<< MONEY OWED ~ MAIN ~ BOTH-WAY BOB >>
PHRIGHTENED PHILLIP
Phillip Adams, April 11, 2006:
You are as likely to be killed by lightning, a shark, a crocodile or a deranged teenager in Port Arthur as you are by a terrorist. Add up all the terrorist killings around the world in the past 10 years. It equals the number of Americans killed by handguns in just 10 months.
There is no monolithic terrorist threat and global transnational terrorism is the exception rather than the rule. Terrorism is a fragmented, essentially nationalist phenomenon. Of all the terrorist events from 1991 to 2001, 91 per cent were national in origin and target. These accounted for 94 per cent of the 32,264 fatalities. Terrorism needs to be rethought as a domestic policy issue rather than a military or security threat for the US or Australia.
Moreover, the trillions expended on an orchestrated panic means only a pittance is spent on the world’s real problems. On AIDS in Africa killing millions today. On the prevention of a bird flu pandemic that may well kill a hundred million tomorrow. On climate change, which may well kill the planet. If terrorism is madness, our response is madder still.
The truth of the matter is that terrorism doesn’t frighten Western leaders as much as they pretend. Rather it’s a potent weapon for political incumbents. Any magician will tell you that the secret of all conjuring tricks and illusions is misdirection. The audience is tricked into looking away while the switch is made or the trapdoor opened. Thus terror is used to trick the terrified, distracting attention from more urgent issues.
In Bush’s case, from poverty, public health, decaying infrastructure, environmental scandals, budget blowouts. If you take the nail clippers from air travellers they mightn’t notice the injustices of the Bush tax cuts.
Terrorism is the biggest example of misdirection since Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews. As he said: “If the Jews didn’t exist we’d have to invent them.”
In the same way, the West invents the terrorist threat.
Phillip Adams, August 15, 2006:
Let the record show that today I’ve cancelled my Qantas flight to London. It was scheduled to land at Heathrow on September 11.
UPDATE. Crittenden: “Y’know, you have to admire a man who isn’t afraid to stand up and tell the world, ‘I am a chickenshit hypocrite.’”
Silly, superstitious Adams. But how can he claim the West invented a terrorist threat when in his own life the actions he takes are based on its reality? A very strange man.
Posted by David McBryde on 2006 08 14 at 08:29 PM • permalinkThere’s Economy Class Syndrome to worry about too, Oz to London. http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/japancut.ecs.ram
One of the ways to prevent it is ``drink plenty of fluids.’’ So you see the problem. They don’t let you have fluids.
He’s right that terrorism is a media event, but the idea is to head off gathering competence in mayhem.
A dogmatic Islamic future headed off.
I got 3 things to say.
1)This guy has got to be kidding me!
2)#6…HA!
3) since Tim Blairs readers are the smartest in the blogosphere,maybe someone can help me find a quote. the jist is that there ARE worse things than war..like being so depraved that there is nothing in your life worth fighting for…...or something like that. (thin, I know)
Lefties like to write out of “bravado”; as if they alone can do the statistics and declare, with a houlier-than-thou tone, that only the gullible and statistically illiterate fall for the terror scare.
It is the chicken-hawk statistics of the left, as Adams demonstrates by his own admission of flight cancellation.
Posted by closeapproximation on 2006 08 14 at 08:58 PM • permalinkIt was Voltaire who made the well known comment that if God didn’t exist we would have to invent Him. Phillip Adams seems to be implying that Hitler borrowed and modified the quote, and was thus admitting he had cynically made the Jews a convenient scapegoat.
Although I’ve seen the quote elsewhere that doesn’t mean it’s genuine. I somehow think Hitler really was deluded enough to believe the insane things he said about the Jews.
However, obviously Adams doesn’t believe the things he says about terrorism. His actions speak louder than his words.
Well, ya know…he is right. What’s a few thousand deaths among friends. The need for the terrorists to make their statement by killing innocent people should take precedence over the needs of their targets. All we need to do is just accept it as a the new reality. It’s the least we can do, really. And as Mr. Adams points out….most of the deaths due to terrorism are in other countries, so why should we worry?
