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THEY CAME TO TALK

I was too busy eating prawns and watching football, but Andrew Bolt somehow managed to maintain consciousness for several horrible hours of Kevin Rudd’s Tomorrowland Festival:

ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann confesses that his favorite idea in the whole summit is actually a giant verandah covering our east coast to stop people from getting skin cancer ... The WWF boss, Greg Bourne, says his group thought we better do something about global warming. Shock! Pandemonium in the hall. No one saw *that* coming.

Do click; and visit the Wogblogger, who has been made angry by all the chattering. Previously, state-approved futureweaver Marieke “Nice flag, fuckhead” Hardy unveiled her great big idea:

Writer and television producer Marieke Hardy said that while she recoiled from the phrase “artists’ dole”, due to the association with the word “bludger”, she would like to see a welfare program for unemployed artists, similar to schemes in Canada and Ireland.

Just like cultural protectionist and fellow rent-seeker Louise Adler, mooching Marieke gets her big ideas from overseas. Other attendees also have their hands out:

Kram, one name only, the drummer from the rock group Spiderbait, said: “I’m keen to get a larger percentage of Australian content on radio in Australia.”

We’ve had local content quotas in Australia for decades. Kram’s thrilling vision involves nudging the percentage up a little. Well, he is just a drummer.

The recently retired Victorian climate change minister, John Thwaites, is a delegate to the sustainability and climate change forum.

“I’d like to put on the agenda the impact of climate change on low-income households,” he said.

They’ll be fine. Very few low-income households have oceanfront views. When the Big Flood arrives, the poor will be triumphant.

Posted by Tim B. on 04/19/2008 at 06:38 AM
  1. There’s a high percentage of shit ideas if these are our best and brightest.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2008 04 19 at 06:54 AM • permalink

  2. Drummers are said to be musicians’ labourers.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2008 04 19 at 06:55 AM • permalink

  3. Cate Blanchett has got it sorted. 

    “We’re here to imagine the best possible society in the year 2020 and then reverse engineer our way back.”

    She’ll be relying on a tip Bill Clinton gave her after meeting in a hotel room.

    “He said that he always read the latest airport novels, spy thrillers, unpublished manuscripts, unpublished screenplays because writers were often right on the money where the technology and ideology - a lethal combination - were heading.”

    Policy by pulp fiction.  Lethal stupidity, more like.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2008 04 19 at 07:00 AM • permalink

  4. Congrats to Bolt for his summary of the idiocy on parade.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2008 04 19 at 07:12 AM • permalink

  5. “...a welfare program for unemployed artists…”

    I believe that’s called the “Newstart Allowance” Marieke.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 04 19 at 07:13 AM • permalink

  6. Bolt works to hard.

    How could anyone put up with that parade of pompous pansies for more than 1 minute.

    Posted by gubbaboy on 2008 04 19 at 07:17 AM • permalink

  7. I was too busy eating prawns and watching football,

    I knew it! I just knew it!

    (Thanks for the

    Private Audio Compliant (Obscured)

    device Paco, it works a treat!)

    Posted by kae on 2008 04 19 at 07:21 AM • permalink

  8. she would like to see a welfare program for unemployed artists, similar to schemes in Canada

    Prrssshhlllssh…. splutter..gaarrrrggghhh

    Don’t do it Aussies, or say goodbye to all those good films and music and stuff your country has been producing; welcome mediocrity and post-modern drivel.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 04 19 at 07:29 AM • permalink

  9. Just out of curiosity, what other “profession” would have the nerve to brazenly demand state handouts, in public?

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 04 19 at 07:30 AM • permalink

  10. Nobody is making serious plans to manage rising sea levels - yet more proof that no-one really believes in it.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2008 04 19 at 07:36 AM • permalink

  11. #6
    Yeah, just how does Bolta put up with that parade of pompous pansies pontificating platitudes to the perplexed proletariat ...

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 04 19 at 07:54 AM • permalink

  12. #8 “say goodbye to all those good films and music and stuff your country has been producing..”

    We said goodbye at least decades ago. With a couple of exceptions we’ve been turning out nothing but unwatchable crap.  Excellent article in this month’s Quadrant about how most if not all stage productions and films in Australia are humourless liberal crap.

    Posted by walterplinge on 2008 04 19 at 07:56 AM • permalink

  13. I’m glad I don’t have to witness such a debacle. I’d love to know what the mood in the mortage belts of the capital cities is towards such mutual onanism and general kerfuckery.

    This though takes the cake: I ask the Ngunnawal people and spirits to bless and guide us.

