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SOURCES NOT CHECKED
Following columnist Terry Lane’s Jesse Macbeth debacle last year, Sunday Age editor Peter Fray claimed:
He has been mortified by the week’s events and humiliated in public. I am confident he will check and double-check and triple-check his sources in the future. He has learned his lesson, as has this paper.
Well, maybe not. Last Sunday, Lane wrote:
Here’s an amusing example of the divide between good and bad America. A recent press release from the organisation Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility draws attention to the fact that rangers in the Grand Canyon National Park are forbidden to answer visitors’ questions about the age of the canyon because the truth will upset Bush’s fundamentalist supporters.
A “fact”, eh? Commenters quickly turned up refutations of this; see here, here, and here. Consider that a “triple-checking”, Terry.
Oh come on now! It’s just not fair that mere facts should be allowed to derail a delicious RWDB-bashing story.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 12:38 PM • permalinkI received the PEER email over the holidays from a good friend (Hollywood actor and environmentalist) so I assumed this was a recent ‘tempest in a teacup’.
Reading the links, e.g. Time Magazine, I learned this canard has been around since at least before the 2004 election; more than enough time to thoroughly debunk it.
I’m a parent so I’ve seen more than my share of ‘gift shops’ at parks, zoos, and museums. They are often stocked to the rafters with toys, dolls, games, books, etc., that are scientifically indefensible but popular and offset the costs of running the attraction.
Stocking a top selling title because it is ‘inclusive’ and a money spinner is not shocking to me in the least. Native creation myths are also readily available through the private Grand Canyon Association bookstore.
I’m reminded of someone being asked about the historical inaccuracy of Disney’s “Pocahontas”. He said, “Yeah, it’s got a ‘talking’ racoon in it!”
Native creation myths are also readily available through the private Grand Canyon Association bookstore.
I’ve heard park rangers recount native creation myths. It was appropriate to the setting, so it was no big deal.
Heck, I wouldn’t be upset if they made occasional mention of the oddball theories about their particular parks from time to time. The guys at Mound Cemetery could talk about the 19th century prank (or possibly fraud) that involved planting Jewish relics in a nearby mound. The Yellowstone rangers could tell how some people think the park contains Satan’s nostrils…
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 15 at 01:16 PM • permalinkOh, and I do want to say that the biggest problem I see at parks (national, state, and local) is horribly out-dated science. In the last 8 years I’ve been to dozens of parks that deal with the peopling of the Americas, and I’ve seen ONE that had information that was up-to-date.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 15 at 01:23 PM • permalinkOn the corner is a wanker with a motorcar,
The little children laugh at him behind his back.
And the wanker never wears a mack
In the pouring rain, very strange.Terry Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile backPosted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 15 at 01:40 PM • permalinkI thought the Grand Canyon was formed by Terry Lane putting his ego in it every night before he went to sleep.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 01 15 at 01:43 PM • permalinkI thought the left loved dissent. Yet when a book dissenting from the mainstream view is sold, they go completely mad. Is it the dissent, or the fact of selling (rampant capitalism), that offends them?
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 15 at 02:00 PM • permalinkOh, c’mon! Give the guy a break. I suppose, next, ya’ll will be claiming that he made up that story about the Everglades. You know, that the water level is rising because the Bush Administration executed a secret contract with the Seminole indians to dump korans confiscated at Guantanamo into the swamp land on the reservation.
HA! I just love it when people assign powers to the president. Bush is supposedly able to wave his hand and the world spins his way, sending bureaucrats scurrying to obey his every whisper. With due deference to certain minions of the dark forces of Rove, if that were so things would be very different.
One would think that there are no serious problems in the world, and thus one must ferret out something to wave a clenched a fist over—always making sure it meets the exacting standards of fake but true, false but accurate.
Lane defines inanity and makes it his own.
Sheesh. I don’t see how anyone who’s ever BEEN to America could believe that crap. Even if he wanted to, how the hell could Bush replace the entire National Parks staff in 6 years?
As much as we Yanks get excoriated for not knowing about the world, people in other countries (esp. European countries) often don’t seem to realize that the U.S. is a gigantic 50-state amalgam, more comparable to the EU rather than single Western countries.
