Thursday, November 02, 2006
MALAISE GOING ON
The ABC’s Kerry O’Brien interviews fearless leftoid novelist Richard Flanagan:
KERRY O’BRIEN: [Your novel describes] two thugs beating up an old vagrant in Sydney’s King’s Cross, “They kept on for a few minutes more, kicking him as if he were to blame for everything in that dirty, dead decade their were all condemned to live through. A sack of shit that had once been a man in a place that had once been a community in a country that had once been a society.” Is that what Australia has become for you?
RICHARD FLANAGAN: I think it’s become that for many people. We are more frightened, we are more frightening, we are less free, we are more unjust, we are more callous, there’s a greater divide of wealth and power and the truth gets ever harder to get out. So, that was very much how I felt and that story sort of captured it in a few sentences.
It also captured, in a few sentences, several reasons not to buy Flanagan’s book. Richard doesn’t hate Australia, by the way; he’s merely sickened by our spiritual malaise, which only Richard and his people wish repaired:
RICHARD FLANAGAN: There is something else that’s going on in Australia, a sort of spiritual malaise that I find sickening, in a word. At the end of the day it is our Australia, too, and a lot of people want it back. They want a gentler, more generous, kinder Australia, not the kind of Australia they are getting presented with every day at the moment.
Every day this happens. Every single, terrible day. Along with, as Flanagan reports, the destruction of our government’s opponents:
RICHARD FLANAGAN: We have an ever more cowed media and we see daily anybody who rightly questions or simply interrogates the process of government or government policy being destroyed.
This is happening daily? Perhaps Richard should supply a list of those destroyed. Or perhaps Richard, like the rest of his family, is genetically pre-disposed to making stuff up:
KERRY O’BRIEN: When your brother, Martin Flanagan, was asked recently what quality he most associates with you, he said, “Sheer, naked courage”. Do you recognise that in yourself and what particularly has taken courage in your life?
RICHARD FLANAGAN: I think the family is given to exaggeration, Kerry. I wouldn’t believe that for a moment.
We don’t.
(via Cuckoo)
WHEN MOONBATS DREAM
An NPR broadcast from September 2014, as imagined by some Daily Kos muppet:
Former President George W. Bush began serving consecutive life sentences today for High Treason in connection convictions for creating a false casus beli for War with Iraq. He was sentenced to Life plus 100 years. He is also serving a life term for warrantless wiretapping.
The “plus 100 years” is a nice touch; apparently future judges assume an afterlife.
President Jon Stewart today said, “It’s a little sad really. I owe him a lot. I mean, basically he launched my career.” Vice President Colbert was unavailable while vacationing in France visiting relatives and stopping by the new UN Headquarters in London on the way back from his rest. In a prepared statement, the Vice President said, “We are all sad and shamed at what George W Bush wrought upon this great nation. Perhaps this will be the new beginning America needs.”
And so on and on, until ... well, your sides won’t exactly split with laughter. In fact, any pre-existing side-located wounds will most likely heal closed. Further highlights:
• Dick Cheney waterboarded following his conviction in a “secret military tribunal”;
• Michael J. Fox competes in a marathon following successful stem cell therapy;
• Former Bush officials sentenced to harvest stem cells in the former Huntsville Penitentiary;
• Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly convicted for “propaganda”, stripped of their citizenship, and sentenced to life imprisonment;
• Mona Charen “eaten by some wild animal” after escaping prison;
• “Ann Coulter, Michelle Malagang and Judith Miller” denied parole and ordered not to “speak in public or publish for the rest of their lives”;
• Chelsea Clinton appointed National Health Care Director, in which role she will “administer the application of free medicine to Americans”;
• An Ohio student wins one million dollars for showing “evolutionary changes in house flies in two generations”;
• “Election experts predict massive Congressional wins for the Progressive Party that is expected to hold 200 seats. Democrats will likely hold onto 20 of the remaining 38 seats and Independants will hold the rest. Under the National Restoration Freedom Act, Republicans will not be allowed to fly, vote or run for office until 2030”;
• Markos Moulitsas is a billionaire;
• Palestine becomes a nation in 2009, and;
• Terrorism declines for the sixth consecutive year.
