<< COLUMN CANCELS AFRICAN DEBT ~ MAIN ~ ABU GETS IT OFF HIS CHEST >>

BET WON

Margo Kingston on May 16:

A prediction. Vanstone will resign or be moved before June 30. I’m poor now, so I’ll put $50 on the table.

PayPal is on the left, Margo.

UPDATE. Stained white weirdness at Webdiary. May relate to this.

UPDATE II. Acting editor Hamish Alcorn reports that, aside from stained whiteness, “The site continues to work as per normal.”

Posted by Tim B. on 07/05/2005 at 10:32 PM
  1. Check out webdiary right now: looks like it has been attacked.

    Posted by captain on 2005 07 06 at 12:09 AM • permalink

  2. Is the tribunal going to stand still for this?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 06 at 12:29 AM • permalink

  3. Isn’t it Canadians who term 1$ as ‘loonies’? If thats the case, the money you get from Margo may well be the canuck equivalent.

    Posted by Nic on 2005 07 06 at 12:31 AM • permalink

  4. Attacked?  How can you tell?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 06 at 12:34 AM • permalink

  5. I thought betting on politics was frowned on by webdiarists? Discipline will be required!

    Posted by gubba on 2005 07 06 at 12:35 AM • permalink

  6. Margo! You pay-a up, or I break-a you legs!

    Posted by Dr Alice on 2005 07 06 at 01:38 AM • permalink

  7. I’ll bet you anything my comment—“A stained white”—gets censored just like everything else I try to post on Webdiary.

    Posted by Imre on 2005 07 06 at 01:40 AM • permalink

  8. There is a message embedded in the A stained White.  It Reads:

    Observe demonstration and it is likely you will see protestors wandering around carrying banners and wearing t-shirts bearing the image of someone who might be a dead radical, or, given his beret, a french pop star.

    Iside rallies opponents of the free market attempt to sell literature that mentions “class” so often it would be reasonable to think a book about hugh grant and the snooty british magazine the spectator are the preferred reading of the activist set.

    unfortunately,  whereas a book regarding grant would provide witty stories about the sophisticated actor and the spectator’s personals column offers the chance to meet kinky rich men,  publications bought when walking through a march in melbourne last week are more interested in bringing down the ruling class than enjoying its comedic talents or attaching it to a bedpost for being naughty.

    for example,  the winter 1917, no, make that 2005, edition of the australasian spartacist,  which sells at the proletariat- friendly price of fifty cents, argues that “the alp is a bourgeois workers party (communists hate bosses but love to italicise and bourgeois workers party was originally in italics even if it is not now) .  while it has organic ties to the workers movement through the unions,  its program and leadership is thoroughly pro-capitalist.”

    while the federal parliamentary labor party (fplp)  probably wishes it could get such good copy in the mainstream media,  the unmodern marxists of the international communist league (icl)  believe the working-class should abandon the alp for a “ … revolutionary workers party that fights for workers revolution to end the whole system of capitalist exploitation” . 

    sure,  but will we plebs be able to buy the recently released seinfeld dvd after the revolution without being forced to listen to late night live with phillip adams as punishment for our sins?

    regardless, even if wayne swan, stephen conroy and stephen smith are not fellow travellers, laurie “uncle joe”  ferguson is redder than a naked englishman who has fallen asleep in the sun.

    naturally,  ideologues are never more ridiculous than when they criticise other ideologues for holding slightly different ideological views,  and “ young spartacus”  does not disappoint with its suggestion the international socialist organisation (iso)  is in cahoots with “ imperialists”  when they work alongside middle- of- the- road politicians. 

    workers of the world unite,  indeed.   

    alas,  “ young spartacus”  fails to give tips to adolescent totalitarians about meeting members of the opposite sex with equally idiotic opinions such as girls from the hitler youth or boys from socialist alliance.

    unquestionably,  there are as many reasons individuals enlist in absolutist political organisations as there are members of them,  which in the case of the icl is probably five.

    in the mid-1990s,  david greason identified the need to belong as a motivating factor for his involvement with far-right groups like national action in his perceptive and amusing autobiography, i was a teenage fascist.

    unlike greason,  however,  some people never outgrow their fanaticism and can get encouragement for it when they join various collectives and progressive causes. 

    of interest is why moderates – or at least those who are less radical than people who think the disintegration of the soviet union was a bad thing –  allow perfectly valid movements to be taken over by extremists from the iso,  the left- wing of the alp (see facetious reference to ferguson)  and other ensembles.

    it is difficult,  for example,  to take a march against the war in iraq seriously when some of those present would be anything but peaceful if they had power. 
                   
    the icl should be aware that just because someone is a worker and from a working-class

    Posted by Chris Abood on 2005 07 06 at 02:04 AM • permalink

  9. After fixing it, margo states:

    “As many of you are pointing out to us, the site has had a difficulty. We do not believe it was a hacker but an honest technical error.”

    Sorry Margo, you were well and truly hacked.