Heh. This reminds me of a conversation my family had over dinner when my military brothers had a vacation. We were talking about how wacky the left thinks we are, and I brought up the idea of the blasphemous black mass. We figured the left thinks that Rove supporters gather in secret to celebrate mass on the stomach of a spotted owl, put inverted peace signs on the wall, and read the Kyoto Protocol backwards.
Never been to the Grand Canyon, but I suppose the Mighty Dark Lord Rove controls it too. Cripes, what’s wrong with these people?
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 01 15 at 03:19 PM • permalinkIt occurs to me that Terry Lane would be a natural columnist for this internationally famous newspaper publisher.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 15 at 03:29 PM • permalinkThe thing about Bush having absolute power over what the people think, speak, and do always seems to be a projection from people living in places where the government DOES have that kind of power over them. My favorite example is a friend from England who popped up in an IM conversation one day, and we had the following (excerpted) exchange:
HIM: Mainly because his CV was printed on photo glossy paper, and didn’t contain any text that was black.
HIM: That would be “Resume” in American.
ME: I know what a CV is.
HIM: Well I dunno what words you know over there.
ME: Any that I don’t, I’ve always got Google.
HIM: CV is French so Bush probably banned it or something.
HIM: Along with Freedom Kissing.
ME: So is résumé.
ME: And CV is Latin.
HIM: Well French, Latin. Spot the difference.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2007 01 15 at 03:55 PM • permalinkThis is O/T, but sort of along the same lines as the rampant RWDB Christian/Nazi fundamentalism that Terry Lane so deplores, i.e., the Saudis are at it again:
Saudi clerics want to ban the letter X. Seems it resembles a Christian cross, somewhat.
#7, I have to completely agree with you. On two different tours in the past year (Grand Teton Nat. Park in Wyoming and the tour around NASA in Florida), the tour guides made me almost physically ill with their pseudo-science passed on as ABSOLUTE FACT. The guide in Wy. was such a loon he actually said that we humans shouldn’t even be allowed in the park. I sincerely doubt he meant himself though. He was the most sanctimonious jerk I’ve run across in a long time. The misinformed guide at NASA went on to say how bad DDT was. When she was politetely told that in the right amounts it could save millions of people in Africa from malaria she was dumbfounded. She didn’t seem to change her mind though or even begin to question what she knew.
What the fuck is “Freedom Kissing”?
I guess I don’t know because Bush banned it…
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 15 at 04:50 PM • permalinkToo much free-speechin’ goin’ on out theh!
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 05:14 PM • permalinkWell French, Latin. Spot the difference.
Not being particularly fluent in either language, I may be off base here, but….try this on for size:
Well French, English. Spot the difference.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 15 at 05:31 PM • permalinkIf Terry Lane wants to establish some street cred, why doesn’t he consider doing a hitch as an imbed with the troops? He doesn’t even have to go to Iraq; Mexico will do .
You’ve gotta love the way that Daily Kos poster, after doing an admirable job debunking the story, advises his readers to be careful about such stories “no matter how true they sound”. For once Bush Derangement Syndrome isn’t just a joke - it’s practically a clinical condition when supposedly educated adults can consider such stories ‘true-sounding’. What in Gaia’s name was the hypothetical Park Ranger supposed to say when asked the age of the Canyon? “No comment”? Or “I’m sorry ma’am, but I am forbidden to answer that question”? If the problem was avoiding giving offense to Creationists, surely even a no-answer answer would have been considered ‘offensive’.
There are a lot of things “everybody knows” about America that would astound an actual American. As others have pointed out, the sheer stupidity of the park ranger “no comment” story pegs the bullshit meter. From “Huh, that can’t possibly be right” to “Thought so - total bull” is about five minutes of Googling.
But what need does the reality based community have for, you know, reality? They’re far too busy bespeaking deeper realities. There they are, frantically clapping their hands to keep Tinkerbell alive, and the final curtain has gone down fifteen minutes ago and eveyone else has left the theater for a late dinner.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 15 at 06:16 PM • permalinkThe guide in Wy. was such a loon he actually said that we humans shouldn’t even be allowed in the park. I sincerely doubt he meant himself though. He was the most sanctimonious jerk I’ve run across in a long time.
