a good use of her time.

“They don’t have long to live … what I did yesterday was spend some time … (there was) chocolate, sunshine, games and Kyle appearing in a rabbit costume,” Ms Gillard said.

“People had a smile and a joke, and had a laugh.”

Craig Emerson:

“You just don’t write people off all over the place because of particular statements they make,” he said on Monday.

“Let’s not just dwell in the past.”

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 2:34 pm
But in reality it is pollies like Gillard who are the worst, because they use them until they get new taxes and power structures in place, then dump the activists as soon as politically viable

It is in one sense the danger of big government funded fads; the money comes in a rush, and then it goes and is no more.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 2:34 pm
5 against 1 on tonight’s Q&A:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 2:41 pm
Our mate Andrew Leigh gets a geurnsey

Andrew Leigh will be Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Andrew will bring to this post his distinguished academic record in public policy and economics.

Forester

25 Mar 13 at 2:46 pm
By the way, an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists suggested five things to prevent another Fukushima. The first three are design features (some of which, such as the backup power being subject to flooding, were pretty obvious, despite what Nuclear Design Expert Professor Carpe Jughead says).

The last are essentially “prevent sabotage and military attack on them”, which is kind of a big ask, and shows why nuclear is a hard sell. Remember the Greenpeace ad that ran in Britain once?

Small nuclear would alleviate some of the problem – a small accident at least couldn’t harm such a large area – but as far as I know the economics of them and their safety just isn’t really known yet. (I have read before that they could just be buried as a safety feature, but I’m not sure that the idea of a radioactive leak into the local water table is one with much appeal.)

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 2:48 pm
STFU Stepford.

You know shit all about nuclear and stop trying to pretend otherwise, you dickhaed. Go on shoo off. Get lost.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 2:48 pm
Hey, will Christine “Big Kev” Nixon be able to get through Q&A without taking a burger break?

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 2:49 pm
shoo

Good point.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 2:50 pm
… will bring to this post his distinguished academic record in public policy and economics.

What a load of bullshit.

He’ll be little more than a sycophantic court jester.

“No, me lady lardarse, your house sized bum doesn’t look big in that.”

Vomitous.

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 2:52 pm
Our mate Andrew Leigh gets a geurnsey

Andrew Leigh will be Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Andrew will bring to this post his distinguished academic record in public policy and economics.

He would be great at that. Sniveling all the way.

By the way , does anyone know if he repaid the money owed to the taxpayer for that “study” he did which offered conclusive proof da ABC is rightwing. … The dishonest little rat.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 2:52 pm
The Gillard government has just killed another two people:

Two dead as asylum boat capsizes north of Christmas Island.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 2:54 pm
Remember the Greenpeace ad that ran in Britain once?

You f*cking pillock, why would anyone here remember some stupid bloody greenpeace ad that ran in that stinking toilet?

Have you gone stark raving bonkers?

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 2:55 pm
Feed your souls for a minute, guys.

http://www.wimp.com/bestcoin/

Ellen of Tasmania

25 Mar 13 at 2:58 pm
The Gillard government has just killed another two people:

Two dead as asylum boat capsizes north of Christmas Island.

The ACT government still hasn’t updated the memorial in Commonwealth Park since the Worst Thing Ever(tm) happened and 300 people died in Indonesian waters under Howard.

300 dead under Howard = 15 acre memorial in Commonwealth park.

1000 dead under Gillard = silence.

Pure evil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIEV_X#SIEV_X_Memorial

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 3:02 pm
Rabz: I think I saw the ad on Insiders. It was run as an example of what you could expect if the Coalition ran on a platform of allowing nuclear power in Australia.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 3:03 pm
Stop wetting your pants, SFB. The LNP will never run on that platform.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 3:04 pm
From the very good article that deadman linked :

Indeed, it is in government regulations that the modular reactors face their greatest challenges. Whatever the facts about nuclear accidents from Windscale to Fukushima, a large fraction of the public, especially in the West, is very nervous about nuclear energy in any form. There are powerful lobbies opposed to any nuclear reactors operating and the regulations written up by governments reflect these circumstances. Much of the cost of building nuclear plants is due to meeting all regulations, providing safety and security systems, and just dealing with all the legal barriers and paperwork that can take years and millions of dollars to overcome

Fancy that – a big input cost for nuclear power is the army of lawyers you have to employ to satisfy the hand waving of hysterics.

It’s a good article – people should RtWT. I might note that the site is hardly a conservative blog.

Shipping container sized reactors that are hands off, and you bury them I the ground, and pull them back up in ten years when they are done. Factory produced, low cost and passively safe. Some even burn existing waste to eat into the stocks of hazardous waste and old weapons lying around. This could be the future of energy – but no, we have zealots running around chopping down forests and erecting bird killers so they can have a couple of hours per day of energy when the conditions are right.

My original point stands : wait and see is the correct stance in every occasion, because smart people will present solutions to difficult problems, as long as you don’t actively get in their way or try and pick winners.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 3:05 pm
And how is carbon pricing going to hurt small nuclear, brc?

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 3:12 pm
It was run as an example of what you could expect if the Coalition ran on a platform of allowing nuclear power in Australia.

Yep, preposterous, hysterical, fact and evidence free bullshit.

I’d expect nothing less from loathsome, lobotomised greenfilth scumbags (BIRM).

Rabz

25 Mar 13 at 3:12 pm
Essential Poll:

Primary
LNP 47% (0);
The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight 33% (-2)

TPP
LNP 54%, ALP 46% no change for either from last week.

http://essentialvision.com.au/federal-politics-%E2%80%93-voting-intention-156

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 3:15 pm
It’s a good article – people should RtWT. I might note that the site is hardly a conservative blog.

Yeah, a lot of the push recently is coming from the more rational enviros, even in Australia. If we can swing the outcome of the whole CO2 scare into opening up the possibility of a nuclear energy outcome for Australia, that would be a pretty good win.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 3:18 pm
Would Julia Gillard still be prime minister if she were not a woman?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-julias-betrayed-sisterhood/story-e6frezz0-1226604141820

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 3:19 pm
Thanks Ellen. I’ve heard (and seen) it before, but it is always lovely. Inspiring.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

25 Mar 13 at 3:19 pm
Interesting that none of the polls are showing change from last week…

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 3:19 pm
So, still only a five point swing from one side of the ledger to the other to give a Labor win.

Neat.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 3:23 pm
I’m like you or even worse when it comes to andy leigh. I can’t stand that sniveling little toad. He just brings out the worst outta me.

Every time I see his name, my blood pressure rises and I have near perfect blood pressure.

Can you just imagine the sniveling that will go on…

” would PM like an apple this morning?”

“yes PM, I checked the toilet paper in the bathroom and you have ample supplies.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 3:24 pm
Interesting that none of the polls are showing change from last week

Rather worrying too. She’s out and about doing the Julia Cares and Misogyny on some very popular fronts.

Libs cannot just sit back and let her steal the election with further two-faced behaviour. People are often not much clued into what it means to lose Ministers so often, and just pass it off as ‘politics’ – meanwhile seeing Julia as a ‘nice woman under unfair pressure’. The McTernan line from now on, I think.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.

25 Mar 13 at 3:24 pm
Tony’s performance on Bolt got such bad reviews here yesterday Lizzie that I am feeling more cheery about Labor’s prospects.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 3:34 pm
And how is carbon pricing going to hurt small nuclear, brc?

LOL, its not.

After the election it will be unwound and it will not be reimplement as long as a sane adult party is in power as China, India, Vietnam, Brazil and the other major polluters will not agree to making their very poor people even poorer.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 3:41 pm
“That unity spectacularly eluded us last week.

“Like Australians around the nation, I was appalled by the events of last week. Our eyes were on ourselves rather than … being focused on the nation. It was an unseemly display.

Abbott said similar last week.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 3:53 pm
Hindsight is always 20/20.

Not so. Even if other people had perfect acuity of hindsight—though history shews far otherwise—I often falsify that silly axiom by suggesting, that, for example, perhaps Hitler was right to attack the USSR when he did or a Gallipoli campaign could work!
(Similarly, I falsify the trite axiom that things are always in the last place you look by continuing to search in one or two more places after I’ve found something.)

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 3:54 pm
(Similarly, I falsify the trite axiom that things are always in the last place you look by continuing to search in one or two more places after I’ve found something.)

At that time that you are no longer looking for the item, even if you continue to look.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 3:58 pm
So the ALP is sitting on its worse 2PP result since 1977 if an election were held now, with the ALP’s worst ever result (43.1%, 1966) now in sight. But Essential records a protest vote of 9% (“others”), compared with 6.6% in 2010. At the 2010 election, 97% of the “other” vote preferenced the Coalition. The electorate is polarising. Therefore, I would be astonished if the “other” vote at an election was more than 5%. What that means is the real 2PP split is currently around 58-42% to the Coalition and a loss of 35 seats for Labor. The idea that the Lying Slapper’s amateurism as a politician won’t further damage the Labor vote is beyond belief and a Queensland-style swing of around 15% is still on the cards, relegating the ALP to minor party status with around 11 people left in the House of Representatives out of 150. The most important thing that’s happened in the past four months, apart from last week’s comedy, is that McTernan’s attempt to smear Abbott’s character has backfired spectacularly and people are warming to him, even though he is coming over as wooden to avoid stumbles – necessary and understandable when 80% of the media are actively scheming to destroy him.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 4:03 pm
Tony’s performance on Bolt got such bad reviews here yesterday…

You are to much of a partisan to understand what the subtlety, but in summary Abbott didn’t perform poorly.

_________________

I finally got to see a replay of Insiders from yesterday and found the panel was good (though Leatherface did try hard to push the Gillard party line).

It was informative dialogs like that which was why I used to like the show. It is a real pity taht when Rudd was elected most of the panel put down their pens and picked up pom-poms.

I note LaTingle seems to react well to Henderson & Savva and be very abrasive when Piers is on.

Token

25 Mar 13 at 4:04 pm
So, still only a five point swing from one side of the ledger to the other to give a Labor win.

So, still only need to win the lottery to become a millionaire.

“Neat”.

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 4:06 pm
I note that the mendacious Combet’s new ministry, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, is DICCSRaTE.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 4:09 pm
Token (@1.45pm)

Actually there already IS a game (actually a series) about people fighting each other in and around Chernobyl.

It’s called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and it’s a ripper.

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 4:09 pm
Oops, I missed an i of the diicc; it’s DIICCSRaTE.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 4:12 pm
~~Right~~Left wingnuts obviously like to give themselves validation by circle jerk awards in which only other wingnuts participate; the Walkley awards is a prima facie example.

So, yeah, “props” for that.

FIFY Stevie.

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 4:14 pm
“Neat”

Ring ring.

Hello?

Yeah, it’s 1970s calling.

Neat.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 4:14 pm
“They don’t have long to live … ”

Those kids are seriously ill and probably won’t survive, but really Ms Gillard saying they don’t have long to live to the reporters seems pretty thoughtless.

candy

25 Mar 13 at 4:17 pm
FWIW – Fukushima survived the earthquake and it survived the tsunami. What it couldn’t survive was all the seawater being dumped behind the protective wall with no way of getting it out …

Kenny

25 Mar 13 at 4:18 pm
JC

Maybe he’s ‘paid his dues’ and will go from ‘sales’ to ‘production’?