What, me worry? AEN [/sarc]I’ll bet he doesn’t run with scissors either!
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 08 14 at 09:13 PM • permalinkoh I get it. More people die of natural causes and misadventure than from terrorism. Therefore, terrorism is not much of a problem. That makes sense. And I guess the same logic applies not just to terrorism, but to war generally. Thanks for the insight, Phil! I’ll stop worrying about such paltry matters as war and terrorism, because all those poor bastards were going to die sometime anyway.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 14 at 09:14 PM • permalinkWe need to get PhilCo on airplane to the States on August 22nd, Tim. Do something about that, would you?
(OK, might have to make that two airplanes if the Guppy isn’t available…)
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 08 14 at 09:17 PM • permalink19. True Dan, only thing he runs is his mouth…
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 08 14 at 09:20 PM • permalinkWhay does the Hunter Hindenburg need to bother with commmercial flights? Surely his lighter than air status and ample supply of thrust from his commodious colon should have him cruising at high velocity and altitude anywhere in the world, although his bulk would make him an attractive target for surface to air attack, and his preference for black would cause him to absorb the heat of global warming and ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere, causing him to be a magnet for heat-seekings SAMs; perhaps as a counter-measure he could ignite one of his frequent farts, causing the missiles to skew behind his fuselage, and would also give him a burst of speed because of the afterburner effect.
Frankly, i think this whole story is a subterfuge for effect- Phatty would not meet the volume and weight restrictions for Qantas, which does not have the hardware for such a heavy-lift operation; the Dunny Lane Olive Baron would have had to be loaded on Aeroflot, which have the necessary equipment.
Want mashed taters and gravy with that chicken, sir?
El Cid, I think that you meant crow, not chicken. But I take your meaning. Oh, yes, I do.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 14 at 09:21 PM • permalinkHe’s also massively wrong about the handgun vs terrorism numbers.
In 2005, about 14,500 people were killed in terrorist incidents worldwide.
In the US in 2003 (most recent complete report), a total of 11,920 Americans were killed by firearms, total, not just handguns (leaving out suicide).
He’s off by more than an order of magnitude, just in that first paragraph.
re #10, debi, I think this is what you were looking for:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
And I’m not that smart…..I remembered the quote in part, but I used The Quotations Page.
But surely it fits the world today, doesn’t it?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 14 at 09:27 PM • permalink“Of all the terrorist events from 1991 to 2001, 91 per cent were national in origin and target. These accounted for 94 per cent of the 32,264 fatalities.”
so the Left really doesn’t care about “the wogs killing each other”.
“Terrorism needs to be rethought as a domestic policy issue rather than a military or security threat for the US or Australia.”
So it can compete on a budget basis with more bloated entitlements for fat lazy slobs like Adams and the dole constituency.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 08 14 at 09:29 PM • permalinkThe Age, 16 August: Phillip Adams has bravely decided to cancel a flight to England in order to raise international awareness of global warning. The decision comes amidst growing concern over terrorism within that country; an issue which Mr Adams claims is distracting attention away from real global issues such as pandemics, aids and global warning “I see people flying around the world every day and indeed I have been part of this but we must reduce the amount we travel in order to cut down on greenhouse emissions”. Asked weather he was planning to donate the money paid for the ticket to the said causes Mr Adams indicated that while of vital importance he plans to use the money locally, in order to lobby the federal government to take action against lightning, sharks, crocodiles and deranged Port Arthur teenagers “its about time the government starts focusing on the real issues for the people of Australia” he said.
With Adams flying, this was one time you’d be cheering for the terrorists!
Posted by WeekByWeek on 2006 08 14 at 09:57 PM • permalink#10 - debi L, I can also recall a comment along those lines posted here by CJosephson sometime last year. Can’t get to it right now, but you might try the archives for Feb-Mar ‘05.