Having had some direct and indirect contact with the GTNP staff, this is not a surprise to me. Not at all. If the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks had their way, human visitation would be sharply restricted. There has been considerable conflict in recent years over snowmobiles, for example.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 15 at 06:25 PM • permalink#16 I had a little chuckle thinking about our trip to England last summer. I met a nice English lady there who saw it as her mission to educate me (an American) about what it is REALLY like in America. For example, she went on to explain to me all about the “stolen” 2000 election. As a former U.S. history teacher, I tried to explain the Electoral College, but it didn’t phase her a bit. I do think it is odd that Americans are chided about not knowing about other countries, but everyone else in the world seems to “know” us better than we do ourselves.
The saddest thing about this debacle is it appears the Tim-minator was not even following a tip about Lane being in error - he just backed the probability that where Lane and words go together, that it was likely to be the case.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 15 at 06:30 PM • permalinkFor those interested, you can send a letter to the editor at:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Posted by niobium2000 on 2007 01 15 at 07:09 PM • permalinkO/T : Keysar Trad is again defending Cats-Meat. He now likens the muppet to Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.
He goes on to state:
If they attempt to remove him, history will record them as the cowards of the three Ps: “Public Opinion”, “Political Correctness” and “Public Relations”.
I ask, not who can remove the muppet, but who can sack Trad?
Posted by curious george on 2007 01 15 at 07:13 PM • permalink#34 But what need does the reality based community have for, you know, reality? They’re far too busy bespeaking deeper realities. There they are, frantically clapping their hands to keep Tinkerbell alive, and the final curtain has gone down fifteen minutes ago and eveyone else has left the theater for a late dinner.
That’s a beautiful paragraph, Steve.
He goes on to state:
If they attempt to remove him, history will record them as the cowards of the three Ps: “Public Opinion”, “Political Correctness” and “Public Relations”.
The funny thing is, the people who can remove Hilali are the Muslims themselves. But they don’t.
Now, if a mainstream Christian church was being led by someone who said these things, the congregation would, well, change. People would leave, and be quite vocal about why they’re leaving. They’d find someplace with a saner message, more in line with Christianity.
Yet Muslims not only keep supporting Hilali, it appears they support him more and more.
Who do they think they’re fooling?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 15 at 08:15 PM • permalinkBTW Rob C,
Congratulations on joining the highly prestigious 1000 posters club.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 15 at 08:26 PM • permalinkOkay, yes, the Australian press is pretty bad at times. But at least Lane’s meanderings are marked as comment.
Meanwhile over the ditch, the NZ Herald has done an in-depth investigation into the Guilty secrets hidden in MPs’ garages.
At last, I thought, we’re going to find out where the bodies are buried. Literally.
But no. Here’s an excerpt:
The environmental crimes include a gas-guzzling SUV being used to ferry children around the suburbs, and a large, powerful vehicle being used to pull a caravan to a holiday spot…
Climate Change Minister David Parker has admitted to being ashamed about using a Holden Adventra station wagon to tow a caravan.
He offsets the emissions from his six-cylinder vehicle by paying for forests to be planted in Marlborough.
This is unadulterated opinion masquerading as news. The Herald is owned by APN. We don’t have an APN paper here in the West so perhaps those who do could enlighten me as to whether this sort of first-year-of-journalism sloppiness is practiced by the editors of every APN newspaper, or just the ones in NZ? (I also monitor an APN provinical daily and it is without doubt the single worst newspaper in the world, even under two different editors).
Terry Macbeth Lane and his employers are disgraceful. We hear time and again how reporters check sources, editors check articles, and newspapers are accountable. And still we read obvious lies like this presented as fact. How hard would it have been for Lane to ring the park rangers? I believe the Age would have even paid for the call.
But the real story here is Lane’s lack of respect for other people. He cares more about his own point than the reputation of park rangers. In fact, his view of park rangers must be based on a belief that they are too stupid, cowardly, or [add own adjective] to stand up for what they believe. Surely most rangers would have studied environmental or earth sciences; it’s probably those sorts of interests that drew them to a career in parks. What must Lane believe about these people to smeer them so?
