Wednesday Wisdom

What pisses me off is when I've got seven or eight record company fat pig men sitting there telling me what to wear. 

Sinead O'Connor

Ship of fools: we the reluctant passengers

Having picked the wrong lifeboat, Labor seems set to clamber back on the Titanic. With the mast broken, the rudder lost and the rocks looming, the backbench's panic is understandable: and their despair is far more credible than Julia Gillard's claim that the raft really is afloat and making headway.

Gillard's problem is that like all regicides, her legitimacy rests solely on being able to deliver for her backers; with that in tatters, the result is mayhem not seen in federal politics since the collapse of the Scullin Labor government in 1931. But at least that government shattered on matters of principle; bereft of principles from the outset, the Gillard government has none over which to brawl. Little wonder its death agonies have all the dignity of a fight between rabid dogs.
…
But far from managing those threats, Gillard seems intent on entrenching as many bad policies as she can, while locking in one unaffordable spending commitment after the other. Captive to the unions that created her, her goal is to spoil Tony Abbott's pitch, regardless of the costs.

Even more than the scandals that have swirled about her, it is that willingness to undermine our prosperity that makes Gillard unfit to govern. Even more than the chaos that surrounds her, it breaks faith with the electorate, compromising its right to change course. And even more than the repeated failures, it is why Labor's only refuge is on the ship of fools.

Costly course of a ship of fools

Where's Kevin?!

First sitting day of the last sitting of this federal parliament and for this ALP government.

10:42am: Kevin Rudd has arrived in Canberra with his usual mix of folksy concern for whether reporters might trip, an obligatory mention of his grand daughter and just general Kevin-ness.

Commenter Perk Cartel, of Westgarth is unimpressed:

Why does Kevin appear so delighted in most photographs? Is he so self absorbed that he cannot see how pompous and self righteous this renders him in many voter's eyes? 

Labor have nothing to be smiling about yet the Gang of Four going to the LGA dinners are similarly also all smiles as if pleased with themselves. 

Perhaps it's because they have no shame, aparatchiks (sic) all in a travesty of democracy.
Let's vote for more Independents folks and try to end this Tory / Labor Punch and Judy tent show. 

So, there you have it:  vote only for unhappy politicians. 

The pulse live

Down, down, down

89 days

20 hours

21 minutes

15 seconds

To go.

Show and tell

Peter Garrett has put the future of school funding reforms into the Labor leadership mix, saying he will quit as Education Minister if there is a switch back to Kevin Rudd.

Mr Garrett on Sunday said he would not serve in a Rudd cabinet despite persistent polling showing the government headed for annihilation under Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

That ought to frighten the bejeezus out of everyone in the ALP.

Expect all heads to be pulled in, pronto.

Garrett threatens not to serve in Rudd Cabinet ... the end declared nigh ... 

Photobucket stuffed

It would seem that my blog skin template photo's, which have been linked to photobucket for years and years and years and years (that would be four years), have kicked the bucket, hence the proliferation of what appears to be photobucket spam - it isn't. 

I see a new blog skin coming on, but will wait until I have time. 

Meanwhile, apologies for aesthetic ugliness.

We don't normally do ugliness around this joint, unless posting about our federal politics.

Caz
xxoo

Half baked

Coles supermarkets are selling bakery goods as ''freshly baked'' even though they were made up to six months earlier in Europe.

Croissants, danishes and muffins are being shipped frozen from Germany, Belgium and Denmark.

Janet Blythman, the head of the National Baking Industry Association, said a range of baked products from overseas would be shipped snap frozen. It would take a minimum of 10 weeks to reach Australia from Europe, she said. In its frozen state it would have a maximum shelf life of six to 12 months.

Because there's no one local - on this continent - AT ALL - who can whip up some muffins, or Danish pastries, or 'artisan' breads that would be priced less on the shelves than the cost and resulting price of freezer storage and 10 weeks shipping?

Hard to beat freshly baked goods that are only six months old 

The Road

If this parliament were a novel, it would be Cormac McCarthy's The Road - a post-apocalyptic nightmare of a civilised world descending into eternal darkness while humans wander a wasteland eating each other. 

No one knows what caused the armageddon. Whatever it was, it was very bad. Perhaps it was Kevin Rudd.

What presented as political debate this week was a work of fiction. It was as grounded in reality as McCarthy's frightening vision of depravity and loss of hope.

Despite my fear of being wrong a third time in a row, I will say this week is the nadir of federal politics.
I've said it twice in the past and both times I have been wrong - because it keeps getting worse. ...

