Wednesday, January 25, 2006
ARGUMENT SUPPORTED
THEORY: that lefties are witless relativism-shackled PC bores.
STATUS: proved, proved, proved, and proved again! John Birmingham’s column on humourless lefties provoked exactly the kind of grim, droning leftoid introspection that Birmingham complained of. Some—like the crowd over at Anonymous Lefty—simply couldn’t believe what they were reading, and theorised that Birmingham was in fact satirising the right:
That was a pretty appalling effort at satire, if that’s what Birmingham was aiming for.
—MrLeftyHere’s Birmingham’s blog post on the subject.
—FlashmanJust checked the blogs and the comments. Looks pretty earnest to me… No indications of satire or any “a ha! got you!” exclamations. He honestly seems to think lefties are humourless ...
—Christo
If he didn’t think so before, he sure has reason to now. The most telling reaction came from lefty group blog Larvatus Prodeo, the pretentious, tin-eared name of which is a clue to its general hopelessness. One of Birmingham’s points was that the left has declared discussion of certain subjects to be off limits. This was helpfully illustrated in LP’s comments thread, to which somebody using the title “smellydeadjesus” repeatedly contributed. Emboldened by this mockery of religion, Currency Lad tossed in a comment using the name “The ‘Prophet’ Raped Children”.
How did the laughing leftists react? Currency Lad’s mocking title was quickly replaced, a later comment was cut entirely, and the thread was then closed. Click here for the full story. Birmingham was more accurate about these people than he could have known.
BUSH BLAMED
Mother Sheehan wants someone to blame for everything:
“We need to bring our troops home immediately,” Sheehan told the crowd. “We need to hold someone responsible for all the death and destruction in the world. We need to see George Bush and the rest of them tried for crimes against humanity.”
Celebrate Chimpeachler W. Katrinaburton’s responsibility for all the death and destruction in the world with this charming coffee mug. It has a puppy on it! A doomed puppy. Buy it! Meanwhile, Sheehan’s message doesn’t seem to have reached the despairing folks in Afghanistan and Iraq:
Iraqis and Afghans are among the most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a new survey for the BBC suggests ...
In Afghanistan, 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.
In Iraq, 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country’s economy.
And while you anti-globos are thinking about that, think about this:
The World Bank gets a clear vote of confidence, with 55% saying it has a positive influence in the world.
Its biggest boosters are in regions where it is most active.
Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia and Afghanistan showed marked support for the World Bank ...
Someone tell these idiots.
AN INCONVENIENT WINTER
Al Gore should know better than to tempt the inverse law of global warm-mongering:
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s second book about global warming will be published in April with the title “An Inconvenient Truth,” his publisher Rodale Books said on Tuesday.
Great timing, Al:
Bone-chilling Arctic weather claimed dozens more lives in Europe Monday after an already deadly weekend, with 24 freezing deaths in as many hours in Ukraine alone, and rising tolls in Turkey, Poland, Russia and Germany ... glacial temperatures swept the Baltics to the Balkans, brought rare snowfalls to Istanbul and sparked a scramble for heating fuel ...
“You’d have to go back at least 10 years, sometimes 20 years, to find such sharp colds,” said Patrick Galois, a meteorologist with Meteo-France ...
The last time the [Czech Republic ] saw such cold weather was 66 years ago, in 1940, when the temperature dropped to a record 31.5 below zero, the meteorological office told the Czech News Agency.
This terrifying era of global warming is too cold for penguins:
At the zoo in Dresden, Germany, 21 Humboldt penguins were moved from their minus 6 outdoor environment into a building where the temperature was a more comfortable 32 degrees to ensure their feet didn’t freeze, zoo director Karl Ukena said.
A Humboldt penguin yesterday, screaming for heat.
JUSTIFICATION OFFERED
Commenter Percypup drew attention last week to this piece by The Age’s Karen Kissane:
Melbourne has racism. You often hear it from taxi drivers. It can show itself coarsely in the oaths of cricket crowds or delicately in the poisonous patter of dinner parties. The veils of Muslim women can be torn off in the street, and they and their children can be spat upon by strangers.
“Just wondering,” wrote Percy, “is this veil-ripping an urban myth? Can anyone turn up any evidence that it ever happened?” Kissane has since been in touch with Percy, who reports:
Kissane has forwarded me a report from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which contains the following submission: A Muslim man described how his wife and daughter were assaulted in a supermarket in north-western Melbourne in late 2002 by an angry woman who tried to remove his wife’s scarf then broke her tooth.
This legitimates Kissane’s assertion, although it is a single incident not plural as she writes (and I won’t quibble about distinctions between streets and supermarkets). So well done, Kissane!
I’m less inclined to give Kissane a pass on this. One veil-removal episode—four years ago—doesn’t justify the prominence of her racism claim. If indeed the attack was provoked by racism; possibly the women assaulted were of Anglo background.
“VILE LITTLE MAN”
Lucky for George Galloway he wasn’t dressed like this during his meeting with celebrated Iraqi playboy Uday Hussein. Actually, who’s to say he didn’t? Film of the pair’s love-in features a mysterious edit ... an edit just long enough for George to have slipped into something more comfortable. And for Uday to rape him.