APART FROM THAT, HE LOVED IT
Selective, flawed, fear-mongering, hastily put-together, sloppy, unlikely, problematic, unrealistically pessimistic, alarmist: Bjorn Lomborg reviews the Stern Report.
UPDATE. Beautiful one day, swarming with cannibal polar bears the next: Brisbane moves to join the Kyoto Protocol.
(Via NeoZionoid)
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
ABC REVEALS, CONCEALS
The ABC’s Rafael Epstein asks a question of former UK environment minister Elliot Morley:
When Downing Street hears Australian ministers now saying that a global trading scheme, a version of Kyoto part II, they’re very difficult things to get to. China and India, everyone has to line up together before Australia will jump. What do you think their attitude would be?
Audio at the same ABC link reveals an identically-worded question. But an archived transcript held at the Parliamentary Library (no link available as yet) reveals that a line from Epstein may have been edited:
When Downing Street hears Australian ministers now saying that a global trading scheme, a version of Kyoto part II, they’re very difficult things to get to. China and India, everyone has to line up together before Australia will jump. Do eyes sort of roll to the heavens in Downing Street? What do you think their attitude would be?
The ABC—its AM program specifically—has form when it comes to cover-ups.
CRI 4 HALP
US troops take their concerns directly to Senator John Kerry:
Meanwhile, as always, Kerry is flipping. His initial response to criticism of his latest goofiness:
A furious Kerry refused to back down, saying he would never apologize ...
And now:
I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.
Evil Dick Cheney joins in the fun:
Yesterday Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, twisted the knife ... “Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke. I guess we didn’t get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it.”
Mr Kerry has previously attacked the so-called “chicken-hawks” who have cast aspersions on his military record, while never seeing combat themselves. Yesterday he made no reference to how Mr Bush had avoided service in Vietnam, perhaps because it would have meant conceding that the President had got better grades than him at Yale.
Much more on this from James Taranto.
(Via LGF and many readers)
OUTSPEAKER UPGRADED
The Age’s Russell Skelton upgrades Sheik Hilali from provocative to controversial—although in its headline, Skelton’s newspaper sensitively describes the Lakemba Meatpreacher as merely “outspoken”.
UPDATE. Age editor Andrew Jaspan disses the experts.
COLD = BAD, WARMTH = BAD
“Let the sunshine in,” pleads Oxford-based Mister Z, who is depressed to discover just how few hours of sunlight he can expect during England’s winter:
Living in the UK is really quite marvellous, but the approaching winter grey & dark is the one thing that fills me with dread.
This boy could do with some climate change. Turns out, however, that Mister Z is not only opposed to grey and dark winters, but also to sunshiney global warming. There’s no pleasing these people.
KERRY BURIED
The New York Times reports John Kerry’s “botched joke” ... which you’ll find hidden somewhere beneath 763 words of NYTedium:
For at least a few hours on Tuesday, President Bush had a chance to relive his victorious campaign of 2004, taking a break from a bleak Republican campaign season as he attacked Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over the war in Iraq.
Evasively broad; Bush attacked Kerry over comments made about the education level of US troops.
Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was Mr. Bush’s opponent in 2004, is not running for office this year. But the president seized on what he said were Mr. Kerry’s disparaging remarks about the troops — and what Mr. Kerry insisted was a botched joke aimed at Mr. Bush — as he sought to make Mr. Kerry the face of the Democratic Party this fall.
His face is big enough. Still, at least we’ve gotten a little closer to the issue.
In the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq ...
There’s a war in Iraq? Who knew? Thereafter follows a few hundred words from trembly, war-shy Republicans and an anonymous “senior Republican Party Senate strategist” before the Kerry comments are finally revealed:
In his remarks in California on Monday, Mr. Kerry said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
Kerry’s excuse is breathtaking:
Mr. Kerry said that he botched a joke that his aides said had been prepared as follows: “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”
That joke was prepared and Kerry still managed to ruin it? Wasn’t he meant to be the smart guy all loaded with nuancy prowess? How “intellectually lazy” is it to forget a lame punchline? For that matter, how lazy is Kerry to forget he voted in favour of the war?
Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran ...
I doubt this. If true, surely we’d have heard about it previously. More on Mr Heinz from Powerline and Little Green Footballs.
UPDATE. The ABC’s Eleanor Hall reports:
In the United States the flamboyant former Presidential candidate John Kerry has given his political opponents an unexpected boost in the mid-term election campaign, with remarks that Republicans say amount to troop bashing.
Flamboyant?
(Via Paul Wright)
BEYOND THE PALE
You’d be surprised at how often people use the unintended yet delightful phrase “pale into significance”; everyone from local bloggers to BBC sports commentators and British parliamentarians.
THOUGHTFUL DAVE
Asked if he wanted the US to win in Iraq, David Letterman (I’m a fan) at first hesitated, then waffled. Asked again (by Bill O’Reilly; I’m not a fan), Letterman made an idiot of himself:
O’Reilly: Let me ask you something. And this is a serious question. Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?
Letterman: Here is my position in the beginning ... I sort of felt the way everybody did, we felt like we wanted to do something, because something terrible had been done to us. We did not understand exactly why; all we knew was something terrible, something heinous, something obscene had been done to us. So while it didn’t necessarily make sense to go into Iraq as it did perhaps to go into Afghanistan I, like most everybody else, felt like yes, we needed to do something. And as the weeks turned into months, years and one death became a dozen deaths and a hundred deaths and a thousand deaths, then we began to realize, “You know what? Maybe we’re causing more trouble over there than the whole effort has been worth.”
O’Reilly: Possible, but do you right now? Do you want the United States to win in Iraq? ... It’s an easy question, if you don’t want the United States to win ...
Letterman: It’s not easy for me because I’m thoughtful.
Letterman’s had three years to think about this ... and still can’t decide if he’d prefer the US (fighting alongside Iraqi forces) to prevail. Sad.
EXTRAORDINARY INTEREST SHOWN
“Does Tim Blair still do global warming jokes?” asks English teacher Ninglun:
One of the staples of uber-Right humour has been the Global Warming Joke, and Timmie has had some doozies. I wonder where they are today? Not so funny any more, is it? I am not so partisan as to suggest the Australian government doesn’t care, and some of its proposed measures are no doubt good in themselves. But their whole stand-out on the Kyoto Protocols, for all the imperfection of those protocols, is looking more and more like “lack of ticker”. NineMSN’s poll at the moment is running strongly in favour or our signing up, and the extraordinary interest shown here in my brief entry on David Suzuki further indicates what “the people” feel.
That “extraordinary interest” amounts to four comments and 232 visits. So tiny a sample might impress the Lancet, but is possibly insufficient upon which to base a claim of it representing “the people”. What “the people” really want, of course, is more of the letter j.
HOUSE OF MEAT
When purchasing your Uncovered Meat t-shirt, please take the time to inspect the entire CafePress range of meat-themed designs.
EFFORT MADE TO BE SMART
“The gift that keeps on giving,” wrote James Taranto of John Kerry on Monday. Later that same day, the wealthy political hobbyist gave again:
As the president was telling the good people of Texas that the Democrats did not want to win in Iraq, his former rival was in California insulting the troops ...
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” he said, eliciting chuckles from the students.
Kerry’s response to criticism of his stupid comments included suggestions that Kerry may have, at some point, served in a war somewhere:
This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
They’ve never worn the magic hat! Democrats, too, are repelled by Kerry, whose massive bonce makes redundant any attempt to replicate him in Giant Puppet form:
A Democratic Congressional candidate from Iowa is canceling a campaign event later this week with Senator John Kerry. Brucy Braley says Kerry’s recent comments about the Iraq war were inappropriate.
Commenters at Kerry’s blog seem to agree.