It was good enough that I added it to my collection of quotes, which is no help to me because it’s at home.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 08 14 at 10:09 PM • permalink#28, Van
So it can compete on a budget basis with more bloated entitlements for fat lazy slobs like Adams and the dole constituency.
You hit the nail on the head of what is happening on the home front. Katrina brought out just how deep and wide the corruption is in local government. There are too many people in the public “sector”, and there is certainly too much of our money. Everytime they come up with some new “inconvience” for us to spend too much time of our lives having to contend with, it means more power for a “public servant” and a bigger budget - all for our own good, of course. It is done in small increments, until we find ourselves spending the bulk of our waking hours dealing with the middle men of life.
#10 Also
“War…heugh…what is it good for? Preventing the Japanese or Iraqis from performing a range of disgusting atrocities on your family…say it again.”
James Brown
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 14 at 10:20 PM • permalinkBTW, semi-ontopic to Adams’ “surprising” change of opinion…
You know what’s the most grating thing about political coverage here in Germany, and probably in Europe at-large? With the arrests of the would-be plane bombers in London, all manner of normally left-wing print and TV magazines are covered wall to wall with breathless reports on the terrorist menace, but like clockwork they’ll inevitably be back next week writing/broadcasting sneering articles on Bush’s “so-called War on Terror”. At least the Anglosphere journalists seem to be consistent enough to be barracking for the enemy all the time…
Anyway, the utter unseriousness of today’s mainstream journalism is just astounding. I know I’m hardly the first to say it, but the behaviour borders on insanity.
“Add up all the terrorist killings of Westerners around the world in the past 10 years. (Sure, there have been tens of thousands of non-whites killed by Islamonazis, but they don’t count).”
There - fixed that for ya’.
That’s what he really means - might as well say it out loud.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2006 08 14 at 10:29 PM • permalinkReading through that article, was he trying to make out he was the sensible middle-ground, deep thinking type, and that his email box was daily assailed by a whole bunch of mad, lefty conspiracy peddlers who believe everything they are told is a lie and promote all sorts of half-baked, nonsencial theories about mossad etc???
Was there ever a bigger case of the very fat pot calling the kettle black??? I mean he couldn’t get his facts straight if his life depended on it… He’s such a congenital liar that he would have trouble rolling his ample frame into a roughly straight line in his reinforced king-sized bed!!!
If there are a growing bunch of confused, weird refugees from reality out there who live in some sort of fool’s paradise, it would only be because they have fed themselves on a steady diet of disjointed ramblings and rantings from fools such as Phat Phil for too long…
Just a cursory glance at many of his recent putrid efforts shows he’s right in the front ranks of those clueless @rseholes in the press who assist the enemy by pumping out rank propaganda, trying to misdirect the attention of the public by making our own governments seem to be the real threat… And then he cops out at the first occasion his ample @rse might just conceivably be on the line…
What a disingenuous, cowardly .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)....
SHOCK! ABC DISAGREES WITH ADAMS
Just heard on the ABC how terrified and defensive the Bush Administration is.
The ABC report that Bush just came back from his hoildays and was huddled with his advisers.
‘Huddle’ means to curl or crouch, throw together hurriedly, a secret or closely packed conspiratorial meeting.See Phil, terrorism IS terrifying them!
“...It was scheduled to land at Heathrow on September 11.”
Yeah, well to paraphrase Phil’s cousin in commie corpulence Michael Moore: if Osama was to destroy Heathrow to get back at Bush, he would be killing people who didn’t vote for him.
(honestly, this guy’s articles ‘fisk’ themselves)
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 08 14 at 11:14 PM • permalinkJeffs, my younger sister had to do a speech on the Futility of War a couple of weeks back.
I told her to open with that Mill quote. I also gave her one by Steyn to finish on.
Not what the teacher was expecting that’s for sure and from all reports is was the only speech on the day which didn’t waffle on about the poor innocents slaughtered in war and how peace and understanding are the keys to conflict.
It is sad when an actual thinker like John Stuart Mill is quoted less often than Cindy Sheehan when we talk about war.