    Posted by Chris Abood on 2005 07 06 at 02:07 AM • permalink

  10. Amazing what some people will do for $50

    Posted by rog2 on 2005 07 06 at 02:38 AM • permalink

  11. Parsing some other “stained white” texts on the site, it looks like the text (see comment #8) is by Darlene Taylor, titled “Anatomy of a Rally”, and it was published on the very same Webdiary site.
    (Google for “Darlene Taylor” to get the link, although the original is not on her page any more, I suppose it could be dug up by someone interested).
    So perhaps it’s not a hack, just some web server mishap?

    Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2005 07 06 at 02:49 AM • permalink

  12. The hackers best trick is to convince you he doesn’t exist.

    Posted by profeti on 2005 07 06 at 03:16 AM • permalink

  13. ...hackers…

    Posted by profeti on 2005 07 06 at 03:18 AM • permalink

  14. Mmmm, might be the most sensible thing I have ever written, except I cannot claim credit.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 07 06 at 03:28 AM • permalink

  15. Could be the most sensible thing I have ever written, but alas I cannot claim credit.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 07 06 at 03:29 AM • permalink

  16. And I still haven’t worked out how to do the comments.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 07 06 at 03:32 AM • permalink

  17. Come on - the rally piece was yours, or are you now disclaiming it, with measured hindsight?

    I thought your “A stained white” Dadaist poem was excellent; a little long perhaps, but lovely repetition.

    Posted by Ck on 2005 07 06 at 03:35 AM • permalink

  18. No way, I loved the rally piece, C K Hart.

    As for the “stained white” thing, alas I cannot claim credit for, but obviously wish I could for its deep insights.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 07 06 at 03:38 AM • permalink

  19. The question nobody dares to ask: what on earth stained Margo white?

    Spotlight’s on Jack Robertson, for mine.

    Posted by Imre on 2005 07 06 at 03:41 AM • permalink

  20. What are you doing over there at Webdairy Darlene? I thought you were better than that?

    Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 06 at 05:28 AM • permalink

  21. One more thing Darlene, what happens to Cornelia Rau after you and your leftist mates have used her up to score some cheap political points? Face it, you couldnt give a rats arse about Rau.. if you were concerned for her you’d be raising questions about the Howard Govts mental health policies instead of it’s immigration policies.

    Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 06 at 05:59 AM • permalink

  22. Funny you should mention that Deo.

    It was Darlene’s stab at mental health issues that morphed into the piece raising deeper questions about white stains. True!

    Posted by Ck on 2005 07 06 at 06:09 AM • permalink

  23. Nice try, Deo, but I speak for me and nobody else. I am, to put it dramatically, my own woman.

    If you can give me some examples of when I have written about immigration issues or the Rau case in particular on Webdiary I will give you a big…ummm, congratulations.

    I hang around kids whether they are left, right or indifferent. Makes life far more interesting.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2005 07 06 at 06:21 AM • permalink

  24. “I hang around kids whether they are left, right or indifferent.”

    Well, that explains the Webdiary thing.

    It would still be nice if you’d visit the civilised world more often.

    Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 07 06 at 07:04 AM • permalink

  25. Here is Darlene Taylor’s Webdiary page.
    And the “Anatomy of a Rally” article is there now; it wasn’t there in the afternoon, I swear! To Margo’s life!
    http://webdiary.smh.com.au/archives/darlene_taylor/

    Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2005 07 06 at 08:24 AM • permalink

  26. and now - Carmelite Margo.A whiter shade of pale.
    Oughtn’t we to be sending our good wishes for the successful recovery of the Egyptian ambassador in Baghdad.Having the international diplomatic community recognizing and putting their lives on the line in Iraq is crucially important to its recovery and successful democratisation.
    The successful rescue and return of Douglas Woods was a wonderful relief to Australians and we hope that others in like situations can be brought out.

    Posted by crash on 2005 07 06 at 08:34 AM • permalink

  27. Fortunately it wasn’t hacked, an editor did a search and replace (seek and destory?) using the string `A Stained White’.  The clean-up’s almost finished.

    Posted by MatthewD on 2005 07 06 at 10:11 AM • permalink

  28. Bah, why must their comment system run backwards…

    Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 06 at 01:30 PM • permalink

  29. So it can match the rest of the site, Aging…

    Posted by david on 2005 07 06 at 02:13 PM • permalink

  30. #19 Imre, at least you can still post, I was banned by the black witch ages ago. They don’t like the truth on that site!

    Still, the rabid verbal convulsions of one Marilyn Shepherd are enough to make the occasional visit to Margoplanet a hilarious event.

    Posted by Gravelly on 2005 07 06 at 05:23 PM • permalink

  31. Marilyn Shepherd = ubiquitous

    Posted by kae on 2005 07 06 at 07:41 PM • permalink

  32. Page 1 of 1 pages

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Members:
Login | Register | Member List

Please note: you must use a real email address to register. You will be sent an account activation email. Clicking on the url in the email will automatically activate your account. Until you do so your account will be held in the "pending" list and you won't be able to log in. All accounts that are "pending" for more than one week will be deleted.