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CLIPPING FAILURE REGRETTED
Editorial in The Australian:
It is easy to see why the story of Mr Wood and his family stands as an outrage against decency to those who see the US and its allies, not Islamist terrorism, as the greatest threat to world peace and order. Malcolm and Vernon Wood have been absolutely steadfast in their support for their brother, but have resisted any temptation to tell his kidnappers what they wanted to hear by criticising the Australian Government or demanding the withdrawal of Australian or US troops. But Mr Wood’s own comments since his release have been far worse news for people such as Greens senator Kerry Nettle, who tried to exploit his predicament to increase opposition to the US and Australian “occupation” of Iraq. “God bless America” was Mr Wood’s first public comment after his rescue. At Melbourne airport early yesterday he used the circumstances of his rescue as evidence the effort to train up an indigenous Iraqi army is slowly succeeding, and apologised - unnecessarily - for pleading for the removal of Australian troops as a way of buying himself time in captivity. And Mr Wood had an accurate term to describe the torturing thugs whom many on the Left continue to insist upon calling “resistance fighters”. He said his captors were “arseholes”.
A mild description. The University of Sydney’s Glenn Condell, however, prefers to so describe Wood himself:
Douglas Wood seems a right arsehole.
Ten Douglas Woods aren’t worth just one innocent Iraqi child murdered by the shock and awe designed to make Iraq safe for the Woods of this world, the bignoting skimmers and main chancers and spivs, profiteering from the exploitation of an expendable population, the ‘untermenschen.’
I’ll bet his captors regret not clipping him when they had the chance.
Glenn sounds like he’d have happily pulled the trigger himself. He’s come to our attention before.
And to think, all he had to say was that his kidnappers were actually quite nice guys who were just fighting against a foreign occupation and he would have been the lefts poster boy instead of moonbat enemy number one. All he had to say was that it was “proof positive” of the war failing, and by now he would have had a foot high pile of invitations for highly paid speaking tours!
Its been funny watching the lefts reaction to this. First it was a “release”, then it had nothing to do with Iraqi soldiers (because everyone knows they aren’t real - just another Bush lie to make it look like things are going well in Iraq), then it was all the Mufti’s doing, then it was a terrible blunder that would cost lives (unfortunately we now know those lives were already lost). And when all that fails, well there’s nothing left but to turn on him, hence the MSM polls about whether he should pay for his rescue and the start of the name calling.
Sometimes these idiots are as transparent and childlike as Kylie Mole.His address shows up as .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in comments.
Don’t blame me for his having put it there.
Posted by ausdiplomad on 2005 06 21 at 06:38 PM • permalinkthe bignoting skimmers and main chancers and spivs
Can somebody provide an Aussie-to-Texan translation?
Posted by tachyonshuggy on 2005 06 21 at 06:41 PM • permalinkDoug is certainly starting to pay the price for insufficiently ‘valuing the jihad’ of his heroic captors: according to opinion leader and 3RRR broadcaster Tracee Hutchison, in today’s Age, he has “none of the grace or dignity” of his brothers, and looks like a “blustering buffoon”. Burqa for Tracee, please. (Incidentally, what is the prescribed Sharia punishment for idiotically mispelled names?)
This guy’s one of those loopy conspiracy freaks (to compound the tautology, he’s a Margo fan as well). Here he is bragging about commenting on a site that he assumes is a CIA front to collect info on dissenters:
I just did, so I’m either crazy, brave or both.
Rig Int often say hello to the silent visitors from Defence.
Fuck them.
A hard man. And crazy-brave, chancing it with Bush’s Secret Death Squads.
No wonder he so easily talks tough about clipping one of his countrymen.
the bignoting skimmers and main chancers and spivs
Can somebody provide an Aussie-to-Texan translation?
“big-noting” is aggravating self-aggrandisment.
“skimmers” are middle-men who “skim” a few percentage points on deals, and money changing hands. Also called “clipping the ticket”.
“main-chancers” are people who take up a business on a “crash or crash through” basis, not often noted for ethics or morals.
“spivs” tend to be a combination of all of the above, noted by their flashy clothes, cars and tendancy to luncheon.
You know, I’m getting to the point where I really, really want to start “crushing dissent” through knocking on doors in the night, draging the “dissidents” to camps, putting bullets in their heads there, creamating the bodies, dumping the ashes into the sea, and government denials that the bastards ever existed.
After all, it’s not like the criticism of the U.S. and Australian governments could be dialed up any higher if they actually started doing it. There’s nowhere to go after calling playing loud music a crime worthy of Pol Pot, Guantanamo a Gulag, and Bush a Hitler. What can they say—“Bush really is Hitler now”?
Yes, yes, I know, I’m civilized, and I wouldn’t actually want that to start happening. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s tempting to be hung for a sheep instead of for a bit of polyester that looks like wool in the right light.
Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2005 06 21 at 07:44 PM • permalink#13, Right, Jorge, and with obviously too much free time on his hands, for when he’s not kicking people out of the university for failing their courses (a job with the same popularity rating as a slaughterman in an abbatoir), then he’s cheating on his employer by sending puerile messages to blog sites. Somebody tell the ViceChancellor. Maybe he’ll be asked to show cause why he shouldn’t be sacked. That’d be ironic.
As Michael puts it so well, if Doug Wood’s first words had been it is all John Howard’s fault there would be less of a problem. Less only because despite the current claims not all of Australia’s commentariat were on his side. Plenty of comments about he was there to make money so bad luck.
Many Australian engineers work in very dangerous parts of the world. I thought that they should be admired, not by the ideologically driven here though, they are obviously just capitalist swine.