Adamski Wisdom: Terrorism is a fragmented, essentially nationalist phenomenon.
Were the 9/11 martyrs nationalists or internationalists?
Were the Bali targets ‘nationals’?
Were the 7/7 martyrs just disaffected ‘nationalists’ or influenced by Pakistani extremism?
Were the Taliban locally educated, or from Pakistan’s madrassas?
Are the Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites now at each others’ throats uninfluenced by any outsiders?
Is Hezbollah only intersted in Lebanon?What a fool…
The Prez, it is nice to know some students have a clue. Thanks for the good word!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 14 at 11:23 PM • permalinkI don’t know this guy from a hole in the wall, but I’m pretty sure this means, where he’s concerned, the terrorists just won. And y’know, you have to admire a man who isn’t afraid to stand up and tell the world, “I am a chickenshit hypocrite.” That takes balls. Small balls, but balls nonetheless. Very, very small balls. Well, diminutive ball-like objects, let’s say. Miniscule, hard-to-detect-with-the-naked-eye spheroids. It’s like this, over here you have a couple of heroic coconuts, here you have your standard-issue walnuts, and here a couple of dried-up sultanas that have been under the fridge for a while, all shrivelly, flattened and dust-covered ... those are the ones we’re talking about.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 14 at 11:53 PM • permalinkI have always considered Phillip Adams 1) hypocritical; 2) blinded by his own hatred of conservatives and unable to ever see any good at any time in any conservative individual or policy.
Let the record show that from today I regard Phillip Adams absolutely and utterly barking mad. The man just might be insane.
This a wee bit OT but I see he signs off with reference to IR legislation. I am a chartered accountant in SW of WA doing a lot of “Mum and Dad” businesses and wage and salary earners and there is complete and absolute stone cold silence on the IR laws. Petrol prices and Interest rates you can’t shut them up over, but IR is in this part of OZ at least, a complete and absolute non-event. Is the average Joe Blow talking about elsewhere in Oz?
Posted by the nailgun on 2006 08 15 at 12:24 AM • permalink“If the Jews didn’t exist we’d have to invent them.”
This doesn’t really sound like something Hitler would have said. It’s cynical enough for him certainly, but his visceral hatred for the jews would probably have prevented him detaching himself from his emotions enough to say this. Perhaps Adams could reassure us about his journalistic (I use the term in its widest - and fattest - sense) integrity (and I use this in its most comical sense) by supplying a reference for the quote. And just saying “Mein Kampf isn’t enough; I want a page reference and an edition number as well.
Lefties. So many different positions, no one to try them with.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 08 15 at 01:25 AM • permalink#53 Crittenden LOL.
I’m not inclined to trust Phat Phils statistics, he lies like a dog in the sun.Posted by Daniel San on 2006 08 15 at 01:25 AM • permalinkStatistically you’re far more likely to die of obesity. Haven’t seen him blink in that stare off.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 08 15 at 01:53 AM • permalink#10 As you have asked, this humble historian offers a quote from Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 117), known for his instantly deep-cutting and dense prose:
“A bad peace is even worse than war.”
Phat Phil’s Phleeting “Phacts” Phinally Phall Phlat Phor Pholks Phorever.
Phuck Phil.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 15 at 02:19 AM • permalinkThere’s a lot more sense in an article on the same page:
At this point religious people will jump in to point out that more people have been killed by communism than religion. Leaving aside the fact that communist ideology is similar to a religious ideology, this is like saying there is no point in curing tuberculosis because malaria kills more people.
The truth is that it is now too dangerous for religion to be given the special status it has always had. When large numbers of people, some of them living among us, want to kill us and our innocent children (surely “innocent children” is a tautology) for no other reason than that we do not believe in their God, we can no longer afford to tiptoe around religious sensitivities. It is time to get rid of the taboo that says religious beliefs have to be quarantined from criticism. It is time to hold some religious beliefs up to ridicule.
#64, that’s brilliant!!
But it does give certain parties time to re-arm….