“OK, bitch, no more of your bull, here’s how it’s gonna be.”

But then again I had a good weekend, am in a good mood and unnecessarily charitable.

——————

Anyone know a club with a big screen that will play Kroger tearing the goose another one in September?

Forester

25 Mar 13 at 4:20 pm
the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

Ahahahahaha.

Gillard descends into complete illness.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 4:22 pm
Sad caricature of a man living in Brisbane
?
Fish can live in Brisbane. Men simply drown in the never ending Flannery drought

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 4:26 pm
Care to join me for a cheese fondue, Gab?

Want to see my chest hair?

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 4:26 pm
Oops, I missed an i of the diicc; it’s DIICCSRaTE

DICKSRATE for short! Freudian slip from the misogynist-hating PM.

Biota

25 Mar 13 at 4:28 pm
Abbott 14 points in front?

This is becoming like Secretariat’s run at the 1973 Belmont Stakes.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 4:29 pm
Fuck off, Dogshit, you old pervert creep.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 4:29 pm
Who’s the minister for DICKSRATE?

All we need now is a mega-department for privatisation, unemployment, social security and youth. Kate Ellis could be the minister.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 4:31 pm
Just all part of the 1970′s vibe, Tom.

Mind you, in the 1970′s the chest hair was pretty thin, given my youthfulness at the time. I’m sure there were some there though.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 4:32 pm
Right wingnuts obviously like to give themselves validation by circle jerk awards in which only other wingnuts participate.

So, yeah, “props” for that.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 2:04 pm

Another fact-free post. Australian Climate madness was one of five finalists for the Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog. From the Bloggies site:

Winner

Australian Climate Madness
Finalists

Flashpacker Family
Fat Mum Slim
Sleepless Nights
Y Travel Blog

Do those other finalists sound like they are part of the “right wing circle jerk” to you, dickhead?

Read the rest of the awards and weep. Sceptic sites are winners of almost all the science awards, with the mighty Watts Up With That winning its category for the third year in a row. The risible warmist circle jerk site “Skeptical Science” initially ran against Watts, but withdrew when it became clear that it was going to be humiliated.

Don’t annoy me too much, pal. Your ally Lewandowsky has identified me in his latest paper has having conspiracist ideation. That means, according to him, that I am capable of just about anything.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 4:34 pm
Now, now Johanna, that’ll be enough of that recursive fury from you.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 4:36 pm
LOL, CL

Biota

25 Mar 13 at 4:38 pm
Those kids are seriously ill and probably won’t survive, but really Ms Gillard saying they don’t have long to live to the reporters seems pretty thoughtless.

Why did they do this?

Why was the media invited?

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 4:40 pm
johanna, your advice that Australian Climate Madness won some popularity contest from a field of ANZ blogs I have never heard of just goes to show how irrelevant the whole Bloggies bizzo is.

But yeah, “props” for a blog that no one reads getting an award that doesn’t matter.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 4:42 pm
Those kids are seriously ill and probably won’t survive, but really Ms Gillard saying they don’t have long to live to the reporters seems pretty thoughtless.

Very Chaser-like I thought.

Keith

25 Mar 13 at 4:43 pm
But yeah, “props” for a blog that no one reads getting an award that doesn’t matter.

The irony, it burns…..

Huckleberry Chunkwot

25 Mar 13 at 4:44 pm
The Minister for Julia Gillard has had his portfolio expanded.

“Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research will be taken by Craig Emerson. Craig will retain his current roles as Minister for Trade and Competiveness and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy. “

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 4:45 pm
Speaking of blogs that no one reads
WARNING: Eye Bleach required

Huckleberry Chunkwot

25 Mar 13 at 4:47 pm
But yeah, “props” for a blog that no one reads…..

A little self-awareness would go a long way to curtailing your incessant public stupidity.

Keith

25 Mar 13 at 4:47 pm
But yeah, “props” for a blog that no one reads

Whenever somebody puts a comment on SfB’s blog he posts about it here.

True story.

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 4:47 pm
But yeah, “props” for a blog that no one reads getting an award that doesn’t matter.

I bet you Ausytralian Climate Madness (a blog “no-one reads” according to you) gets more hits on a daily basis than your ‘Opinion Dominion’ site does Stevie…

That’s what really sticks in your craw the most, though isn’t it? That’s why you’re so bitter about the Bloggie awards. No-one reads your blog so, therefore, no-one will ever nominate it…

… it burns deep down in your soul that you are so ignored, thus you lash out a try to belittle the accomplishments of others so that they may seem as insignificant as you.

It’s sad and pathetic behaviour Stevie… perhaps you should go see a specialist to talk it out. They can help you overcome your lack of self-esteem you know.

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 4:49 pm
I note that the mendacious Combet’s new ministry, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

Deadman, I mused above that they were hiding the Climate Change mob so they’d be harder to abolish. But looking at this group of money and time-wasters, it’s even easier. Nothing at all would be missed if they just abolish the entire new department.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 4:50 pm
Quite so, johanna.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 4:55 pm
ACM gets 100,000-200,000 page views per month, Dogshit. How many does Dogshit Today get? 100? The traffic’s so heavy at Dogshit
Today you spend all day every day here as a troll, you pathetic old derro.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 4:55 pm
Now, now Johanna, that’ll be enough of that recursive fury from you.

It’s OK, Gab. “Fury” is way too serious an emotion to ever be inspired by a lightweight loser like Stevie.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 5:17 pm
A great day for the Leg-over Man.

H B Bear

25 Mar 13 at 5:21 pm
“They don’t have long to live … ”

Those kids are seriously ill and probably won’t survive, but really Ms Gillard saying they don’t have long to live to the reporters seems pretty thoughtless.

So ….. why should terminally ill kids be forced to waste their valuable time with the most duplicitous politician in Australia’s history.

Do you want a family-sized serving of crass exploitation with that?

Leigh Lowe

25 Mar 13 at 5:29 pm
It also occurred to me that absorbing “Climate Change” into that other multi-Ministry would make it more difficult for PM AbbottAbbottAbbot to abolish this farcical entity later this year.

These mendacious ALP scumbags are busy laying landmines throughout legislation to ensure that their no-hoper “social justice” policies are difficult, if not impossible, to remove without major legislative surgery.

Election now.

Pedro the Ignorant

25 Mar 13 at 5:31 pm
Australian Climate Madness is weak even as far as climate change denial blogs go. I ‘ve looked at it briefly in the past, and now looked at it again.

Run by an engineer I see: a professional with a high proportion of wankers.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 5:34 pm
Australian Climate Madness is weak even as far as climate change denial blogs go. I ‘ve looked at it briefly in the past, and now looked at it again.

Run by an engineer I see: a professional with a high proportion of wankers.

Keep digging, Steve …

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 5:42 pm
“They don’t have long to live … ”

Isn’t she a lovely human being?

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 5:44 pm
Run by an engineer I see: a professional

Well, he’s one up on you. He’s employed.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 5:48 pm
They don’t have long to live … ”

If Abbott had said that I can guarantee a media meltdown would ensure. gillard actually said that and the MSM? Not a peep.

Imagine how the parents felt. gillard can’t.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 5:49 pm
would ensue.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 5:49 pm
These mendacious ALP scumbags are busy laying landmines throughout legislation to ensure that their no-hoper “social justice” policies are difficult, if not impossible, to remove without major legislative surgery.

Election now.

C.L and I have a solution.

The 2013 Omnibus Repeal Act.

.

25 Mar 13 at 5:50 pm
“They don’t have long to live … ”

…… and I think it raises questions as to the role Tony Abbott has played in all this.

Leigh Lowe

25 Mar 13 at 5:52 pm
They don’t have long to live … ”

Does anyone honestly believe this opportunistic Slapper gives a fat rat’s clacker about those kids?

Leigh Lowe

25 Mar 13 at 5:54 pm
Sdog’s right!

What you run even shitfer’s banal greenfilth propaganda drive or other drivel through Gizoogle, it actually becomes worth reading!

johanna: last time dis I looked, chemical rockets was still tha only way ta git tha fuck into orbit despite havin been invented (in they phattest version) bout 60 muthafuckin years ago, n’ despite they bein pretty expensive n’ havin a occasionizzle tendency ta blow up.

Hence, our phat asses don’t have have anythang like tha technological advances up in space exploration as rocked up like on tha cardz up in tha science fiction I used ta read n’ watch as a kid up in tha 1960′s.

Technological advizzle has not stopped – it’s just dat it has happened up in other areas like fuckin dizzle ta dizzle computing, where tha speed wit which it arrived was not much foreseen. I aint talkin’ bout chicken n’ gravy biatch.

Hence tha legit lesson of history seems ta me dat technological fortynecks do sometimes take place, despite tha dopest efforts (think fusion, fo’ example.)

I do not peep dat there be any solid reason fo’ believin dat any dramatically different form of juice generation from what tha fuck our crazy asses have now will suddenly come n’ save us, as tha “horse n’ car” example is meant ta illustrate.

Gradual improvements up in what tha fuck our phat asses do now iz of course goin on all tha time, n’ carbon pricin muthafuckin helps encourage that.

Sittin on yo’ arse n’ sayin “suttin’ freshly smoked up will save us” aint suttin’ sensible playas advocate.

I mean, look, the spelling and grammar improve and not only that, it becomes vastly more readable, makes much more sense, and is even amusing!

Shitfer, please run all your normal banal garbage through Gizoogle.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 6:01 pm
“They don’t have long to live … ”

Just until Sept 14.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 6:01 pm
Leigh, I’m glad to see someone else is taking this issue seriously.

Tony Abbott regularly runs children across state lines for nefarious purposes. All that bike-riding is just a front for this. Simon Crean threatened to expose him, but Abbott persuaded Rudd to welch on the leadership challenge at the last minute so as to arrange Crean’s downfall.

Abbott was best man at Julie Bishop and Kevin Rudd’s secret marriage months ago.

Also, on ABC News 24 I saw some very credible evidence linking him to the Warren Rodwell kidnapping.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 6:02 pm
Yeah and he eats kittens for breakfast.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 6:04 pm
And the Rodwell Aliens?

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 6:07 pm
Curses. That was Roswell.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 6:08 pm
Also, on ABC News 24 I saw some very credible evidence linking him to the Warren Rodwell kidnapping.

If you look close it was him on the grassy knoll.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 6:10 pm
I see Combet gets Industry added to his Climate Change portfolio.
This would be because Industry has shrunk so much, there ain’t hardly anything to be minister for.

hzhousewife

25 Mar 13 at 6:13 pm
WTF is crickets on about?

Arts, which also belonged to Crean, is moved to Environment Minister Tony Burke, with Michael Danby promoted to Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts. This is a welcome outcome as it will move Danby off the Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, where he has offended committee members from both sides with his behaviour in recent weeks.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/03/25/cabinet-reshuffle-gillard-supporters-rewarded-public-servants-shuffled/

Huh? Did Danby fart in a lift?

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:19 pm
Forgot to mention that Michael Smith’s blog also won an award at the Bloggies:

Best-Kept Secret Weblog

The best underrepresented weblogs.
Winner

Michael Smith News
Finalists

Pocketful of Joules
Chase the Wind, Touch the Sky
Where in the World Is Lola?
Blogging4Impact

Smith was one of the casualties of exposing Gillard’s AWU scandal links.

It could have been you, Stevie!