Lane also exhibits a chilling ignorance of the bureaucratic process. By what means does he imagine park rangers are forbidden to answer questions? Does he think the current administration sent out a government circular advising rangers they could no longer answer visitors’ questions? Or does he imagine (or perhaps salivate) over an image of jack-booted, creationist Bush supporters beating rangers until they cry out in pain that the park is only 2,000 years old?
I had a friend who used to introduce himself as a revolutionary socialist (he’s now a devout muslim). His ex-girlfriend got his type in one when she said that she’d never met somone so concerned for the masses but who hated people so much.
Lane’s writing is evidence surely that a peculiar form of leftism is an illness. He speaks for the masses but reviles people. He is self-centred to the point of delusion. He seems to sincerely believe he has access to some higher truth. In any other environment, his employers would request he seek counselling or fire him. That the Age hasn’t leads me to conclude it suffers from the same illness on a grander scale.
O/T
Just doodling around the internet and found this gem on BBC’s Have Your Say bit(Apparently Marks and Spencer are going carbon neutral)
Mr Normal : one Tsunami , one Vesuvius ,one Etna, one Karakatoa , one major ,prolonged solar flare-up ,one meteor impact will have more impact on the world’s climate than all the recycled polystyrene bags put together with the baloney your mob bang on about.Ask the dinosaurs.
Freddie Scott, Henley, United Kingdom
Goodonya Freddie - stick it up ‘em
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2007 01 15 at 09:18 PM • permalink#39
Reader response:Fair point - never really been offended by him or what he says, because i’m an intelligent woman and can take what he says for what it is - one man’s opinion!
Posted by: sarah ward of Brisbane 11:47am todayShe’s been mentally flossed!
... one leader’s opinion that affects many.
The damage the likes of Lane do occurs on several levels. The hate-filled anti-American venom is obvious. But also corrosive is the long term effect of an overall lowering standards of communication, an overarching assumption that truth doesn’t matter, which gradually comes to be taken for granted. That’s why I believe it’s essential we complain publically, not just chuckle among outselves. I’ve written to the Editor of the Age about this. Please do likewise.
O/T - Good op-ed in The Australian about the recent and growing attraction of the Left for Islam—
One of the few outlets for radical protest now is through Islamic groups. As the French convert Lionel Dumont, who fought in Bosnia, said: “Muslims are the only ones to fight the system.” A couple of decades ago he would have joined a leftist organisation, because both movements recruit from the same demographics: outcasts from the educated middle classes and dropouts from the working class. They also have the same distaste for the bourgeouis and make similar claims about the international nature of their cause.
Instead of the international working class, Islamists refer to the ummah. Even controversies about whether to resort to violence within Islam are remarkably similar to those experienced by the early communists. The Red Brigade was to socialism, to some degree, as al-Qa’ida is to Islam.
Oliver Roy, a French scholar on European Islam, notes that: “Islam has replaced Marxism as the ideology of contestation. When the Left collapsed, the Islamists stepped in.”
“Not bedfellows but a political attraction”.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 01 15 at 09:31 PM • permalinkLane again. Really, the editor Peter Fray, should be checking Lanes stuff. Maybe if these outfits took the time to appoint a couple of researchers, then told Lane to shove his ego, that his stuff is going to be checked anyway, then maybe in this scenerio, we would not see so much leftist propaganda, posing as facts, in the MSM.
Lane is spot on in his assessment of park rangers as stupid American’s. As evidence I point you towards the Huckleberry Hound Show. Witness the stupidity of Ranger Smith and his constant outwitting by Yogi and Boo Boo. In America, not even a picnic basket is safe from the evil Bush regime and his Christianist army.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 15 at 09:34 PM • permalinkO/T but major headtilt alert in a mens cataloge.
Note the “anti war scarf” being worn.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 15 at 09:38 PM • permalinkI had a friend who used to introduce himself as a revolutionary socialist (he’s now a devout muslim). His ex-girlfriend got his type in one when she said that she’d never met somone so concerned for the masses but who hated people so much.
Hanyu, you’re not alone in experiencing that sort of person. I had a short-term friendship with a woman who was philosophically a socialist and was also a misanthrope. She always thought of people in conceptual terms and could never relate to them in the flesh.