Posted by carpefraise on 2006 08 15 at 02:43 AM • permalinkThe problem is that Adams takes a starkly utilitarian view of terrorism, that is, he focuses only on the raw numbers, not on the potential for harm and not on the intentions of the terrorists. For example, the aim of 9/11 was not to kill a “mere” 3000 Americans, but to kill tens of thousands of them and to throw the world into a panic. Likewise, the aim of this latest plot was to disrupt international air travel. Put simply, Islamic terrorists want to kill as many of us as possible and want to cause as much terror as possible anywhere they can do so. The fact that the death toll is now low relative to other numbers is a contingent fact; it will change when and if Islamic terrorists get better weapons. Hence, it is quite legitimate for political incumbents to treat terrorism as an urgent, international issue. Indeed, if they don’t, they will find themselves out of office after the next terrorist attack on their soil.
Put succinctly, x doesn’t cease to be a pressing problem simply because x doesn’t have the same death toll as y or because x might be exploited by political incumbents. Mad Cow Disease has a very low death toll, but that hardly means that we should pooh-pooh efforts to contain it.
Posted by Bill Ramey on 2006 08 15 at 02:48 AM • permalinkOk, a great quote, very timely:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.”Posted by carpefraise on 2006 08 15 at 02:51 AM • permalink#68 Bill
Put succinctly, x doesn’t cease to be a pressing problem simply because x doesn’t have the same death toll as y or because x might be exploited by political incumbents. Mad Cow Disease has a very low death toll, but that hardly means that we should pooh-pooh efforts to contain it.
Well put, sir.Phillip Adams is a hypocritical dickhead.
The end.Posted by Wylie Wilde on 2006 08 15 at 04:25 AM • permalinkWell at least the Olive Rancher’s diseased mind comprehends the lunacy of the RoP fanatics.
On the other hand he is a plagiarizing, supercilious, dilettante, millionaire socialist slug.
How he managed to get his chancre-ravaged mini-pizzle into that fit Patrice Newell is a bloody wonder. Rohipnol, perhaps?
Posted by Bearded Mullah on 2006 08 15 at 04:39 AM • permalinkUh, yes, we’ll have the Chancre-ravaged mini-pizzle in Tacitus phat, with the sultanas please. And may we see the whine list? No rush, we’ve cancelled our flight.
Charming little place, isn’t it?
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 15 at 09:15 AM • permalinkFunny how hes worried about the dangers of speaking “truth to power” but wont change what hes doing.
But when confronted by a threat he considers mythical he changes his plans??Someone is playing with their diseased, dangly, fistula ridden lower colon a bit to much i think.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 08 15 at 09:42 AM • permalinkPoor old Phat y’know..he has been reduced to attention seeking in a women’s doctors’ wives mag-article entitled “My Country Childhood”.
Phil thinks a sad childhood is uniquely Adams territory.
snippets..
“Mother left home early in my life-I was visited by my bright yellow father” a phenomenon he ascribes to malarial medecine.
He was “terrified by the prospect of eternity and infinity”.He “decided there couldn’t be a God-Because I didn’t believe in God I had to believe in something else and that was Communism”.
When he was 13 he “threw his (violent)father across a bed and into a venetian blind(window?).” In 1939 “we lived in EXACTLY the same way people have lived for THOUSANDS OF YEARS because there was NO technology. The only electrical thing was a few light globes and the radio.”
“My grandfather was immensely wise -he had no schooling but immense decency and kindness.He was a peasant himself and he understood the deprivation of being a peasant farmer.I think everyone should be raised on a little farm and learn about decency.”
“I coped by escaping into Bohemia and the Communist Party.It was tiny,it was never a threat to anything-full of quixotic characters -romantics and dreamers…I was lavished with attention for the first time in my life by astonishing people.I got a great sense of belonging to something.Many Communist Party people turned into distinguished academics and writers.”
I kept back books from the Kew Library-‘William” books.” and “None of us knew or cared a damn about Aborigines-MOST AUSTRALIANS HAVE NEVER MET ONE.”