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 6:19 pm
Lulz

Vatican City is run as inefficiently as any other Government or bureacracy:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/vatican-tweets-batman-story-article-1.1295544

Vatican posts Batman story on its communications website, confusing Twitter followers with a ‘holy switcheroo’

Officials confirmed that its Twitter account and website weren’t hacked. The Batman tribute was posted on the site by a non-native English speaker.

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:22 pm
Our cretinous greenfilther Shitfer strikes again.

Fukushima was a reactor built in an earthquake and tsunami prone area.

Why yes, yes it was! And it was designed in the 1960s to what they thought the quake threat was, which turned out to be an order of magnitude LESS than what happened, with a tsunami twice the height of that predicted added on like a cherry on top. Yet, so good was the design that the plant was not destroyed, the reactor containment systems worked and the amount of radiation leaked was negligible and occurred AFTER the tsunami, from secondary problems which caused hydrogen explosions.

That it started blowing up can ultimately be attributed back to design features which meant a tsunami could take out its back up power for coolant water to the reactors.

Shitfer’s now an engineer and nuclear powerplant secondary systems designer. So what, you reckon that the plant should have been designed for how many times the known threat, Shitfer? How would you justify this (lacking a working crystal ball?).

And besides, if it was gas powered place, complete destruction would have had little effect 1 km away, let alone 45km.

There was no effect 45km away – except morons like you squealing about nothing and panicking due to braindead greenfilth propaganda overload.

How many people died as a result of the titanogigantic soopadoopacataclysmic fukushima nuclear apocalypse which morons like you and that other cretin Helen ‘flesh melting from bones’ Caldicott were baying about, shifter?

That’d be zero, would it not?

None.

Not one.

You are a rolled gold gullible clown who will swallow any line of made-up bullshit propaganda made up by greenfilth or by any other leftyretardocretin who mouths the right words at you.

Go back to your own blog, it’s best on the web for buttplug reviews, which is about your level of technical skill.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 6:22 pm
The massive reorganisation of departments that was announced today is, as Daffy Duck would say, dethpicable.

It will waste a whole lot of money and time on rebranding, sorting out who does what etc for a last blast of power that will last a few months. Mind you, I will believe in the veracity of the September election promise only when the writs are issued. Why would the turkeys bring forward Christmas?

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 6:26 pm
There was no effect 45km away – except morons like you squealing about nothing and panicking due to braindead greenfilth propaganda overload.

There was no effect, save for at the reactor core. Maps of the radioactivity show this. An outlying town within the exclusion zone had some background radiation within tolerable limits. No one was injured or died, even in the clean up crew.

The design averted a crisis. Old technology is safe.

New technology is safe to the point of being a non-issue.

Steve spent half a day spreading lies to pimp for the ETS and MRET.

What a raging, psychotic fuckhead.

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:26 pm
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/high-earners-dont-realise-own-wealth-study-finds-20130324-2go1l.html

Asked specifically whether they would be prepared to pay more tax to support Gonski-style education reforms, 94 per cent of those surveyed said no.

HAHAHAHA, that has to be a smack in the fucking face for Labor and the Greens that were pushing this shit so hard. That is about as resounding a result as you can possibly fucking receive. If you asked whether Adolf Hitler was great, you’d receive a less resounding answer than this one.

James B

25 Mar 13 at 6:35 pm
If you look close it was him on the grassy knoll.

No, Tony Abbott was never on the grassy knoll. That’s just a conspiracy theory, you silly fellow.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 6:37 pm
Okay – so have I missed it again – all this stuff about albosleazy on Michael Smith – god love ‘em!

Dianne

25 Mar 13 at 6:38 pm
Asked specifically whether they would be prepared to pay more tax to support Gonski-style education reforms, 94 per cent of those surveyed said no.

Hahaha

“I don’t give a shitski”

The voters want the Dept of Ed. to spend the already large budgets wisely, and not enrich corrupt teachers unions and make life easier for shithouse teachers who treat education was an unprofessional “fall back” career or something to do whilst their husband earns a real income.

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:39 pm
Lol… bankers bonuses have been dropping like a stone since the GFC.

Useful tips of how to save money. Twenty of them. This one though has almost no chance.

Start doing your own ironing.

http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/137083/twenty-money-saving-tips-from-bankers-and-their-wives/

JC

25 Mar 13 at 6:40 pm
Officials confirmed that its Twitter account and website weren’t hacked. The Batman tribute was posted on the site by a non-native English speaker.

… who recently arrived in Rome from Argentina but has decided he likes it so much that he’ll stay for a bit.

Batman HAS grown more bitter over the years. That looks pretty much like an infallible statement to me.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 6:41 pm
JC…have you bought a Prius yet?!

It would mesh well with your role at the Fair Pay and Global Warming Institute!

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:43 pm
Dot

I’d rather my skull was crushed to powder than even test drive one of those disgusting things.

Drivers of those monstrosities will be included in the Fisk Doctrine for immediate re-ed and potential shock treatment… 220 volts through each temple.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 6:47 pm
TLS:

“Like Australians around the nation, I was appalled by the events of last week. Our eyes were on ourselves rather than … being focused on the nation. It was an unseemly display. But out of that has come clarity.”

Colonel Kurtz:

In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action, for what is often called ruthless, what may in many and many circumstances be only clarity; seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it directly, quickly, aware… , looking at it. [...] As for the charges, I’m unconcerned. I’m beyond their timid, lying morality. And so I’m beyond caring.

The slapper’s emphasis on Clarity suggests she is now channeling an insane film character- useful for when she faces the Victorian Police investigation re the AWU-WRA.

Cold-Hands

25 Mar 13 at 6:48 pm
Mk50, you’re a painful, preening immature fool with no expertise other than lifting other people’s words without acknowledgement.

You’re not worth the detailed rebuttal.

As for dot:

There was no effect, save for at the reactor core. Maps of the radioactivity show this. An outlying town within the exclusion zone had some background radiation within tolerable limits.

You’re talking bullshit.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 6:50 pm
As for dot:

There was no effect, save for at the reactor core. Maps of the radioactivity show this. An outlying town within the exclusion zone had some background radiation within tolerable limits.

You’re talking bullshit.

No, you lying, psychotic fuckhead, that’s the truth.

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:53 pm
The slapper’s emphasis on Clarity suggests she is now channeling an insane film character- useful for when she faces the Victorian Police investigation re the AWU-WRA.

Worse, she is channeling Marlon Brando on lots of drugs, rambling meaninglessly because he couldn’t learn his lines.

Because they could stand that these were not monsters …. but they had the strength… the strength… to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly.

Bet that’s what Ruddy was thinking, too, only it turned out he only had a couple of wet rags and a banana peel.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 6:54 pm
You’re not worth the detailed rebuttal.

Princess Stephanie:

We didn’t ask your opinion about semen, Tony Abbott’s dick, butt plugs, woollen cardigans or heirloom garlic…so shut the FUCK up.

.

25 Mar 13 at 6:54 pm
Dot, with posting habits like his, what are the odds that Shitfer’s unemployed? He seems to do stuff-all but post at the Cat.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 6:54 pm
Imagine how the parents felt. gillard can’t.

Gillard is intentionally childless, her life is completely consumed by politics. She will soon have no family and will spend her long post politics life alone and in obscurity, despised by the decent and civilised. She may be infamous even to the left ala Latham if the ALP decide to unperson her in the great 2014 post-apocalyptic ALP rebuild.

It’s possible to feel sorry for the near future her. Such a pathetic creature.

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 6:56 pm
I’ve had the (mis)fortune to drive a Prius rental car (in the US of all places)….

I did my best to leave tyre-screeching burnouts everywhere I went (no luck…)

Although, for penance, I made sure to leave a pair of long snaking tyre-trails out of the Hertz garage in the replacement Mustang GT I upgraded into after the Pious manage to shit-it-guts and dump what little oil its petrol engine carried all over the hotel carpark after 2 days usage…

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 6:57 pm
You’re talking bullshit.

shitfer is channeling his inner gillard, also a complete tosspot.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 6:57 pm
Oh Philippa: how’s Liturgy Watch Rome 2013 proceeding?

And is the Pope dressing flash enough for you yet?

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:00 pm
Okay stepford.. What’s eggsactly is your point about nuke, you dullard?

It’s expensive? Of course it is seeing it’s been hobbled by green tape for the past 30 odd years.

You may have an accident? Yes you can. But tell me, how many people die a year as a result of coal related lung illness. The score is around 10,000 in China alone, you fucking idiot. And no, Bozo, China isn’t about to get rid of the coal plants it’s built or planning to because Harry is scared of cow farts.

Nuclear is to some extent like flying. accidents are extremely rare, but when they happen they could be big especially with old reactors. So the obvious thing to do is go with the generation 4 thingis which are much, much safer.

Noticed one thing about flying, you bozo. Accidents with heavy jets is acutally becoming a pretty rare event. I doubt there was a heavy jet accident for the past couple of years.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:00 pm
Do a cost benefit analysis of history of nuke plants, Stepford, you deplorable imbecile and you would find the benefits are streets ahead. And future tech would make them even safer.

Test it with western reactors, not those soviet ones that kept on blowing up.

Moderator, can you please ban this twerp as he’s a net subtraction to the site.

Have a big leftie cull.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:04 pm
Isn’t it great how wingnuts such as Mk50 and dot can maintain that how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases) is a sign of how successful the design and management of a nuclear program is.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:04 pm
Pickles:

Yes well MK50 and TINY BRAIN I see upthread that you have been quite rightly castigated by Alice for being a pair of no good piss heads whose excessive drinking and carousing has harmed many people throughout your miserable lives. She doesn’t know the half of it.

No, she does not. FFS, mention not the dancing girls, and us scourging screaming leftards through the streets with lead-tipped whips while we were laughing maniacally!

Here I was walking down George St whistling a happy tune after a good day and thinking about having a quick Pimm’s and Lemonade when I was set upon by these two brigands.

Sounds kinda familiar…. so hard to tell after drinking every boozer between west end and Brekky creek dry and deflowering every virgin in same areas.

When Norman Lindsay wrote of the Pudding Theives, he described them as “low men, hiding behind a wall”. That was them. They saw me coming down the street, a simple country boy lost in the big city, a latter day Albert, or The Man from Ironbark if you will.

(This might be laying it on a mite thick: after all, Brisbane’s not that big a city.)

They sprang from behind the wall and the next thing I knew I was being force fed a lot of beer. The next thing I knew I was at Greenbank RSL, then in a garage nearby, in charge of the plasticine.

Hey! They might have been 42DD but the lass assured us that they were real, dammit!

This sort of thing happens to me a lot in Brisbane. Maybe because I have a kindly face and a trusting nature. I always think the best of people and often get let down.

Yah, we’ve noticed.

next time, God help you.

I’m gunna bring …..

HABIB

I tried for Beelzebub, but once he learned that Habib was on the short list, he ran screaming into the middle distance.

Beelzebub’s such a wimp.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:05 pm
JC

They have all been ex Soviet planes or very old Western planes in oppressive third world shitholes.

2010 – UPS Airlines – 747-400

it was a cargo plane and only the pilot and co pilot, the only people on board, died.

.