George’s fellow Big Brother inmate, wannabe pop star Chantelle, has Galloway pegged:
He’s a cheating, conniving vile little man. He’s just sitting there reading his Communist Manifesto, giving one-syllable answers.
On another Iraqi matter, readers may recall that in early 2004 the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mike Carlton expressed doubts over the existence of any shredding machines under Saddam’s genial rule. The subject was recently raised during Saddam’s trial:
Ahmed Hassan Mohammed, 38, recounted how he and his family were seized and tortured after a 1982 attempt on the ousted leader’s life in the Shiite Muslim town of Dujail.
Hassan, who risked reprisals by letting his face appear on television as he gave evidence, said they were taken to an intelligence building in Baghdad run by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother and former intelligence chief ...
“I swear by God, I walked by a room and ... saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath,” Hassan told the court.
What say you now, Mike?
KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE
All he wanted was a little peace and quiet:
Fatah gunmen shot to death Abu Ahmed Hassouna, 44, a party leader in Nablus after he told them to stop shooting at campaign posters on his house, relatives said.
The killing is described as “politically motivated”.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
CHRISTOPHER PENN
Actor Christopher Penn has died at 43. No cause known at this point.
BLOGGERS ON THE MARCH
Congratulations to James Morrow, who next month becomes leader writer for The Australian, and to Matt Welch, newly-appointed assistant opinion editor at the Los Angeles Times. Matt is working with some interesting folks ...
UPDATE. Joel Stein: “Me, Myself, and I(raq).”
UPDATE II. Chief Bastard in comments:
You just never get to see these brave desk warriors actually TELL a returned service person that their contribution was either illegal/immoral/wrong etc.
Which is a shame, because the unarmed combat skills rarely get a workout in this age of modern war.
COLUMN HAS REDUCED FOCAL LENGTH
This week’s Continuing Crisis column in the Bulletin mentions Oliver Stone, Mark Latham, Russell Crowe, Hungry Jack, Isaac Latham, Oliver Latham, the Olsen twins, Nostradamus, Judy Davis, John Malkovich, Ross Schultz, Jackie Chan, Heath Ledger, and Morris Iemma. Please do click around at the magazine site for other news and columns.
Monday, January 23, 2006
CANADA VOTES
“Election Day is here,” writes Mark Steyn. “A day to rise up and throw out the ancien regime and triumphantly install a, er, weak minority government unable to operate without the support of secessionist obstructionists. But any port for taxation purposes, as Paul Martin’s accountants like to say.” Follow Canada’s possible liberation via Steyn, Colby Cosh, Damian Penny and David Janes.
In other voting news, Palestinians are about to elect Hitler.
EMPLOYER RELEASED
Labor Party identity and child-employment entrepreneur Neville Hilton is out of jail after serving just 14 months of a four-year sentence.
NATION OF HOVERISTS
We laughed when the story broke. Laughed and mocked. We had to; information that crucial to our national security needed to be discredited, or who knows what the consequences might have been?
But now the facts are clear. Webdiary’s anti-gravity revelations—exposing the real reason we went to war in Iraq—were right all along. I make no apology for ridiculing what I knew then to be the truth; we are at war, people, and certain measures must be taken.
And now that Australia has the hover car—now that we’ve conquered gravity itself—I invite the world to fear our hovering wrath. Any wrongs committed against us will be met with hovering. Any slight, intended or otherwise, will draw a full-scale hover strike. Criticise us in any forum, in any terms, and you will be hovered.
End communication. Hover.
(Via Scott Wickstein. That Webdiary piece, by the way, featured one of my all-time favourite intros: “Are you sitting down? Good, because this is going to blow your mind.” Who the hell stands up when they’re online?)
NOT AS BAD AS LAST TIME
The ABC’s Stephen Crittenden has copped a severe counselling following these comments during an interview with the lawyer of David Hicks:
If David Hicks is released, will it in fact be a very dramatic illustration that the only reason he’s been in Guantanamo Bay over these past four years is because of the bloody-mindedness of the Australian Government?
Off to the counselling chamber, Stephen! It’s interesting to compare the ABC’s treatment of Crittenden in this case with their earlier treatment of the presenter when he offered views on the rise of Islam.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
MODO - MANHUNTER!
“Are men necessary?” asks Australia-bound Maureen Dowd. Well, apparently one of them is:
She visited this country during the first Bush era … This time she plans to track down an Aussie bloke she had a crush on when she was 20.
HEAT BLAMED
Several paragraphs into a general piece on Melbourne’s weather, The Age mentions a certain poolside incident:
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the heat might have frayed tempers at Oak Park Aquatic Centre in Melbourne’s north on Saturday, when about 30 youths had reportedly assaulted staff.
UPDATE. The Herald Sun:
A suburban pool will reopen today with beefed-up security after a mob of about 30 people attacked four staff on Saturday.
Three pool staff and a security guard at Oak Park Aquatic Centre were set upon after trying to eject a member of the group about 4pm.
The pool’s management decided not to open the complex yesterday, despite the 40C scorcher, because of concerns security measures didn’t go far enough.
UPDATE II. Reader Tony reports that The Age’s brief mention of Saturday’s Poolistinian uprising didn’t actually appear in the newspaper’s print edition.