Ironically she left her public service job to take up sports coaching/instruction and wondered why she had to move from job to job. Her excuse was “evil capitalist businesses, always exploiting the poor little person”. Yeah, whatever - her lack of empathy with her clients was never a factor in her mind.
This is just funny! It is not me, I am far better looking :-)
Posted by curious george on 2007 01 15 at 09:59 PM • permalinkHas another Jesse Macbeth
popped upcrawled out of the woodwork?Service members join war protest
“We served in combat and we’ve seen the futility of this war,’’ said Sgt. Jabbar Magruder of Los Angeles, a member of the National Guard who served 11 months in Tikrit, a town northwest of Baghdad. “The soldiers want to resist. The soldiers want to come home now. We need the citizens to back us.’‘
Awfully convenient, wouldn’t you say?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 10:03 PM • permalink#51 - exceptionally pertinent point. You spurred me into composing a letter to the NZ Herald about the tosh I mentioned @ #46.
If we don’t complain to the bosses in a way that makes them think their bottom line will be affected by falling credibility (because sadly, nothing else will change their ways) then this sort of “journalism” will continue unabated.
#58
paulywauly9 must have some real loser
friendshuman parasites he can’t get rid of.Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 10:09 PM • permalink#55 thefrollickingmole
The ultimate in anti-establishment… all the kool kidz wear ‘em. Like a Ché t-shirt.
::spit::
The Kaffiyeh is the new Swastika.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 10:25 PM • permalink#67 egg_
I wish long time apologist Trad also goes. Trad openly supports an evil man.
Posted by curious george on 2007 01 15 at 10:48 PM • permalinkKEYSER TRAD PRESS CONFERENCE
Hello, hello, can you hear me up the back? Good, how’m I looking, how’s my beard? Is it devout looking enough? Great…no crumbs?....have you had enough for your sound check? Aaaaah Terry lane from The Age you need more? Okay here you go….
“There was movement at the Station, for the word had passed around, that the colt from old regret had got away..”
By the prophet’s beard I love that stuff! May poetry be upon him. Who doesn’t love it? I know the Mufti digs it, that’s for sure!! He’s a big fan of Banjo Palestine.
Banjo’s writing really speaks to me as a Lebanese person. Sorry, Lebanese-muslim-Australian. Wouldn’t want to leave the most important part out now would I?... You lot might take it out of context! Ha, ha, ohh come on now, and you reckon muslims look stern! Anyhow, let’s get started.
Today, I am not here to speak on behalf of the Mufti of Australia, but to indulge in a long time passion of his and mine….. discussion of great Islamic poetry.
Firstly, please indulge me…I would like to read a little from that other great writer of the same stature, nnnnnnooooo not, the Mufti…..... though his pearls are of the same stature I’m sure you’ll agree. No the other, other, great Asutralian writer, Henry Al-Lawson…mmhemm..
“They bred a nation’s strength behind each shabby little door,
where rent collectors knock for aye,
and christ shall knock no more.”Woah - good shit huh? Hope you got the tingle up the spine that I got from it? That was written in 1919, not too long before his little known conversion to the religion of poetry. .....Look it up ...not you Terry…obviously….
Now let’s examine it shall we, he is obviously referring to women’s only role in Allah’s world, and the future of all other religions. Wow, what a guy, what vision…More I hear you say…okay..
“Wide Lies Australia! The seas that surround her, Flow for her unity-all states in one.
Never has custom nor tyranny bound her,
never was conquest so peacefully won.”Wow! Don’t know about you but it gave me halal goosebumps! Now obviously Al-Lawson was referring to the same thing as the Mufti in his latest speech to be taken out of context. That is, that Australian’s all lie. Now, don’t look at me like that! This was written by a muslim much wiser than you!
Then it goes onto refer to “all states in one”.....obvious reference to the caliphate…let’s see what else…oh yeah, “never was conquest so peacefully won.”
Clearly that refers to…well…..ah maybe the less said about that one the better, as it involves you guys.
Ahhhh, any of you blokes see the riot on the TV at the tennis? Bloody disgraceful. Exactly the type of behaviour that muslims abhor. You can quote me on that. Good day.
#69 - But it’s all tongue in cheek. Just a bit of harmless Islamic larrikinism.