25 Mar 13 at 7:06 pm
how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases)

Still full of shit i see, and talking about something with no knowledge or insight. What a insular little world you inhabit.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 7:09 pm
a nuclear reactor plant blowing up

I should have thought I’d have heard about “a nuclear reactor plant blowing up” from our awarmist but nuclear-energy-hating media; where and when did a nuclear reactor plant blow up? I hope no-one was seriously hurt.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 7:09 pm
Isn’t it great how wingnuts such as Mk50 and dot can maintain that how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases) is a sign of how successful the design and management of a nuclear program is.

Yep, they sure can. The reason is that you assess the risk on a portfolio approach.

Tell me fuckhead… heavy jets are known to crash and when they do, the chances of survival are about close to zero. Very few people escape a big jet crash with their lives.

Does that stop people from flying?

Furthermore the co-incidence of events that transpired over Fuki were huge odds as we all know.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:09 pm
Isn’t it great how wingnuts such as Mk50 and dot can maintain that how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases) is a sign of how successful the design and management of a nuclear program is.

You are such an uneducated lying shithead.

It did not “blow up”, fuckface.

The people were evacuated – unnecessarily.

The only danger was basically at the plant site, and no one in the decontamination crews got hurt.

You ought to be banned when you dissemble like this. All you do is shut down debate for real solutions. You spit out lie after lie which get debunked, then you move on. Weeks or months later, you mindless fucking loser, you start all over again.

I guess Professor Barry Brook is a right wing nutter? Uh okay.

You really are a miserable, fuckheaded, ill informed, low information pervert.

.

25 Mar 13 at 7:11 pm
see http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/03/could-western-australia-deliver-the-coalition-control-of-the-senate.html for a great post showing that the WA Nats could win the 4th senate seat in WA.

Libs should get 3 quotas in all states, and Labor 2 in each state.

Three libs senators elected in each state will put them at 36 after 2013. DLP and Nick No Pokies is a senate tie already. nick no pokies should get a SA quota in his own right.

In 2010, the greens and Christian democrats fought it out for the last WA senate seat!! the Christian democrats are separate from family first.

DLP, Katter and Nick No Pokies will end up with the balance of power because they appeal to social conservatives and economic nationalists across the spectrum.

katter’ mob got 11% in the Qld state election while the greens got 7%. there will be little left over from labor’s two senate quotas to help them. LNP got 49% in 2011 state election

the cross-benches controlling the senate is very strong chance and a 38:38 tie is assured. not sure what nick no pokies thinks on repealing the carbon tax.

if the nat’s get the 4th WA seat, repeal of the carbon tax is assured.

Jim Rose

25 Mar 13 at 7:11 pm
what are the odds that Shitfer’s unemployed?

Not only unemployed, but a self-confessed welfare cheat. He has a dim memory of actually having a job before he started scamming the disability pension.

This disgusting human garbage keeps turning up to a site where he is despised to give his family the impression that he does something during the day. He hasn’t told them he’s a troll who spends his days being humuliated and ridiculed like a delinquent child.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 7:11 pm
There was one in 2010? Wow?

It’s actually astonishing how safe flying has become.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:12 pm
You really are a miserable, fuckheaded, ill informed, low information pervert.

Fair. Very fair point.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:14 pm
And so the dumb troll scum derails another thread. Just fuck off, you pervert.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 7:14 pm
The vast majority of damage attributed to nuclear power is more properly attributed to scaremongering.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 7:16 pm
Step…

I’m getting the feeling the science is well and truly settled on just how disliked you are here. That debate is well and truly over.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:16 pm
Oh Philippa: how’s Liturgy Watch Rome 2013 proceeding?

And is the Pope dressing flash enough for you yet?

[chortle] Oh, go on with you.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 7:16 pm
Shitfer the Great Retardo:

Isn’t it great how wingnuts such as Mk50 and dot can maintain that how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases) is a sign of how successful the design and management of a nuclear program is.

Deliberate falsehoods.

1. The reactor plant did not blow up due to any nuclear or radiative cause.

2. 100,000 people were not evacuated due to any radiation leak from failure of the reactors.

Issues the Great Retardo ignores

1. The reactors survived an earthquake event far beyond their design limits without core breach.

2. The reactors survived a tsunami event far beyond their design limits without core breach.

3. The panicked over-reaction by government was driven by a public panic vastly inflated by outright media and greenfilth scare-mongering.

4. The amunt of radiation leaked was minor, and came from secondary systems.

5. Not one person died as a consequence of this incident.

6. The incident itself was minor.

So an old and outdated design performed extremely well, far beyond it’s design parameters, no-one died, there was bugger-all radiation leakage and no reactor core breaches at all.

But Shitfer’s so damn stupid that he’s still soiling himself in wide-mouthed squealy-fits over the whole event.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:18 pm
I read earlier today that people were suggesting that nuke may not be potentially in demand because of the huge gas finds.

There may be a little bit of truth in this however gas isn’t anywhere near as portable as oil, so we will end up seeing far more localized markets for gas rather than the fungible oil markets. Gas is more difficult to transport. So an un-hobbled nuke industry would still do quite well I reckon.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:20 pm
Oh Philippa: how’s Liturgy Watch Rome 2013 proceeding?

And is the Pope dressing flash enough for you yet?

– SFB, Catholic.

You really do hate your religion, don’t you SFB? You know, you can leave at any time.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 7:21 pm
You’re thinking rolling stock. What about shipping and pipelines?

I assume gas has an advantage – until we hit energy density.

.

25 Mar 13 at 7:21 pm
If only Abbott could be revealed as a serial murderer, rapist and wifebeater.

I’ve only just noticed this comment at 12.24am. How remiss of me not to point out that Tony Abbott IS in fact a serial murderer, rapist and wifebeater. This is well known and discussed with great regularity at http://www.dailylife.com.au/

Other hot topics in the same place:

Why Don’t Men Have Female Bodies?
Julia: Truly a Strong Feisty Woman For Our Times
Alecia Simmonds on Truffle-Free Week

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 7:22 pm
You freaking arsehole Stepford. You total arsehole bullshit artist.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:22 pm
– SFB, Catholic.

You really do hate your religion, don’t you SFB? You know, you can leave at any time.

Awwww, leave him alone. He isn’t hurting anyone.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 7:23 pm
It did not “blow up”, fuckface.

Very amusing, dot. I suppose this was just a minor interruption to operations which will resume after 50 years and $10,000,000,000 to be spent in a bit of tidying up?

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:23 pm
Mk50 of Brisbane, correct. The reactors survived a tsunami event far beyond their design limits without core breach; an old and outdated design performed extremely well, far beyond it’s design parameters.

Jim Rose

25 Mar 13 at 7:24 pm
Step…

That’s all true. However gas isn’t as easy to transport as oil is. It’s that marginally harder.

I’m really talking about at the margin.

For instance, I think it would be quite hard to export all the gas Japan needs if it went all gas and ditched the nukes.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:24 pm
Has anyone volunteered to take several drinks for the team and watch Q&A tonight? Will there be a separate thread?

I would only watch it if being paid my standard consultant’s rate, but very much enjoy reading the pithy summaries provided by Cat reviewers.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 7:25 pm
There’s more thermal bang in s ship load of oil or coal than there is with a ship load of gas.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:25 pm
PS I must toddle along now, but do continue to enjoy yourselves. There’s more ice in the fridge, and I think there might be some Pringles in a cupboard somewhere. Unless Tony Abbott ate them, of course. He WOULD eat the last of the Pringles; it’s just the kind of cheap misogyny we have to put up with from him.

Philippa Martyr

25 Mar 13 at 7:26 pm
Sure Steve, no one will live in Fukushima for 50 years, and the reactor core underwent a fission chain reaction.

You’re a terminally stupid fuckhead.

.

25 Mar 13 at 7:27 pm
Has anyone volunteered to take several drinks for the team and watch Q&A tonight? Will there be a separate thread?

I will.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:28 pm
Philippa: my new, though probably temporary, defender.

The huffing and puffing from Traditionalist sites has been quite eye-opening for me, Gab. I haven’t really followed them before, and did not realise what a worry they were.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:31 pm
I wonder if Q&A will address why Albanese didn’t stand as Rudd’s deputy…
Probably not.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 7:32 pm
The nickname’s easy:
Anthony Albanese
truly is Sleazy.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 7:32 pm
Like I said, SFB, you can leave anytime.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 7:37 pm
It’s been a stressful week.

H B Bear

25 Mar 13 at 7:38 pm
Isn’t it great how wingnuts such as Mk50 and dot can maintain that how a nuclear reactor plant blowing up and causing the displacement of 100,000 people from their homes and livelihoods (permanently, in many cases) is a sign of how successful the design and management of a nuclear program is.

The nuclear plant was hit by “a magnitude 9.03 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March 2011,[2][3][12] with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 32 km (20 mi).[2][13] It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.[12][14][15] The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku’s Iwate Prefecture,[16][17] and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.[18] The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in).[19][20][21]

On 12 September 2012, a Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,882 deaths,[22] 6,142 injured,[23] and 2,668 people missing[24] across twenty prefectures, as well as 129,225 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 254,204 buildings ‘half collapsed’, and another 691,766 buildings partially damaged.[25]

It is frankly incredible that sfb can characterize this as a failure in ‘design and management’ of a nuclear plant.

dover_beach

25 Mar 13 at 7:40 pm
Yet…no one has, will or would have died because of the Fukushima plant meltdown.

.

25 Mar 13 at 7:41 pm
Is Gillard queasy?
No, her grins remain cheesy;
her hands too greasy.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 7:42 pm
The thing about the Albosleazy story (see Michael Smith’s site) is not whether or not Albo got a “happy ending.” It is that a senior Minister laid himself open to blackmail. Indeed, if the speculation about Albo’s actions during last week’s bloodbath are true, he already has.

Tell you what, though, I won’t hear a word against sex workers. They earn every penny.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 7:45 pm
I’m quite certain sex workers are held in higher regard than politicians, especially Labor and Green pollies.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 7:48 pm
The skull just interviewed some sort of robotic creature.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 7:49 pm
The skull isn’t really a good interviewer. Neither is the rat (alberici).

JC

25 Mar 13 at 7:55 pm
Gab, with fracking, gas prices are collapsing where there are dense pipeline networks. USA gas prices are down 75% IIRC.

I have said here many times that we are just at the very start of the hydrocarbon energy era. We have centuries of supply – and the Japanese are getting very close to being able to commercially recover abyssal clathrates.

Once that happens, the global hydrocarbon supply blows out to somewhere between 1,000 and 15,000 years. No-one knows how much of that stuff is down there.

Nuclear power is excellent, it’s safe and clean, yet with such abundant and cheap hydrocarbon enery available, it’s probably going to become a niche source.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:55 pm
SfB richly deserves to be banned. He is a waste of space and a purely vexatious commenter.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 7:56 pm
Apologies, my comment above is, apart from the last line, a quote from Wiki with my emphases added.

dover_beach

25 Mar 13 at 7:56 pm
Like I said, SFB, you can leave anytime.

Q: What sort of creep spends most of each day annoying people who despise him because he’s a troll defending the indefensible?

A: Someone who’s being paid.

Tom

25 Mar 13 at 7:56 pm
Mk50 I’m thinking that was meant to be addressed to someone else as I haven’t been active in the nuclear deabte. Only made one comment really and that was about WHO report on Chernobyl.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 7:58 pm
Lots of shouty bold in that comment, Aristotle.

