Friday, November 30, 2007
SONG FOR DAVE
Want to be an Australian folk hero? Just join the Taliban, set out to end Western-Jewish domination, try to kill Indian soldiers, and the Age’s Martin Flanagan will love you:
David Hicks will become one of the ghosts to be heard when we sing Australia’s national lullaby, Waltzing Matilda.
The Left were outraged when an Indian doctor was arrested in Australia following attempted bombings in the UK; yet they’re all huggy towards Hicks, who - among his other free-spirited Aussie antics - fired “hundreds of bullets” at Indians. He’s the little warmonger who tried.
UPDATE. Mainstream columnist Flanagan is dismissed as a crazy left field source. Well, he does write for the Age ...
SHIMEEEE
The Age’s Traceeee Hutchison - no longer a freak! - has a new favourite thing:
When Kevin Rudd walked on stage to claim his place as Australia’s 26th prime minister, the woman he calls his life partner stood with her hand in his beside him, and shimmied. She leant forward and, with a cheeky glint in her eye, shook her shoulders from side to side and shimmied. And it was glorious.
If ever there was an image to differentiate the old from the new on election night, it was Therese Rein’s shimmy. As surprising as the revelation that I’ve placed a shimmy above Australia electing its first female deputy prime minister and Maxine McKew’s “in heaven no one’s blind” moment might be, the shimmy said it all ...
Let’s all get down and shimmy!
Manic Traceeee is even less readable than depressive Traceeee. More from kisdm001: “Traceeee’s column today includes a rather dodgy claim: ‘Suddenly we had a first couple who were smart, successful AND sexy. It was magnificent.’ Sexy sure has changed since I left Australia …”
EVEL KNIEVEL
Motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel has died at 69.
FIRST COLUMN OF THE RUDD ERA
Featuring Al Gore’s CO2dle.
CHEATIN’ DOG EXPOSED
Herbie’s dog knows he isn’t allowed on the couch. But he thinks Daily Telegraph colleague Herbie and wife Karen are out of the house:
BUSTED by Karen:
SAVE SANTA
Fairytales collide in Washington State:
A grim Christmas message for kids from the mayor of Seattle. Greg Nickels told small children he’s launching “Operation Save Santa” to protect the big guy from global warming. At a Christmas tree lighting, Nickels warned the kids they had to use energy efficient light bulbs, or climate change could melt the North Pole—- and drown Santa, his elves and all his reindeer.
Nickels doesn’t seem so energy efficient himself; credit, though, for taking this anti-illumination stand during a Christmas tree lighting. Meanwhile, politicians keep yammering about el calentarse global, but people - even Democrats - keep not caring:
Global warming ranked at the bottom in the Post’s poll of Democratic voters in Iowa who were asked, “What is the single most important issue in your choice for the Democratic candidate for president?”
The top response was “the war in Iraq,” with 33 percent, while 26 percent said “health care.” Ten percent chose “economy/jobs,” and others identified a dozen other issues. A smart-alecky 1 percent answered, “nothing.”
But global warming ranked even lower than “nothing,” with one-half percent.
Let’s see what they say when Santa’s skeleton, picked clean by ravenous polar bears, is retrieved from the North Pole’s boiling waters.
TILTERS OFFENDED
Take a look at these two:
If you’re thinking they look like the type who might be hyper-alert to any perceived infringement of their rights and always prepared to press charges, you’re right.
BUCKETS USED
A feature on green entertaining in the Home & Garden section of the New York Times:
Perhaps the greenest party this year wasn’t billed as such. Deitch Projects was the host of a do last February for the publication of the photographer Jason Schmidt’s book, “Artists.” The décor was supplied by Gelitin, four male Viennese conceptual artists who wore high heels and buckets on their heads but no pants, and who spent the evening building a plywood structure over the bewildered guests’ heads.
Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor, sang a 16th-century melody called “Flow My Tears.” And then the Gelitin members, along with three Icelandic artists, also men, from a collective called Moms, took the buckets off their heads and urinated - with dead-eye accuracy, said Dodie Kazanjian, a Vogue editor and one of the events’ hosts - into one another’s pails.
The future will be an interesting place.
(Via cider czar Rich Stadnik)
RUDD ACTS
A first act:
One of Mr Rudd’s first acts as prime minister will be to move to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
And another first act:
Appointing a petrol price commissioner to monitor big oil companies will be one of the incoming Labor government’s first acts, Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd says.