As Keysar says in his article, “But the use of exotic, colourful or exaggerated generalisations – familiar to readers of Lawson and Patterson – remains a feature of contemporary Arab culture.”
See!
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 15 at 11:35 PM • permalink#72 - I wouldn’t think so, it’s just a dismal attempt at spin.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 15 at 11:52 PM • permalink#70
ProphetPenguin.Brilliant. Though I was hoping Trad may have quoted Banjo Pakistan too.
My favourite is “The Imam from Snowy River”
There was movement at the tv station,
for the word had passed around
That the dolt with no regrets was on the away.
And had joined the hatred of Bushs team — he was preparing for a thousand virgins,
So all the cracks had gathered to the pray.Posted by curious george on 2007 01 15 at 11:55 PM • permalinkAnd who can forget I love a Sunni Country by
Dorothea MacKellarauthor unknown.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 16 at 12:00 AM • permalinkThe Man From Lakembark by A.B “Banjo” Paterson -
It was the man from Lakembark who struck the Sydney town,
He fronted all news outlets, he wandered up and down.
He Reutered here, he Reutered there, but no-one took his slop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber’s shop.
“‘Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I’ll had this bloody lark,
I’ll go and do the Sydney toff up and screw old Lakembark.”The Bulletin, 17 December 1892.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 16 at 12:07 AM • permalink#77 - ...
I’llI’ve had this bloody lark,Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 16 at 12:20 AM • permalinkLane accuses America of “punishing Cuba for having the temerity to kick out their Mafia landlords…”
What a neat little sidestep. What he is saying is code for Bush is punishing Cuba.For Lane’s information (not that facts mean anything), it was Kennedy, yes, Lane’s beloved Democrat, JFK who instigated the embargo on Cuba - and since then other Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton did not a jot to reverse it. This of course doesn’t suit Lane’s biased scenario so will be quietly ignored. Also the fact that hundreds of Cuban’s risk life and limb to escape Castro’s Cuba and swim to Guantanamo Bay. Yet another Inconvenient Truth that bypasses the appalling Terry Lane….
My note to
pravdaThe Age -
Dear Mr FrayWhat are you going to do about the lies spread by Terry Lane about the information on the age of the Grand Canyon given by Park Rangers?
You pay him an awful lot of money to just regurgitate internet myths.
As a minimum he should make an apology to the Park Rangers and the Management of the National Park that the Grand Canyon is in.
Your continued tolerance of the woeful performance of Mr Lane makes it no wonder The Age is continuing to decline.
Yours sincerely
Mulga Hil-ali’s Bicycle by K. ‘Banjo’ Trad-&-son
‘Twas Mulga Hil-ali from Lakemba that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old camel that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling Kaffiyeh, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, `Excuse me, can you ride?’`See, here, young man,’ said Mulga Hil-ali, `from Mecca to the sea,
From Lakemba to Castlereagh, there’s none can ride like me.
I’m good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk—I HATE a man that blows.
But public speaking is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wild cat can it fight.
There’s nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There’s nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I’ll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I’ll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight.’‘Twas Mulga Hil-ali, from Lakemba, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man’s Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he’d gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope, towards the Dead Man’s Creek.It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Hil-ali, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Hil-ali let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man’s Creek.‘Twas Mulga Hil-ali, from Lakemba, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, `I’ve had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I’ve rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it’s shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It’s safe at rest in Dead Man’s Creek, we’ll leave it lying still;
A camel’s back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Hil-ali.’‘Twas Sheik Halill from EvilDork, who caught the Jihad craze
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 16 at 01:23 AM • permalinkHas anyone done “Chancy, of the Overreaction”, yet?
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 16 at 01:31 AM • permalinkOr that Henry Lawson classic, “The Loaded Speech”?