It is frankly incredible that sfb can characterize this as a failure in ‘design and management’ of a nuclear plant.

Um, perhaps its because other science-y, engineer-y type people have said there were serious design flaws?

Don’t believe me, try that anti atomic God-damn Greenie rag the Wall Street Journal.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 7:59 pm
I had to go and athk a clathmate
What the hell’th an abythal clathrate?
He thed “it’th thedimentary, Wat-thon.
And good things lurk among the thubthtrateth.”

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 8:03 pm
Leigh Sales turned the blowtorch on Gillard’s backside this evening. Makes a change.

Viva

25 Mar 13 at 8:03 pm
Albanese had
misheard the PM when she
said, “Stay on message!”

He misunderstood
her “happy endings” speech, too.
Is this a presage

of things to come? Most
in the Cabinet, clearly,
are scarcely imbued

with intelligence
but, along with the country,
are thoroughly screwed.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 8:04 pm
Piss off, Steve.

The Japanese plant was 40 years old. Why? Because you and your fellow morons have prevented the building of newer, safer plants. When you have a choice between an old plant and nothing, except windmills and unicorn farts, it is no choice at all.

As for all your doom-mongering about the consequences – where are the bodies? Unlike, say, the thousands of old and poor people in the UK, Europe and the old USSR who are currently freezing to death thanks to the policies you and your murderous pals espouse.

Letting people die for no reason other than ideology is as low as it gets. There is a special place in history reserved for you and your ilk. Lowly spear-carriers like you are no better than Pol Pot.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 8:09 pm
Has anyone volunteered to take several drinks for the team and watch Q&A tonight? Will there be a separate thread?

Andrew offered his apologies this morning.

eam

25 Mar 13 at 8:12 pm
Here’s hoping, eam. I have a good book.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 8:15 pm
Poor, cretinous shitfer.

The ‘big scary boom’ video that causes you to soil yourself was a hydrogen explosion.

Mk50 of Brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 8:16 pm
There is a special place in history reserved for you and your ilk.

SfB isn’t worried about how history sees him…

..after all, there’ll always be Leftist arseholes like him who try to re-write the past and gloss over the worst excesses of Leftism (just look at how SfB, m0nty, et al constantly try to tell us that the Gillard government has been great for Australia, and that Pol pot, Stalin, and Mao were merely ‘misunderstood’…)

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 8:18 pm
Francis to Catholics: drop dead.

Pope: Dialogue with Islam, Olive Branch to China.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 8:18 pm
Once again we are being told by Ben Quilty and the ABC that war is hell, probably in the hope that the left can continue to wage their campaign to make the defence forces so feminised that they give up.
Revisit Band Of Brothers. If you’re there, you’re as good as already dead, so get used to it.
Pick up the pieces later, if there are any left.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 8:23 pm
Gillard’s Typical Hypocrisy

The PM must pout
whilst continuing to tout
her unseemly clout.

Why won’t she “call out”
misogyny from a lout?
She’s so quick to shout

that Abbott’s devout
and, therefore, will always flout
whatever she’ll spout.

I have little doubt,
in the next election bout,
there’ll be quite a rout.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 8:25 pm
Death tolls…

Chernobyl: 50.
Three Mile Island: 0.
Fukushima: 0.

Pink batts: 4.
Gillard’s Hate Howard border policy: 1102.

The science is in: the ALP is more dangerous than plutonium.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 8:27 pm
Dunno MK50. I suspect that even if the clathrates are accessible, they may still be somewhat costly to recover.

Costs are going to drop over time for nuclear too. The focus now is going to move to reducing capital costs, with manufactured plant rather than constructed.

That and the changes coming through that are making 50x more energy available from the Uranium ore, and making Thorium / U-233 available as well…

It will come down to costs.

But yeah, the idea of peak oil can be tossed out for a long time.

Driftforge

25 Mar 13 at 8:33 pm
Leigh Sales turned the blowtorch on Gillard’s backside this evening. Makes a change.

Blowtorch to Gillard’s arse.
I am trying to imagine the aperture and gas consumption of this blowtorch.
Is it a recycled Saturn V?

Leigh Lowe

25 Mar 13 at 8:34 pm
CL:

Add to that:

Stalin’s purges: 681,592 (confirmed dead)
Pol Pot’s purges: 1,386,734 (confirmed dead)
Mao’s purges: 45,000,000 (estimated dead)

The science indicates Leftism is even more dangerous than plutonium….

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 8:36 pm
Sales actually did have a go at her. TLS was not happy

Tiny Dancer

25 Mar 13 at 8:41 pm
Eeeuw, Leigh, I am thinking crackling.

Stop, please.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 8:42 pm
Energy Source Mortality Rates; Deaths/yr/TWh

Coal – world average, 161
Coal – China, 278
Coal – USA, 15
Oil – 36
Natural Gas – 4
Biofuel/Biomass – 12
Peat – 12
Solar/rooftop – 0.44-0.83
Wind – 0.15
Hydro – world, 0.10
Hydro – world*, 1.4
Nuclear – 0.04

jumpnmcar

25 Mar 13 at 8:43 pm
I forgot to add that TLS misrepresented basic facts in almost every answer. She thought the media law fiasco was a success.

Tiny Dancer

25 Mar 13 at 8:44 pm
C.L. – is it possible that God has withheld his usual guidance to the cardinals in their divination and voting, or are they simply too wilful to hear it?
This Francis is the one who ran second to Ratsinger last time, I read somewhere.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 8:47 pm
Crackling? Certainly no plum in the mouth. Apple, possibly.

blogstrop

25 Mar 13 at 8:48 pm
Stanhope moves from Canberra to Christmas Island – 17 Aug 2012 Former ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has been appointed the new administrator of Christmas and Cocos Islands

Two dead in boat capsize off Xmas Island
Christmas Island administrator Jon Stanhope says it was a fortunate customs vessel was close to the asylum boat when it capsized.

stackja

25 Mar 13 at 8:49 pm
C.L. – is it possible that God has withheld his usual guidance to the cardinals in their divination and voting, or are they simply too wilful to hear it?

Or maybe it’s the End of Days, and he’s an instrument

Fleeced

25 Mar 13 at 8:50 pm
Has anyone volunteered to take several drinks for the team and watch Q&A tonight? Will there be a separate thread?

Yep, i’m game.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 8:51 pm
Hey Strop look at these two Bios. The skull and the little rat.

Leigh was a journalist with the Nine Network in Brisbane before joining the ABC and is a graduate of Deakin University (Master of International Relations) and Queensland University of Technology (Bachelor of Journalism).

After attending Our Lady of Mercy College in Heidelberg, Victoria, Melbourne, Alberici studied Journalism and Economics at Deakin University. At Melbourne University, she completed a BA in Italian.

JC

25 Mar 13 at 8:56 pm
Eeeuw, Leigh, I am thinking crackling.

Stop, please.

Look, crackling would be theoretically possible I guess, but how big would the rotisserie have to be? …….. and what sort of monster Diesel engine would you need to drive it?

Leigh Lowe

25 Mar 13 at 9:01 pm
The 2013 Omnibus Repeal Act.

I’d vote for that.

nilk

25 Mar 13 at 9:16 pm
JOCMEG has announced the first successful extraction of methane hydrate from seabed deposits. Long way to go yet. But hydrocarbons look like being around for a bit longer than many people think.

James in Melbourne

25 Mar 13 at 9:22 pm
Er, that’s JOGMEC, the Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corporation.

James in Melbourne

25 Mar 13 at 9:24 pm
what sort of monster Diesel engine would you need to drive it?

A Cat D12 would just make it.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 9:24 pm
Just caught the end of 4Corners with Red Kez interviewing David Kilcullen.

I’d almost forgotten the exact nature of complete a-sewipe O’Brien is.

JamesK

25 Mar 13 at 9:24 pm
Oh dear. Michael Smith drops a bomb on Albo..

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 9:28 pm
Yes, Kerry O’B. had the stunning revelation that Afghanistan is “an almost exact replica of Vietnam”.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
Oh dear. Michael Smith drops a bomb on Albo..
Deadman linked to this at 25 Mar 13 at 7:32 pm
Even if he didn’t partake of special services, Albo really demonstrates an appalling lack of judgement- you wonder what Carmel Tebbutt thinks about the whole business.

Cold-Hands

25 Mar 13 at 9:41 pm
C.L. – is it possible that God has withheld his usual guidance to the cardinals in their divination and voting, or are they simply too wilful to hear it?

No. That’s not possible.

The cardinals are guided by the Holy Spirit.

But they are not on that account infallible.

Look, I am loyal to this pope but I was not impressed by the rudeness he exhibited towards those who had reformed the liturgy under Benedict XVI; I am not impressed by grandiose gestures of ‘humility’; I do not tolerate hamfisted forays into economics-related discourse; I regard it as appalling that Francis is being held up as kind to Muslims whereas Benedict allegedly wasn’t (they are heathens as far as the Church is concerned); given that the two obstacles to rapprochement with Beijing are the Vatican’s recognition of Taiwan and the Holy See’s exclusive power to appoint bishops, China is not deserving of an “olive branch.”

But be sure of one thing: the phonily approving media will turn on this pope very soon. At the moment, they’re just playing a good cop/bad cop game vis-a-vis Benedict.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 9:41 pm
Lazlo, a few others already mentioned Albo’s massage-gate.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 9:42 pm
I am loyal to this pope but

I don’t like anything he has done, said or indicated as Pope so far. (Shorter version for you all.)

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 9:45 pm
you wonder what Carmel Tebbutt thinks about the whole business.

Surely, following the trend set by the PM, Mrs Craig Thomson, and numerous other like-minded, strong Labor women, she’ll assert that his study of working conditions among foreign workers was completely commendable. He did nothing wrong! He has her full support!

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 9:46 pm
Got it Deadman – I’m behind the pack. Still fun but..

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 9:47 pm
I don’t like anything he has done, said or indicated as Pope so far

and his Latin (unlike that of his predecessor) is iffy.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 9:47 pm
From the Smith bomb:

NAME REDACTED – a widely respected Federal Labor Parliamentary figure

Well, I’m stumped!

Fleeced

25 Mar 13 at 9:48 pm
Surely, following the trend set by the PM, Mrs Craig Thomson, and numerous other like-minded, strong Labor women, she’ll assert that his study of working conditions among foreign workers was completely commendable. He did nothing wrong! He has her full support!

I wonder if he brought back some working conditions with him such as STD’s? Oh sorry… he just had a massage. My bad.

Bear Necessities

25 Mar 13 at 9:51 pm
Well, I’m stumped!

Is that some sort of Marrickville slang?

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 9:52 pm
The Japanese plant was 40 years old. Why? Because you and your fellow morons have prevented the building of newer, safer plants.

Whatever your expertise is or was, cranky old johanna, it wasn’t in the history of the Japanese nuclear program.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 9:55 pm
Could Albo simply have been taking the First Mousse Salesman’s advice?

H B Bear

25 Mar 13 at 9:57 pm
Whatever your expertise is or was, cranky old johanna, it wasn’t in the history of the Japanese nuclear program.

Asinine drivel. You say this after you tell us people are going to die from the event. You lying fuckhead.

You silly old bastard. You are preaching against progress to support a tax that will probably be repealed within a year.

.