If it were not for the courage of engineers such as Wood then Iraq will find it a lot harder to make it. That he employed 70 or 80 people and was part of the determined effort to rebuild Iraq works against him apparently rather than for him. Can’t have Iraq getting there can we.
The fact that he may well have lost his business is also of no interest. Not only should he have suffered what he did, he should now be poverty stricken as well.
The charmer Marr was on radio this morning agreeing with Bob Brown that it was off. He nailed the left’s problem with Doug Woods. That he shouldn’t be giving 10 an interview rather it should be in front of all so the “debate’ could be had and the truth discovered. He included the truth about Doug Wood in his sneers.
This is certainly bad news for the anti-war brigade. Doug Wood looks like he is going to describe a mob of sick vicious criminals and this will do great damage to the message about the “insurgents” fighting for freedom for the people of Iraq.
I also recall that the hope of the left Mark Latham declared that not only would he pull the troops out but that they should be replaced by contractors (hence their deaths wouldn’t be important?).
Dang, two or three more years of reading Tim Blair and commments and all Anglos around the world will be speaking Aussie slang exclusively.
I imagine underscore is behind this somehow.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 06 21 at 08:54 PM • permalinkSomeone once told me that the term “spiv” came from the abreviations used on the London Metropolitan Police charge sheets during and immediately after WW2.
Specifically, spiv was short for Suspected Persons, Intinerants, Vagrants
Although the term spiv seems to have originated in London around that time with a particular reference to the post war black market , this explanation seems a bit too glib to me. Does anyone have more or alternative info?
Posted by Consuela Potez on 2005 06 21 at 08:59 PM • permalinkFrom Merriam-Webster.http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=spiv
One entry found for spiv.
Main Entry: spiv
Pronunciation: ‘spiv
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of English dialect spiff flashy dresser, from spiff dandified
1 British : one who lives by his wits without regular employment
2 British : SLACKER
I’d like to know why we don’t use drongo any more. That’s a great word if there ever was one.Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 06 21 at 09:04 PM • permalinkPrivate Walker from Dad’s Army was an archtypal spiv, with a snappy double-breasted suit and wing-tips (like this bloke) and a good line in cockney banter and black market goodies, wot fell ‘orf the back of a lorry like. Sydney has a long history of spivdom dating back to the immediate post-world war one period right up to the present, now heavily represented in labor politics, property development, advertising and sporting promotion- particularly chaps known as colourful racing identities.
BTW- the Drongo is actually a spectacularly ugly, noisy and stupid bird that infests Queensland. I think it originally came from down south, like all the other ugly, noisy and stupid creatures that now colonise godzone. The cane toad moving south is in retaliation for bogans and geezers in campervans.
The currency lads may have been the first spivs in Australia.
See image of “A relaxed, stylish and environmentally adapted Currency Lad compared to the stiff backed English at Lady Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney in the 1820 and 30s.”
But I think they were just dapper individualists.
Al Grassby always looked like the archetypal example of a spiv.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 06 21 at 11:20 PM • permalinkDrongo’s still a useful term which I employ frequently; someone who always comes second, as the eponymous horse did whether it was an international race against the finest in the game, or on a dusty country track with a couple of pack horses for competition.
Always second.
Kim Beasley is my stand-out Drongo. The Sydney Warratahs (rugby) and the Sydney Swans (Aerial Ping-Pong) are also unfortunately pretty good representations.
Note to Habib, re unkind reference to southerners: may a thousand Mexican and Cockroach Codgers park their campers in the Gabba, hit Flush and flood you with two states worth of Bondi Cigars before carking it and leaving Banana-Benders with the bill. May your Bevans be overrun by Bogans. May… (are you taking this in, wronwright?)
Doffing the compassion T shirt - check the letters in the SMH about a kidnap victim.
http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index.htmlI wrote one supporting Wood but I guess I split an infinitive or something.
You were going alright underscore until you bagged the Tahs. I guess you must be a Victorian, or if you aren’t you deserve to be.
Habib lost me twice - once when he said drongos (the birds) are ugly, when of course the Spangled Drongo is a most handsome bird; and second when he let slip he was a bananabender.
Here in the premier state we have another term of derision - we call someone a 2830, which of course everyone knows is the postcode for Dubbo.
Finally, was Keating only a lair or a two-bob lair?Harold: back off, boy.
This house is die-hard (and ain’t that the word) Warratahs. Even doing a few years in Canberra we’re still for the Tahs. Now in the land of the Bevan - it’s still the Tahs.
But that doesn’t mean we’re not talking about nearly two thousand kilograms of Cinderella meat.
And I’m not feeling cruel enough to mention Habib’s Queensland Reds.
You mean the ‘Tahds, who finally managed to beat a team made up of Anthony Mundines this year after….how long was it? I thing you’ve all been twanging the wire a bit too much, you sausage-grapplers. Fair dinkum, you tailgunners wouldn’t know if you had a tram up you ‘til they rand the bell.
BTW- the spangled drongo might be handsome compared to the average denizen of the Dandenongs, but it’s no rainbow lorikeet, by crikey dick.When Aussies banter in Aussie-speak, they might as well be speaking in French.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 06 22 at 10:10 AM • permalinkDon’t worry wronwright, I’ll give you the drum.
Now that I know underscore is a Tahs man I’d bet London to a brick that he’s a bonza bloke and I’ll even go so far as to concede that habib seems pretty fair dinkum despite his address.
Yes, mug lair seems a more apt description for PJK. Flash as a rat with a gold tooth.
Good example of a spiv? Rodney Adler.
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No more calling people “asshole” or, as we do up here, “azzooole.” Nope. From now on, the Doug Wood rule applies: it’s “arsehole” from now on. First application: “Glenn Condell is a Major League arsehole.”
Thank you, Doug Wood, for improving my vocabulary.