For his second act, Mr Rudd will explain how cheaper fuel helps Australia meet its Kyoto emissions target.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
THIS CRAZY RECKLESSNESS MUST STOP
Incoming Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner won’t be doing that sort of thing, oh no:
LINDSAY TANNER: … we certainly won’t blatantly ignore them like the previous government did, for example, announcing a $10 billion water program written on the back of a serviette yet after a long lunch without being adequately costed or assessed by Treasury or finance and without even being taken to Cabinet. We won’t do that sort of thing, I can assure you.
ALI MOORE: On the water program, will you keep it?
LINDSAY TANNER: Yes …
(Via Alex R., who recommends clicking for video)
CANADIANS AIM FOR TITLE
“Hey, I want to see Canada up there in this hall of fame,” writes a proud Great White Northerner. “Surely we must be #1 per capita carbonistas.” Right on cue:
Scientists have found a new threat to the planet: Canadian beer drinkers.
The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient “beer fridges” that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt’s contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.
“People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles,” British environmental consultant Joanna Yarrow tells New Scientist magazine. “Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let’s hope it has an effect.”
UPDATE. Reuters reports:
If nothing is done to combat global warming, two of Florida’s nuclear power plants, three of its prisons and 1,362 hotels, motels and inns will be under water by 2100, a study released on Wednesday said.
Well done, Canadian beer drinkers. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.
UPDATE II. Canadian beer drinker Mark Steyn: “I’ve never felt prouder.”
UPDATE III. BIWOZ:
Well, I’ve got an old fridge and an upright freezer out in the garage.
They aren’t being used.
They’re empty.
I’m going to go home tonight and turn them on.
IT’S WALKLEY TIME
Tune in to SBS for coverage of this year’s awards. Updates to follow.
UPDATE. The prize for social equity journalism (!!!) goes to Hedley Thomas. Well, it should have; instead it’s been won by Frank Moorhouse for some essay about how we “can’t say things or know things” in the Age of Really Evil Conservative Governments. Thomas wins a print prize for Haneef coverage.
UPDATE II. It sounds as though only 30 or so people are present. Audience isn’t miked up at all.
UPDATE III. My pal Paul Toohey robbed!
UPDATE IV. Because the crowd can’t be heard, every single presenter gag seems to be getting no laughs at all - not even polite giggles.
UPDATE V. Well done, Walkley organisers! They’ve posted the winners before the delayed telecast has run even 30 minutes.
UPDATE VI. Cathy Wilcox’s winning cartoon was direct and fun; according to judges, however, it had “the power to chill”.
UPDATE VII. To hell with this. I’m falling asleep here.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
NELSON WINS
Brendan Nelson is the new leader of the federal Liberal Party. Julie Bishop deputy.
UPDATE. Rudd names his cabinet; Peter Garrett demoted.
UPDATE II. The man just won’t quit:
Prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd spoke uninterrupted today for a staggering 30 minutes in a frightening sign of what may be to come in a Labor-ruled Australia.
Announcing his front bench, Mr Rudd almost finished after 25 minutes but remembered he had forgotten to speak about a minister - and started talking again …
The performance from Mr Rudd, who became a household name through chatty appearances on breakfast television while in opposition, follows his lengthy and unremarkable acceptance speech on Saturday when he was elected.
UPDATE III:
It took Mr Rudd 20 minutes to run through the list - and he forgot to mention Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen.
HYBRID HOTTIES
They don’t make ‘em like this any more:
Reader challenge: come up with poster lines for a wild drivin’ movie set in today’s pious Prius era.
MACKAY UNYARDED
Having written the same column over and over again for four years, Hugh Mackay now detects a national desire for change:
Over the past 12 months, we’ve gradually been changing from complacent, self-indulgent and self-absorbed to alert and re-engaged.
Desperate to share in this joyful new spirit of innovation, Hugh makes a radical change of his own:
We’ve begun to emerge from a prolonged period of social and political disengagement in which we preoccupied ourselves with “lifestyle” - everything from home renovations to ...
... to backyards? Is it backyards, Hugh? Home renovations and backyards? C’mon; it’s always been about backyards:
... to body piercing.
We witness the dawn of a confusing and frightening new era.