25 Mar 13 at 9:59 pm
Noted that Albo has said he “did nothing wrong”. Now where have we heard this before?

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 10:00 pm
Whatever your expertise is or was, cranky old johanna, it wasn’t in the history of the Japanese nuclear program.

I warned you above not to mess with me, Steve. Your pal Lewandowsky has published a paper which claims that I am deranged.

Still smarting over not winning the “least appreciated” prize in the Bloggies?

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 10:04 pm
Pope Francis is reaching out to Muslim world trying to build a bridge as they say, and so far his piety and simplicity is having warm impression on many.
How it pans out, who knows, but he’s attempting what God expects of him, in my opinion.

candy

25 Mar 13 at 10:06 pm
Has anyone volunteered to take several drinks for the team and watch Q&A tonight?

Okay, I’ll drink but someone else will have to watch Q&A.

kae

25 Mar 13 at 10:12 pm
… useful for when she faces the Victorian Police investigation re the AWU-WRA.

LOL. When? This century?

jupes

25 Mar 13 at 10:12 pm
Noted that Albo has said he “did nothing wrong”.

Comedy Gold! Next he’ll be wearing his lucky glasses.

jupes

25 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
johanna wrote:

Unlike, say, the thousands of old and poor people in the UK, Europe and the old USSR who are currently freezing to death thanks to the policies you and your murderous pals espouse.

Letting people die for no reason other than ideology is as low as it gets. There is a special place in history reserved for you and your ilk. Lowly spear-carriers like you are no better than Pol Pot.

Evidence of the thousands of people dying because of energy policy in Europe, please?

You’re just a typical Catallaxy blowhard.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:16 pm
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4848/

Some facts about unemployment

Today’s Roy Morgan November employment estimates show Australian unemployment rising to 1,229,000 (up 66,000 in a month) — the highest unemployment since January 2012 (1,278,000). In addition, the rise in Australia’s under-employment to 993,000 (up 18,000) means a total of 2,222,000 (up 84,000) Australians (18.1%, up 0.3%) are either unemployed or under-employed — a new record high.

Swan, ABC and FXJ jounros – “youse never had it so good!”

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:20 pm
Asinine drivel. You say this after you tell us people are going to die from the event. You lying fuckhead.

From the man they call the Blowhard’s Blowhard.

I have said nothing at all regarding deaths from the Fukushima explosions and radiation leaks.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:20 pm
what’s happened in the UK to freedom of speech
this is horrific

The Royal Charter’s ornate, 17th-century language is part of the obfuscation. It begins: ‘To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting!’ That is in a way appropriate: the last time England had state licensing of the media, in 1680, people did speak this way. There follows a 22-page, 111-point charter laying out how the press in Britain is to be governed. Not authored by the government, apparently, but by a monarch by dint of her ‘especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion’.

At first, the newspapers treated news of the charter with stunned silence. What started out as a sensible attempt to regulate the 21st-century press somehow ended up lost in the 17th century. The language was kept deliberately vague to allow every political party to claim victory: if no one knew what it meant, how could anyone object? But one thing was clear: a cabal of politicians had gathered in an office until 2.30a.m. on a Monday morning to stitch up a deal, with the campaign group Hacked Off in the next room. They were acting on a shared premise: that the press would at last be theirs to regulate.

val majkus

25 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
The smug, sanctimonious Greg Barns tweets:

People will always take risks to get a better life and we should open our borders to make it safe.

People will also always take risks to get a better swag when burgling houses and we should keep our doors unlocked to make that safe.

Deadman

25 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
Evidence of the thousands of people dying because of energy policy in Europe, please?

Note she didn’t say there was thousands of dead – but in danger of becoming fatalities.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/death-toll-rises-in-europe-cold-snap/story-e6frfku0-1226261983741

You’re just a typical Catallaxy blowhard.

No fuckwit Steve, YOU, not us, ARE in actual fact THE catallaxy blowhard.

Everything you have spouted on this day has turned out to be rubbish, a lie or unsubstantiated.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:24 pm
NAME REDACTED – a widely respected Federal Labor Parliamentary figure

Well, I’m stumped!
Former A-G Robert McClelland?

Cold-Hands

25 Mar 13 at 10:27 pm
From the man they call the Blowhard’s Blowhard.

I have said nothing at all regarding deaths from the Fukushima explosions and radiation leaks.

You’re a dishonest, imbecilic liar.

You said people refused to move back to Fukushima (not true) because it is SOOO dangerous.

You implied they’d all die if they went back there. Do not fuck about, you verballed yourself here, you fuck brained perv.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:28 pm
I’m going to post this inconvenient fact about LIFE UNDER THE ALP

because fuckwit steve besmirched it

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4848/

Some facts about unemployment

Today’s Roy Morgan November employment estimates show Australian unemployment rising to 1,229,000 (up 66,000 in a month) — the highest unemployment since January 2012 (1,278,000). In addition, the rise in Australia’s under-employment to 993,000 (up 18,000) means a total of 2,222,000 (up 84,000) Australians (18.1%, up 0.3%) are either unemployed or under-employed — a new record high.

Swan, ABC and FXJ jounros – “youse never had it so good!”

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:31 pm
Steve, you delusional fool, I am not going to repost the articles in the UK press (specifically in the Daily Mail) about how the cold snap is raising the death statistics, or about how the skyrocketing cost of energy there is affecting people. I will refrain from posting the many reports of deep snow and rising energy prices right across the EU and the former USSR.

You are beneath contempt. I just wish you lived in Minsk, not Brisbane. Since you don’t work for a living, you would long ago have burned your computer to stay alive, you creep.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
Note she didn’t say there was thousands of dead – but in danger of becoming fatalities.

What she said:

Unlike, say, the thousands of old and poor people in the UK, Europe and the old USSR who are currently freezing to death thanks to the policies you and your murderous pals espouse.

Were you on the debating team in high school? Must have been hilarious.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
Yes Steve, hundreds have died, thousands are at risk or dying.

Johanna said thousands are at risk/dying.

You implied that she said that thousands were dead.

You are a simple, dishonest, worthless c*nt.

Were you on the debating team in high school? Must have been hilarious.

No, you probably were, you stupid c*nt, back in 1964. You probably thought it made you more intelligent than you actually are.

Fuck off and go back to blogging about Abbott’s cock, you imbecilic, low grub.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:38 pm
The Spectator on the freedom of the press situation in the UK

But then, overnight, everyone united around a compromise: a state regulator which insisted it was no such thing. It was the political equivalent of Magritte’s ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’; Britain’s first piece of legislative surrealism.

val majkus

25 Mar 13 at 10:42 pm
Number of nuclear power plants worldwide: 437 (since 1951)

Number under construction: 68

(2011 figures)

Number of fatalities: 58 (spanning 1951 – 2011)

Number of accidents or near accidents: almost 100.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 10:46 pm
(specifically in the Daily Mail)

Yes, the newspaper of choice for in depth analysis at Catallaxy.

You are beneath contempt.

You have been taking lessons from dot, haven’t you.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:46 pm
You stupid, despicable, misanthrope

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=death+toll+rises+in+europe&aq=f&oq=death+toll+rises+in+europe&aqs=chrome.0.57j60l2j0l2j60.3873&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

GOOGLE, MOTHERFUCKER

HUNDREDS OF NEWS SOURCES, TAKE YOUR FUCKING PICK, PAL

You truly are beneath contempt. You don’t even try to confuse people giving you a grilling. You just add more to an electronic “paper trail”.

You fucking useless, deviant miscreant.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:51 pm
You’re a shite debator, dot.

Of course death rates go up during blizzards and cold snaps. (They go up in heat waves too.)

What’s relevant to an energy debate is whether energy policy is contributing to increased deaths to any significant degree.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 10:55 pm
What’s relevant to an energy debate is whether energy policy is contributing to increased deaths to any significant degree.

Yes, and it is clear that the UK’s Brussel’s directed policy is killing people.

You would approve of this, shitbrain

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 10:58 pm
What’s relevant to an energy debate is whether energy policy is contributing to increased deaths to any significant degree.

Genius, ask yourself the socratic question: “will more people die in such circumstances if ENERGY IS MANDATED TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE?”

Fuckhead.

.

25 Mar 13 at 10:58 pm
is whether energy policy is contributing to increased deaths to any significant degree

Gee i don’t know, maybe making the cost of energy too expensive may have something to do with it dribbler.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 10:59 pm
People dying means nothing to the left – acceptable for the cause, comrade.

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:02 pm
Gee i don’t know, maybe making the cost of energy too expensive may have something to do with it dribbler.

People dying means nothing to the left – acceptable for the cause, comrade.

Nah. Steve sez you’re shit at debating – and that Abbot has a massive cock and it makes him giggle.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:05 pm
For sfb it’s a matter of how many deaths are acceptable..

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:06 pm
Could you please explain how cheaper energy contributes to increased deaths?

My recursive fury is amping up.

Policies which deliberately kill people have that effect on me.

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 11:06 pm
A couple of articles (from the Telegraph) I have seen are pointing out that there are concerns about the amount of gas England can store.

Lots of stories of electrical distribution failing due to the snow.

No stories that people are dying because there is no electricity because of windmills.

In fact, one link dot sent me to said there were some electricity shortages in parts of France – yes that country will all that lovely nuclear power. (The distribution system is not always the best, apparently.)

BTW, we all know that pensioners can get spooked by increased cost stories and do silly things – there’s some old codger eating dog food because he can’t afford meat on Today Tonight probably every second year.

Pensioners were compensated for high electricity bills, but because Tony Abbott was on the tele so much telling them a carbon tax will send them broke, I wouldn’t be surprised if some refuse to heat themselves this winter because that nice Mr Abbott told them they wouldn’t be able to afford it.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:06 pm
For him it’s “death rates” – very Eastern Front..

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:07 pm
Wow, SFB you’ve been here since 8:48am. Impressive. Have you had a shower? Had something to eat?

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:09 pm
Newspoll L/NP: 58 (+6) ALP 42(-6)…rofl!

FAKE CRISIS!

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:09 pm
Newspoll L/NP: 58 (+6) ALP 42(-6)…rofl!

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:10 pm
Pensioners were compensated for high electricity bills, but because Tony Abbott was on the tele so much telling them a carbon tax will send them broke

sfb – AbbottAbbottAbbott, AbbottAbbottAbbott.

pathetic.

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 11:12 pm
A couple of articles (from the Telegraph)

YOU CAN FIND THOUSANDS OF ARTICLES ON THE SAME TOPIC ON GOOGLE

No stories that people are dying because there is no electricity because of windmills.

THERE ARE NO STORIES THAT FUEL EXCISE IS A MAJOR COST IN FUEL PRICES, DOES THAT MEAN IT, OR ANY OTHER LOGICAL STATEMENT IS UNTRUE, FUCKBRAINS?

In fact, one link dot sent me to said there were some electricity shortages in parts of France – yes that country will all that lovely nuclear power.

NO DICKEAD, THEY SUGGESTED TO TURN OFF NON ESSENTIAL APPLIANCES DURING PEAK TIMES AS FRANCE HAD REACHED AN ALL TIME HIGH FOR CONSUMPTION – AND THEY SELL 30% OF THEIR POWER TO THE EURO GRID, YOU INTELLECTUAL CLUSTERFUCK

BTW, we all know that pensioners can get spooked by increased cost stories and do silly things – there’s some old codger eating dog food because he can’t afford meat on Today Tonight probably every second year.