The introduction of abortion on to a national stage already cluttered with nonsense was an objectionable political stunt. That is saying something considering the stunts performed in this parliament over the past three years.
...Just to demonstrate how badly it was received, even the country's leading feminists attacked the PM.
This is what Eva Cox from the Women's electoral lobby said about it: "I've got some concerns this was all about the backroom boys wanting to revive the misogyny speech because they got a good reaction to it. She conveniently overlooked many failings on her own watch that have affected women."
...In 2006, Gillard admitted during debate on RU486, that the legality of abortion was a state and territory issue. ... And rather than find furious disagreement with Abbott, she endorsed his position when he was health minister.
...
"Many members including the minister for health (Abbott) have adopted the Bill Clinton terminology that they would like to see a circumstance where abortion was safe, legal and rare. I agree with those comments. We would also like to see a circumstance where abortion was safe, legal and rare."

It is hard to believe that this newly confected fear campaign about Abbott changing his position on abortion was not all linked to the idiocy now known as Menugate.

It was an appalling incident. But it no way suggests that the Coalition is a collective misogyny club - as much as jokes by the unions about Abbott's relationship with his chief of staff doesn't mean the Labor caucus are all grubs.
...
As The Daily Telegraph revealed, Shorten is now counting numbers. And those numbers are falling Rudd's way.
...
One senior Labor MP said that, unless something happens, he was prepared to walk into caucus on Tuesday next week and challenge the PM himself.

"I'll blow the bloody show up," they said.

The problem now is that Labor is in such a disastrous state that Rudd is no longer even necessarily committed to coming back.

Like McCarthy's The Road, no one knows what happens in the end. Someone lives - but plenty of other people die.

The road to Labor apocalypse

Duck Friday

Blue sky, nothing but blue sky

Wednesday Wisdom

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while bamboo and willow survive by bending with the wind. 

Bruce Lee

Sucker punch

It seems that Tony Abbott was an exceptionally angry young man when he was at university.

How many unreported punch claims are still out there?  With any luck everyone will start stepping forward, so that "fresh punch claims" can be reported on a weekly basis. 

Abbott's punches, so far, don't connect with a person, but all the same, warrant front page coverage three decades after the event.

Meanwhile, rock star politician, Kev Rudd, is being greeted like a rock star politician by the populace at large, and has been forced to deny - again and again and again - that he will not be standing for the leadership of the Federal Labor Party. 

There is only one person who should lead the ALP to the exorcism that will be the September 2013 election, and only one person who should stand up to give the speech of defeat - Julia Gillard must not have that honour taken from her. 

Fresh Abbott punch claim

Rudd back to denying bid to overthrow Gillard

Hitler finds out that Kevin Rudd isn't challenging for the Labor leadership

Hat tip:  Kath & Rory

Cutest Cousin

Pygmy Mouse Lemur

The size of a mouse and 55 million years old, the nearly complete, articulated skeleton of a newly-discovered tree-dwelling primate has been given a mighty name - Archicebus Achilles, not after the Greek hero exactly, but the long heel bone that marks him as almost one of us.

The oldest primate skeleton ever discovered was recovered from Hubei Province in central China, lending further weight to the theory that primate evolution didn't originate in Africa, as has long been believed.

Discovery challenges  primate evolution theory

Duck Friday

100 days

Only 100 days to go.

A long 100 days.

One day is a long time in politics.

Tipping point

The balance between the over-nourished and the under-nourished is out of whack.

Estimated 900 million under-nourished people in the world.

Estimated 1.57 billion over-nourished people in the world.

2013

Wednesday Wisdom

Wisdom comes through being disillusioned. 

George Santayana 

Most articulate geek on the planet

Bill Gates and his wife Melinda do massively good things for the world.  They do clever and difficult things.  They spend their own money doing it.

That's not an opening gambit for a debate:  it's true.

Pitifully routine reporting of Bill's appearance on the ABC the other night is unfortunate.  Watching Gates in action, on any topic, reveals a mature, fast thinking, brilliant man.  I almost fantasized about having politicians or business leaders of his caliber running the joint.  Almost.  It won't ever happen.  Why torture myself?  That's what our politicians are for.

Gates also showed himself to be honest, self-aware and funny.

Mr Gates was also quizzed on whether giving a reported $US10 million to each of his four children meant that he had lost perspective of how much money was worth.

He said he had "absolutely" lost perspective of a number of things in life.

"I haven't mowed the lawn for a long time," Mr Gates joked. "I forget what it's like. I do wash the dishes every night, so there are certain rituals that are worth maintaining."

Bill Gates - still doing the dishes

Puzzling blood splatter

Photographs of the spilling of blood, some of it, from the shooting death of Reeva Steenkamp -  at the hands of her paraolympian boyfriend Oscar Pistorious - have been released. 