One of my favourite films was “the third man” set beneath the sewers of Vienna. My friend and I played in the sewers beneath Kew.” Phat splendidly poses on Turkish carpet with his mummy and busts. Interviewed by Ali Gripper.What dead tree rag does this moron write for anyway?
Does it have UK competition?
Can any UK competitor pick this pairing up and run with it as a story?
Please!
Posted by Pogue Mahone on 2006 08 15 at 11:13 AM • permalinkHey Paco, any seats left on PACO’s Sept. 11 excursion flight? You know, the Boston to New York (moment of silence) to Sydney to Bali (moment of silence) to Kabul (loud cheers for freedom, democracy and daisy cutters) to Baghdad (loud cheers for freedom, democracy and Saddam’s trial) to London (moment of silence) flight.
Fly with the Pig! Always an extra-leg room emergency exit seat for AQ flight club members. Choice of infidel, I mean inflight movies.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 15 at 11:48 AM • permalinkApart from regime change in Spain, thus far the principal outcome of terrorist attacks has been to consolidate the power of conservatives from Vladimir Putin to Bush.
Ah yes, that noted conservative Vladimir Putin. Clueless hump.
Let the record show that I will be aboard a commercial flight on Sep 11 (although I won’t be landing at Heathrow).
Crittenden, should we be at all concerned with your, um, attention to Adams’ balls?
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 08 15 at 12:52 PM • permalink#86 Crittenden: Plenty of seats left, and there’s always a place in the smokers-only bar. Join us for the “In Your Face, Islamofascism!” freedom tour. Plus, the one-hundredth passenger to sign up gets to pull the cord on the restroom-waste tank over Damascus (gargle with that, Assad!).
Incidentally, your anatomical evaluation of Adams’ family swag was priceless!
Kyda: Probably. But I’m trying to convince myself its purely academic.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 15 at 01:20 PM • permalinkHail the Great Phattams.
He really brings out the best in commenters here. A quick snort of laughter from Texas Bob’s cargo reference and a series of loud guffaws from Habib’s piece. And lots of other good material (though the less said about the Phurry Phlabster’s tiny todger the better).
Gotta keep this Phattams guy floating.
Hahahah…. Referring to the article, this appeared in today’s Australian’s Letters to the Editor:
Phillip Adams (Opinion, 15/8) states: “Since Thursday my e-mail has been a deafening chatter of disbelief.” Sounds like all the leftie nutters gathering at the feet of their guru.
J. Smith
Buderim, QldInteresting, Crash #83’s note about this guy’s “bright yellow father.” Apparently the sultanas don’t roll too far from the vine.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 15 at 09:41 PM • permalink#83 “I coped by escaping into Bohemia and the Communist Party. It was tiny, it was never a threat to anything - full of quixotic characters -romantics and dreamers.. I was lavished with attention for the first time in my life by astonishing people.”
There, in a nutshell, is why the nut is still there. Reality has never touched him on the shoulder. You have to think his father tried hard to, but failed.
Yes, all of us on little decent farms. All 6 billion of us. On little farms. Everyone should be raised thusly, on these farms, where we shall teach them about decency. Empty the cities. Send them to the farms. We can call it ... uh, let’s see, need something catchy ... Year Zero.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 08 15 at 11:22 PM • permalink(Agree totally #26 from valued contributor JeffS.)
I might be a bit Margo’s Maidish here, but referring to Phil’s body shape is distracting some commenters from the warp of the brainwaves.
There is an entrenched attitudinal problem in Phil and his cohorts. Bettina Arndt’s views on this ABC malaise have been picked up from a Counterpoint program (abd there must be some gnashing of teeth going on about how that show virally infiltrated the Radio National Brood), and published in the Australian Here.
I find it quite salutary that so many of that “family” went on to prominent positions in Academe and/or the Arts. There’s the well-spring for the endless drum roll of stories Bettina refers to. It is a resonant phrase.
Phil is a large figure in that putsch. Oops!
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
I was going to say he was gutless, but…