LOLWUT THEY DIED BECAUSE THEY WUZ SCARED OF ABBOT ABBOT ABBOT?

Pensioners were compensated for high electricity bills, but because Tony Abbott was on the tele so much telling them a carbon tax will send them broke, I wouldn’t be surprised if some refuse to heat themselves this winter because that nice Mr Abbott told them they wouldn’t be able to afford it.

NO, THEY DID NOT RECEIVE NET COMPENSATION YOU LYING, PERVERTED GRUB

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:15 pm
If the polls shift just 8 pts by Sept the ALP could win. Believe.

dover_beach

25 Mar 13 at 11:16 pm
Still 30% primary, though. Psychologically better than 29%.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:17 pm
According to the latest Newspoll survey, Labor’s primary vote has slumped five points to a disastrous 30 per cent after a fortnight that ended with the aborted leadership spill and mass cabinet resignations, with one in two voters now siding with the Coalition.

For the second time in three Newspoll surveys since February, Mr Abbott has a clear lead over Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister 43 per cent to 35 per cent.

The government’s primary vote of 30 per cent is the lowest since July last year, while the Coalition’s primary vote of 50 per cent is the highest since April last year. Greens’ support was virtually unchanged on 10 per cent.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:17 pm
Given Newspoll’s volatility lately, it will likely be back up 3 or 4 % next time.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:18 pm
Newspoll L/NP: 58 (+6) ALP 42(-6)…rofl!

Andrew
25 Mar 13 at 11:10 pm

It’s a fake crisis, I tells ya!

monty and steve also say it’s winnable, a landslide if the polls move a few points either way. Quick, someone tell Ant. Green!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2013/calculator/?mode=overall&overall=-8.1&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringmps=true&lyne=nat&neng=nat&ocon=lib

L/NP 111 seats
ALP 36 seats
OTH 3 seats

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:18 pm
There’s a poor laptop having to put up with a dot emitted foam flecked spray somewhere in Australia.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
50% Primary to the Coalition. This could be bigger than ’75. Maybe a fringe dwelling village of mediocre ALP members, like NSW and Qld..

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
Given Newspoll’s volatility lately, it will likely be back up 3 or 4 % next time

Shouldn’t you be dragging your bloated corpulent body off to your nest for the night?

Carpe Jugulum

25 Mar 13 at 11:22 pm
September is a long time politically away. Yes the polls have not swung far in favour of our wonderful first blokes only non-ABC friend, but many a slip twixt etc.

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:22 pm
There’s a poor ~~laptop~~ Pentium II Tower having to put up with an ~~dot~~ old perv ~~emitted~~ (redacted for politeness) ~~foam~~ (redacted for politeness) ~~flecked~~ Tony Abbot penis inspired ~~spray~~ filth somewhere ~~in Australia~~ rightfully in a sex offender’s register enclave.

FTFY, you old pervert.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:27 pm
Yeah all the ALP needs is improving numbers every week with no downturns and no nasty surprises emerging. From brothels.

wreckage

25 Mar 13 at 11:27 pm
Of course death rates go up during blizzards and cold snaps. (They go up in heat waves too.)

There speaks the ambassador of our “low carbon” economy. He “cares” for the planet, but for humans, not so much.

Funny, this effect doesn’t work in the tropics, where the temperature is stable and warm.

The difference is in the availability of cheap and omnipresent energy where the temperatures fluctuate, and especially where it gets very cold.

A winter in one of the Gulags, with nothing but a windmill and a solar panel for company, is just what you need. Hell, I bet some Cats would even throw in for some free comics for you!

johanna

25 Mar 13 at 11:27 pm
What a sleaze bucket Michael Smith is, by the way. I love (/sarc) the wanky way he writes his report like he’s still a police officer. Smith is obnoxious in style and content.

If Smith wants to go down the road of politicians who might have had sexual contact with someone other than their spouse getting publicity, there’s bound to be a Coalition politician featured sooner or later.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:28 pm
There’s a poor laptop having to put up with a dot emitted foam flecked spray somewhere in Australia.

As opposed to whatever the sticky substance coating SfB’s computer keyboard is…

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 11:28 pm
Who gets to decide what constitutes a party and gets staffing etc?
Can Abbott set the bar one seat higher than the Labs get and give the Greens and independents and looney Katterites and Labor absolutely utterly nothing whatsoever in funding and staffing and mail allowances and desks and pencils ? Leaving the bunch of them to hot desk one janitorial cupboard in an office in Quuenbeyan with no taxi allowance?

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:29 pm
Onya, SFB. You just keep that rage, rage against the dying of the light going.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:30 pm
50% Primary to the Coalition. This could be bigger than ’75. Maybe a fringe dwelling village of mediocre ALP members, like NSW and Qld..

It’s a fake crisis.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:31 pm
More to the point, I can’t wait to see that [no. just no. Sinc] Wayne Swan being put on the dole queue.

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 pm
Gee, isn’t the evening of 14 September going to be fun. Do we need to reserve front row seats now? Is Ozblogistan going to be up to it?

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 pm
The ALP used to liken itself to ‘the light on the hill’..

.. sadly that light has had to be extinguished due to increased electricity prices caused by the carbon tax.

Brian of Moorabbin

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 pm
What a sleaze bucket Michael Smith is, by the way.

No.

Michael Smith is the investigative journo.

Anthony Albanese is the MP who visited a brothel for “therapy”.

FTFY, Steve.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:32 pm
It’s a fake crisis

Pardonne?

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:34 pm
I don’t like anything he has done, said or indicated as Pope so far. (Shorter version for you all.)

When I wrote my comment on Francis, I knew that imaginary ‘Catholic’ Steve would tear himself away from his (apparently neglected 24 hours a day) ‘family’ to respond.

Certainly I like much of what the Argentinian has said. He has condemned abortion (sad news for Steve) and homosexual marriage; he has, so far, spoken three times of the spiritual warfare in which Christians are engaged with the Author of Lies. All of which is very embarrassing to pretend ‘Catholics’ like Paul Collins, Bill Morris and Nancy Pelosi.

Straying away from the doctrinal (and salvifically important) to subjective opinions (which are not salvifically important), Francis is prone to the same errors as other people. A trained chemist, he knows ever less about economics than Wayne Swan.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 11:35 pm
A fake is only a crisis if you are the owner of the fake. The ALP owns Mr Rudd and he seems to be rather fake.

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:36 pm
And how is carbon pricing going to hurt small nuclear, brc?

Carbon pricing has zero effect on anything, because it’s not high enough to change anything. As with all agw horseshit, it’s all the stupid regulations that are the problem more than the stupid energy taxes, which are done in the tradition of getting most feathers with fewest hissing.

I’ll remind readers that the nuclear debate came in because the wrongologist insisted technological change wasnt happening fast enough, to which it’s been pointed out clearly that this is because of modem day Luddites spewing lies and hysteria, which has been proven right for the rest of the thread.

brc

25 Mar 13 at 11:37 pm
It’s certainly still a fake crisis as far as being able to govern is concerned. As the PM said tonight, there is very little legislation that the government has wanted to pass that it not been able to achieve.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:37 pm
Lazlo

munty and steve put forward this theory that any sign of disunity and unpopularity of the ALP is a ploy from the Mudroch presses and it is a fake crisis – and we must question the role of Tony Abbott has in all of this.

Whereas, they also believe Abbott is about to get dumped and the Liberals will have a primary vote piddling near a third party and the ALP can build on their record of achievement and win the next election 2PP 55%-45%.

They are either turps sniffing retards are complete mental cases.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:38 pm
Newspoll L/NP: 58 (+6) ALP 42.

Ahahahahahahahahaha.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 11:38 pm
I hate these ALP pieces of shit so much. Just thinking about September makes me all giddy inside.

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:38 pm
Bit unfair on Albo. For all we know he may just own the joint.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:39 pm
The pope’s a chemist ? Like a pharmacist chemist or just an industrial chemist?
Pharmacists are utterly pure recreation usefulness in compact form. Industrial chemists can just make shampoo and cat repellant. Bit useful but no big deal. Which is His Holiness?

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:40 pm
It’s certainly still a fake crisis as far as being able to govern is concerned

Sure Steve. The op ed of Myles Petersen meant nothing to you.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/yes-minister-meets-alice-in-wonderland-20100220-omsa.html

As the PM said tonight, there is very little legislation that the government has wanted to pass that it not been able to achieve.

The carbon tax is a failure and it will be repealed, fuckhead.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:40 pm
The latest series of Red Dwarf was still pretty funny, I think. ABC 2 running the entire show from the beginning has given me much pleasure.

steve from brisbane

25 Mar 13 at 11:40 pm
Bit unfair on Albo. For all we know he may just own the joint.

The only joint Albo owns is the one he is smoking.

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:41 pm
There’s very little I want to pass that I haven’t, but it’s all still faeces.

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:41 pm
They are either turps sniffing retards are complete mental cases.

Dot, I can’t argue with that…

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:42 pm
The upshot of a fake crisis:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2013/calculator/?mode=overall&overall=-8.1&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringmps=true&lyne=nat&neng=nat&ocon=lib

L/NP 111 seats (+38)
ALP 36 seats (-36)
OTH 3 seats (-2)

Whatever, you imbecilic old perv.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:42 pm
A trained chemist, he knows ever less about economics than Wayne Swan.

That’s too harsh.

As the PM said tonight, there is very little legislation that the government has wanted to pass that it not been able to achieve.

Yes, this government is ‘good’ because of the many thousands of pages of legislation it has passed.

dover_beach

25 Mar 13 at 11:43 pm
As with all agw horseshit, it’s all the stupid regulations that are the problem more than the stupid energy taxes, which are done in the tradition of getting most feathers with fewest hissing.

Exactly.

I wish more people knew about the idiotic MRET or the agriculture specific carbon tax/ETS rules.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:43 pm
“The carbon tax is a failure ”
No. Its a tax. It’s raising money.
The definition of failure is now the MRRT.
That is a failure.
The carbon tax is an hilarious stupidity, but a slightly successful one.

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:44 pm
Nice to see my seat for the first time, appear on the Liberal side.

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:44 pm
Because I agree entirely (in case you didn’t know)…

Lazlo

25 Mar 13 at 11:45 pm
L/NP 111 seats (+38)
ALP 36 seats (-36)
OTH 3 seats (-2)

That would be very amusing.

dover_beach

25 Mar 13 at 11:45 pm
36 seats, seeing more Liberals on the opposition side of Parliament would be hilarious.

Andrew

25 Mar 13 at 11:47 pm
“ALP 36 seats (-36)”

They will win 36 seats!!!
If so then Democracy does not work.
One seat should be impossible.
Who are these people?
Has she rutted so many as that?

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:47 pm
Be interesting to know who blames who in Labor Party for this poor result.

candy

25 Mar 13 at 11:49 pm
It’s certainly still a fake crisis…

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 11:50 pm
If it ever got to 62:38 2PP, the ALP could end up with as little as 24 seats in the House, on the Mackerras pendulum featured on the ABC election calc.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:53 pm
“Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!”
choo

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:54 pm
Albanese in Thai “knock-shop” scandal?

FMD.

Well, so to speak.

I mean, far out – this is becoming too much.

C.L.

25 Mar 13 at 11:56 pm
See I always thought a “knock-shop” was a place where they rebirthed stolen cars.

Education is free at the Cat.