It should go without saying that I'm no blood-pattern expert, but the pools of blood, the locations, don't make any sense to me, within the context of the legal defense put forward for the accused. 

Dexter would solve this, I'm sure, if only he was a real person. 

Pistorious crime scene photos revealed 

Bloodied bathroom

The other side

Yes, there is another point of view, which isn't the: "oh golly gosh calling a black man an ape isn't racist".

No, the other point of view is that a bit of vigorous name calling in A league sports is routine.

The problem is that Eddie didn't call anyone names.  Eddie had a few hundred white footballers to call upon, for his weird King Kong promo ramble, but he didn't miss a beat with singling out a black player, with the echos of "ape" fresh in his mind. 

The argument has a fragile hinge, which assumes:

- that animal analogy name calling, against black people, doesn't have a long and ugly tradition
- that sticks and stones break bones, but words never hurt
- that it would have been equally ok for a child or for Eddie to call Adam Goodes a faggot or a nigger; see, it's all equally innocent:  ape, retard, neanderthal, it's in good spirits, a lark.

Now Eddie Maguire has become a victim of his own political correctness. I really don’t have much sympathy for him – he helped set up the victim game at the start of the week.

However, his comments highlight how juvenile our society has become.

The Thought Police and Rapid Joke Investigation Squads have jumped in to condemn Eddie for a comment, that was, well, just an innocent comment. There was no malice. There was no racism.

In fact, the whole debacle has become a huge joke. Except that it’s not funny and no one is laughing.

If you can’t handle a 13 year old yelling from the sidelines, as an individual the problem is yours, not hers. She’s just a girl.

If footballers are offended at being compared to big, hairy apes then maybe they are in the wrong business. After all, they make a living by chasing around a bit of pig-skin, much like a bunch of monkeys.

And if society can’t handle it either, then it says more about the brittleness of our culture than it does about anything else.

It’s time for grown men to grow up.

 Grown men should grow up (c/o Kathy)

Liberals have nothing more to do?

It's difficult to have much confidence in a party that perpetually threatens a no confidence vote against the federal government.

Apparently the Liberals don't have anything better to do, like writing policies, or figuring out how they're going to manage ever diminishing revenue while concurrently promising to spend billions on non-productive schemes. 

Yes, you might be foolish enough to think they have more compelling things to do than daily making idle threats and doing the political polka.

Dear Mr Abbott

You already know the election date, now how about you get on with the heavy lifting of being the would-be prime minister, instead of playing childish games.  Time to put on your big boy pants.

Regards
iCaz

Pathetic stunt - independents slam latest no confidence move

Duck Friday

Let's get this straight: this is exactly what racism looks like

Remember Steve Vizard?  He had a moment.

Remember Glenn Wheatley?  He had a moment.

This, I think, is turning into Eddie McGuire's moment.  No volume of unreserved *support* from his club, Collingwood, is going to put the egg together again.

Racism? We don't get it, because there are no consequences for being an ignorant, smug arsehole in this country.

Had Eddie McGuire made his King Kong remark on US radio, he would not work in the American mainstream media again. Game over, Ed. Buy a yacht.

You turn on American TV, there's black folks everywhere. Last year, they had an NFL panel show on a major network with a black host and FOUR black panellists. No token white guy.

You make a King Kong statement like Eddie McGuire did in that studio, you've got 25 people in the newsroom who are gonna press you against the lift doors and tell you why you're a maggot and you need to LEARN. FAST.

Sam de Brito nails it, in his usual cut through the crap manner

When you've finished with Sam's lacerating and clear sighted rant, consider world famous actor Forest Whitakerbeing stopped in a Manhattan delicatessen by an employee and accused of being a shoplifter (and then frisked).   And then let Ta-Nehisi Coates spell it out for you (and me), in case you're still not getting it: 

The other day I walked past this particular deli. I believe its owners to be good people. I felt ashamed at withholding business for something far beyond the merchant’s reach. I mentioned this to my wife. My wife is not like me. When she was 6, a little white boy called her cousin a nigger, and it has been war ever since. “What if they did that to your son?” she asked. 

And right then I knew that I was tired of good people, that I had had all the good people I could take. 

The Good, Racist People

 

 

Another day in paradise

Martin Ferguson has told parliament he will retire from politics at the September 14 election.

Tony Abbott has told anyone listening that farmer's wives will benefit from his platinum-plated maternity leave payments.

The ALP push on with removing the one-off $3,000 baby bonus.

Tony Abbott holds tight to his dream of giving well off working women who give birth $3,000 a week for six months.

Joe Hockey has given up exhorting everyone to wean themselves off the government induced entitlement mentality.