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 16 at 01:35 AM • permalink#63 cartoon-like perhaps, but I’ll wager he’s cartoon don’t like. (apologies if that’s a bit cryptic, but no-pasaran.blogspot.com is reporting an Italian newspaper as reporting an Iranian newspaper as claiming one of the Danish cartoonists was set upon burned to death in an alley in Copenhagen. Gee, I wonder who could have done such an horrendous thing)
Fortunately, larrikin, the story is fiction.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 16 at 03:58 AM • permalinkit’s been done before but i’ve got time to burn and it’s too tempting
Terry Lane Lyrics
Oh Terry Lane he is a leftard writing onagraphs
You can read them every weekend in the Age
Research and googling might be all the rage
But not for this sage.And the wanker is protected by his editor
Although the readers laugh at him behind his back
The wanker never seems to get the sack
For his silly lies, what a surprise.Terry Lane insults my brain with poor research
Can’t be bothered with a google search
The shit, he makes white black,Oh Terry Lane the very model of a calumnist
In his column truth metaphoric like Macbeth
He likes to flog his lefty horse to death
With every breath.Terry Lane insults my brain with all his lies.
Every column full of porky pies
The clueless, moonbat hack,Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 16 at 04:02 AM • permalinkeenie, mind if I store that one away? It is great. But I will be humming the tune for days now.
Posted by curious george on 2007 01 16 at 05:13 AM • permalink#85 I’ve got Taj al-din, Lakemba Mosque
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down Lakemba, years ago,
He was preaching when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, “Taj el-din, Lakemba Mosque”
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his preaching mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
“Tajji’s gone to Cairo quoting, and we don’t know where he are.”* * * * * * * * *
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Tajji
Gone a-bleating “down de Nile” where the muslim shaheeds go;
As the kaffirs are all swinging, al-din rides behind them singing,
For the sheikh’s life has pleasures that Crusaders never know.And the sand hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the wailing call to masjid and the blast of ieds
And he sees the vision splendid of the infidels beheaded
And at night the wond’rous glory of exploding jihadi.Got writer’s block for the last couple of stanzas, though. Any help appreciated.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 16 at 06:15 AM • permalinkSo, #55, you’re telling me the metrosexual look is out now and the Urban Wussy Protester look is in? Does this mean we’ll soon see Edwards, Obama, Gore, Kerry, Dean, kucinich, Sharpton et al wearing kheffiyehs as bandanas? And what about Hillary?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 16 at 06:30 AM • permalink#55- that arafat tea towel is listed in their catalogue as an “anti-war scarf”- ROTFLMAO at the doublespeak
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 16 at 08:03 AM • permalink#93
I am sitting in my spacious Eastern Suburbs, where capacious
Parks and beaches stretch away from me between the houses tall,
And the pleasant air and briny, of the beaches, long and shiny
Through the open window floating, spreads its fragrance over all.And in place of rabid preachers, I can hear the Lebo creatures
In Sans Souci having picnics, kicking footballs way too hard,
And the language uninviting of the Lebo families fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly from a formerly placid park.And the hurrying lefties daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their puppet heads all cheesy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For Dhimmis have no time to grow, they’ve got Howard-Out! posters to paste.And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Tajji,
Like to take a turn at preaching where the bombblasts come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal—
But I doubt he’d suit civilisation, Taj el-din, Lakemba Mosque.Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 16 at 08:04 AM • permalink#75, remember that icy summer treat the Sunni Boy? Mmmmm full of mufti goodness..
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 16 at 09:45 AM • permalinkSacking Terry would not in my view achieve anything of lasting benefit whereas losing his perspective would deprive Sunday Age readers.
[from a letter by Peter Fray to Media Watch}This from a letter he wrote with two errors - one grammatical and one spelling - thus keeping it balanced.
What hope have we? This man loves errors and those who make them.
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 16 at 09:52 AM • permalinkOf course, The U.S. cheered the fall of Batista.
Then, over the next year and a half, Castro executed 500 police officers, nationalized American property, declared himself a friend to communists, drove the senior non-Communist supporters of his revolution into exile, and signed alliance treaties with the Soviets.
At which point the U.S. decided that it didn’t want a murderous human-rights-violating ally of its enemy, the the murderous, human-rights-violating, and imperialistic Soviet Union on its doorstep.
This, Mr. Lane believes, is an indictment of the U.S. That he so believes precisely indicates his own depravity.
Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2007 01 16 at 04:26 PM • permalink
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I question Peter Fray’s assertion that Terry Lane was mortified and humiliated in public. If that were true (or even possible, considering Mr. Lane’s obvious and impenetrable self-regard) the Age would not continue to publish his erroneous tripe. Mr. Fray should fact-check himself.