Gab

25 Mar 13 at 11:57 pm
Again, a word of caution:

The TAS seats in the House will basically be 3-4 LIB, Wilkie and maybe one ALP, as long as the Liberals stay ahead from now on in.

The ALP and Green seat tally might actually near my dream of 20 or less seats in the House.

If only the Libs could beat Bandt, then the dream would come true.

.

25 Mar 13 at 11:57 pm
So no one told Albo about the married unionists red reliefer?

WhaleHunt Fun

25 Mar 13 at 11:58 pm
I hate these ALP pieces of shit so much. Just thinking about September makes me all giddy inside.

I’ve never seen so much pent up anger. Just the word “government” is enough to set otherwise mild mannered people in real life off into spasms mouthing off torrents of vile abuse.

The electorate being so passionate about politics brings a tear to the eye.

Will history books record the fact that an ALP PM was so hated that she couldn’t even set foot in the ALP heartland without a cadre of minders and secrecy?

twostix

25 Mar 13 at 11:59 pm
I would have thought it was going to be lil’ Timmy who would be first to be visiting a Thai knock-shop…

Albo wouldn’t know what to do in there except rail about 457 visa holders taking the jobs of honest hard-workign Australian prostitutes.

Brian of Moorabbin

26 Mar 13 at 12:02 am
If I recall correctly, you were one of the people saying the media should have left that NSW minister who frequented a gay bath house alone, CL?

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
Gravitas: PM defends Sandilands’ bunny gig.

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
If Smith wants to go down the road of politicians who might have had sexual contact with someone other than their spouse getting publicity, there’s bound to be a Coalition politician featured sooner or later.

Wait.

Wait.

Did you just say that the media wouldn’t print photos of a Liberal Minister leaving the backroom of a Thai “massage parlour”?

It’s a bad, bad week for you I know steve but try and keep touch with reality you “conservative catholic” you.

twostix

26 Mar 13 at 12:06 am
The nsw minister was getting cleaned up. It was a bath house.
Albo was getting down and dirty.
Maybe that’s the difference?

WhaleHunt Fun

26 Mar 13 at 12:08 am
Did you just say that the media wouldn’t print photos of a Liberal Minister leaving the backroom of a Thai “massage parlour”?

This cocksucker also reckons he had “explosive news” of an affair Abbott had, and he squibbed.

What a moronic, lying blowhard.

.

26 Mar 13 at 12:08 am
Yes I was, Steve, because David Campbell was a self-evidently tortured man, married with two children (his wfe battling cancer).

The hook for the media’s ‘interest’ was his use of a government car – which was bullshit.

I hope you’re not suggesting Albanese is guilty of anything other than poor judgement, Steve.

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 12:08 am
If Tony Abbott was photographed exiting a business which advertises (according to Smith) “Escorts, Rub ‘n tugs, body slides & happy endings,” I’m sure the ABC and Fairfax would, like, totally not publish it.

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 12:11 am
Maybe Albo works there? Something wore away that tooth?
Guy does an honest night’s work, first ever, and you all dump on him. Blokes building a skillbase for post September.

WhaleHunt Fun

26 Mar 13 at 12:11 am
Albanese in Thai “knock-shop” scandal?

FMD.

Well, so to speak.

I mean, far out – this is becoming too much.

It’s also being alleged that:

A) The photos were suppressed by the media last week so as to not further infuriate the government while they were attempting to muzzle the press.

B) Albanese backed away from the Rudd coup because of them.

A scandal in the making.

SfB has announced it a non story so in accordance with the Grand Unified Theory of Wrongology expect it to be front page on every major Newspaper within days.

twostix

26 Mar 13 at 12:12 am
“reckons he had “explosive news” of an affair Abbott had”

Albo and Abbott?

Yuk!

WhaleHunt Fun

26 Mar 13 at 12:14 am
If only the Libs could beat Bandt, then the dream would come true.
discussion re. Bandt in da noo fred!

Cold-Hands

26 Mar 13 at 12:21 am
Look, you dimwits: the media hears lots of rumours, some better sourced than others, about who’s sleeping with who, or visiting brothels, and chooses not to pass on most of them as not being genuinely in the public interest. We saw that with the Bill Shorten’s affair rumour, which he spoke out about (but not because of media publicity.) So, a Labor identity protected by the media, you say? Well, didn’t work that way for Campbell, did it?

As for Abbott, they did not want to specify the crude joke that the comedian made about him and Credlin, out of not wanting to detail a widespread rumour. (Daddy Dave’s arse about explanation was that by not telling it they were helping Labor was ridiculous, and based on his not knowing that the rumour had been around for yonks, but not reported in the mainstream media.)

The Albanese thing is something that should have no bearing on politics; and is particularly egregious because there is no proof that sexual services were provided.

This is sleazy and pointless American style politics, and as I saw, everyone with an ounce of common sense would know that wanting to know the bedroom habits of every politician could well hurt Coalition ones too.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:25 am
Wow those Newspoll numbers are worse than I ever thought we’d see. Caution on Newspoll, it’s far too volatile, but it’s enough to make the people who dislike this government smile.

brc

26 Mar 13 at 12:29 am
As for Abbott, they did not want to specify the crude joke that the comedian made about him and Credlin, out of not wanting to detail a widespread rumour.

No, Steve. The love media didn’t want to repeat it because they were high on Gillard’s ‘misogyny’ crack cocaine and the comedian’s routine wrecked the whole thing.

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 12:31 am
brc: do try to keep up. Newspoll at one point in 2011 had labor on 27% primary.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:33 am
I’d say you’ve earned every cent today from your ALP masters, SFB.

Gab

26 Mar 13 at 12:35 am
The love media didn’t want to repeat it because they were high on Gillard’s ‘misogyny’ crack cocaine and the comedian’s routine wrecked the whole thing.

Yeah. So that’s why they reported that it was highly embarrassing for the PM.

Your logic is impeccably stupid.

The Abbott/Credlin rumour was well known in Canberra circles, and the first people like DD (and you, for all I know) heard about it via the media was because the story about the comedian’s joke made the most sense if there was a rumour in existence.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:37 am
Unfair to sex workers, who really do earn every cent, Gab. Snaggle-teethed sperm – yuk!

johanna

26 Mar 13 at 12:41 am
The Albanese thing is something that should have no bearing on politics

It has a great bearing on politics if compromising photographs of Albanese were used to stop his standing for deputy leader. It has a great bearing on politics if workers in that parlour were here on 457 visas. It has a great bearing on politics if any worker therein be underage. It has a great bearing on politics if any worker therein entered this country unlawfully. It has a great bearing on politics if our corrupt PM has managed to cling to power by using a giant dirt file. It has a great bearing on politics if our hypocritical PM, who accuses Abbott of misogyny after he glances at his wristwatch, yet again, exculpates any fault, wrongdoing, slip or crime, if committed by someone whose vote she requires.
I don’t know whether any of these suppositions be at all likely; accordingly, I’d like this matter to be investigated properly.

Deadman

26 Mar 13 at 12:45 am
This cocksucker also reckons he had “explosive news” of an affair Abbott had, and he squibbed.

But that’s all true. Tony Abbott has had numerous extra-marital affairs, including one with Peter Slipper. It was all documented carefully on Larvatus Prodeo.

When Tony Abbott buys charity lollies from the doctor’s surgery counter at 3 for $1, he always – I mean always – takes 5. He breaks wind in confined spaces and blames other people. And that wasn’t even him on Bolta last Sunday; it was an imposter carefully made up to look like him. Didn’t you see the pancake makeup?

How long must you people thrash about in darkness? The man is evil, and he must be stopped. Only a Labor government can save us from this one-man pestilence.

Philippa Martyr

26 Mar 13 at 12:46 am
Deadman makes a series of compelling points.

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 12:53 am
Yeah. So that’s why they reported that it was highly embarrassing for the PM.

You’re the dumbest person on the internet Steve.

This is right up there with your “theory” about Rudd being rolled not because Abbott had him on a hiding to nothing and he was going to lose the election, but because somebody in the ALP didn’t like him.

The day after Gillard had a mental breakdown over mysognist Abbott and ensuing media frenzy and love in the ALP brass are caught laughing at a blow job joke about Abbott’s female chief of staff at an ALP dinner. You say the media refuse to repeat the joke to protect….Abbott.

I’m pleased with your perfect record of wrongness. Small things like this show you’re still perfectly calibrated.

twostix

26 Mar 13 at 12:54 am
Dear Philippa: I do not know how long you have read this blog, but I trust you have more sense than to believe the highly excitable dot in his recount of how it was mentioned by me, once, years ago, that I had heard a rumour that I thought potentially damaging to Mr Abbott if it was true and reported.

dot has escalated this in his memory into something quite different, and several Catallaxy readers need smelling salts at the very thought that there should be a rumour about the fine, moral and outstanding man who will lead this country to a glorious revival, even if he’s crap at interviews.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:55 am
This is right up there with your “theory” about Rudd being rolled not because Abbott had him on a hiding to nothing and he was going to lose the election, but because somebody in the ALP didn’t like him.

You’re the last person left in Australia to believe this. You’re not very bright.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:56 am
SFB, you forgot to preface that smarmy little statement of yours with:

This just in from ALP Head Office

Gab

26 Mar 13 at 12:57 am
“ONE of the major threats to the survival of the Gillard government has been removed, with Labor MP Robert McClelland’s losing his bid for a top NSW judicial appointment.

It is believed the NSW government, despite believing he was qualified, didn’t want to be responsible for any action that could have created instability in the federal government.” (today’s Tele)

Fatty O’Barrell proves to be the gutless busted he appears to be.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

26 Mar 13 at 12:58 am
Perhaps I should have said, you’re the last person in Australian left who doesn’t believe Rudd was shafted for being an unbearable man to work for who ran a shambolic office.

steve from brisbane

26 Mar 13 at 12:58 am
How is keeping McClelland off the bench (and compulsorily quiet) advantageous to Gillard?

C.L.

26 Mar 13 at 1:01 am
No by-election C.L.

If McClelland went on time to take up the role there’d be a by election.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

26 Mar 13 at 1:09 am
Perhaps I should have said, you’re the last person in Australian left who doesn’t believe Rudd was shafted for being an unbearable man to work for who ran a shambolic office.

So nothing to do with the imminent loss of the 2010 election to the new and at the time all round ridiculed (by you especially) “unelectable” Tony Abbott.

Yes, I can see you’re perfectly calibrated. Keep up the good work.

Any more gems for us tonight? Tell us oh wrongologist, how long before the Albanese / Gillard blackmail rub and tug scandal blows up?

twostix

26 Mar 13 at 1:11 am
Dear Philippa: I do not know how long you have read this blog, but I trust you have more sense than to believe the highly excitable dot in his recount of how it was mentioned by me, once, years ago, that I had heard a rumour that I thought potentially damaging to Mr Abbott if it was true and reported.

But Steve, as I said, IT’S ALL TRUE. You are completely right. There are photos somewhere. Or video. Or texts. Or something. I’m sure it wouldn’t be such a strong rumour if there weren’t something in it.

Tony Abbott also likes to drive slowly around poor neighbourhoods, laughing with a menacing ‘mwhahahahahaha!’ out the open car window as he soaks all their superannuation accounts via WiFi.

Philippa Martyr

29 Mar 13 at 11:00 pm

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