    What next? A blessing from the Rainbow serpent? An offering to Baal perhaps? No, I’ve got it, an offering to chicomexochtli, the Aztec patron god of painters and other artists. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    Posted by Nic on 2008 04 19 at 08:08 AM • permalink

  14. I hadn’t seen this Fits blog post before, must have missed it when it was originally linked. Since my experience with Fitsy’s blog is almost wholly secondhand, through this one, I keep on trying to distance myself (on the occasions I do visit it myself) and ask myself if I am missing some irony. Trouble is, I don’t think I am missing anything. She just comes across as being an old Melbourne establishment snob, who sees everything in the context of left/right politics. If you’re not left-wing, then the ever-prurient Fits judges you as not worthy. I guess that would also explain why her commenters can be simultaneously clannish and vicious to outsiders/people they have political disagreements with. If there’s one thing about snobs, it’s that they stick together. They’ve got to stick together; that’s the whole point: keeping away from the great unwashed and maintaining the illusion of difference.

    But I could be wrong. Who knows?

    Posted by TimT on 2008 04 19 at 08:11 AM • permalink

  15. #9 the oldest profession?

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 04 19 at 08:15 AM • permalink

  16. I was flicking through the channels on free to air this morning, and caught some woman wearing what looked like roo or possum skin on their ABC.

    I figured it was Circlejerk 08 and had to turn off the telly.

    For those who watched this drivel, I salute you.

    I can’t even watch the news these days, what with Smarmy Kev all over it.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 04 19 at 08:17 AM • permalink

  17. Are the prawns the gay shrimp?

    Posted by Rittenhouse on 2008 04 19 at 08:22 AM • permalink

  18. #13
    A blessing from the Rainbow serpent?

    Didn’t Sir Les Patterson get an invite?

    I’m sure he’d bless ‘em with a trouser serpent ...

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 04 19 at 08:24 AM • permalink

  19. Are the prawns the gay shrimp?

    Don’t come the raw prawn with me, cobber, unless you really mean it!

    Posted by TimT on 2008 04 19 at 08:27 AM • permalink

  20. #5 Ash

    Nice pickup…I’m sure those attending Kev08 Wankfest will drop their jaws in amazement of learning of that pearl of wisdom.

    Bolta ...better man than me for putting up with that bunch of bollocks from the ‘da…bust an brooghtest..’ (typos mine)

    An example of the MSM…On 7 news…Jennifer (cucumbers) Keyte was gushing over the item and embellishing on how this pathetic excuse for a forum will create a great new future for us…

    The Comedy channel never had it so good. If only they take some advantage from this abundance of material.

    Posted by mindfree on 2008 04 19 at 08:28 AM • permalink

  21. What a surprise! One of the Big Ideas (tm) to come out of the summit is…

    Ta da!

    A republic. I guess if they want it in by 2010 then there won’t be a referendum.

    Representative democracies just ain’t what they used to be.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 04 19 at 08:28 AM • permalink

  22. Over at Bolta’s its really going hard on this one..go over guys and take a look. PACO, Real Jeffs and Wronwright..there is some fun to be had gentlemen.

    Posted by mindfree on 2008 04 19 at 08:37 AM • permalink

  23. #20 Mindfree,

    ..drop their jaws in amazement of learning of that pearl of wisdom.

    Possibly. However, I rather suspect many of them already rely on it.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 04 19 at 08:40 AM • permalink

  24. Unemployment for artists? It’s called “GET A JOB!” Wait tables, work in retail, anything to bring in money til your art produces revenue in a free market or you realize you suck and have to take another route in life.

    Posted by debi L. on 2008 04 19 at 08:48 AM • permalink

  25. What’s with the Wogger’s nanny statist crap? She wants drug users summarily executed and fat people chased through jungles until thin. Whatever happened “Nunya”??

    Posted by AlburyShifton on 2008 04 19 at 08:52 AM • permalink

  26. Summit starting to break out in mixed feelings.

    Not sure if the media pack are turning, but I do hope so.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 04 19 at 08:54 AM • permalink

  27. #13 Nic

    Well we can’t refer to the Judeo-Christian God because he* does not exist. References to him are to be removed and/or ridiculed. Those who believe in him are pitiable in the sense that you need never have pity for them, but laugh uproariously at any of their misfortune.

    The spirit ancestors of indigines, and their giant Dream Serpents, on the other hand have a real power to endow fortune and success.

    [/sarc]

    It would have been fun to watch if anyone had kicked up a stink about appealling to the aboriginal deities - as they would have were it the Western God so implored.

    *conventionally referred to as ‘he’ - not being a sexist, I promise

    Posted by Toiling Mass on 2008 04 19 at 09:02 AM • permalink

  28. #26
    Labor MP Maxine McKew, in charge of that stream, urged delegates to show more passion for the subject after their initial recommendations failed to draw even a single “whoop” from the group.
    I thought they were after the best and brightest, not the Oprah demographic.
    Nilk, I think this will burn bright until Tuesday.  A month from now, the summit will just be one of those embarrassing moments best left unmentioned.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2008 04 19 at 09:14 AM • permalink

  29. #27 TM; You’d better capitalize that h in “he” or beheadment shall occureth.

    Posted by dean martin on 2008 04 19 at 09:22 AM • permalink

  30. #27 TM. No mention of Allah either. Tut, tut.

    Seriously, I’d let that lot pray to the local Aboriginal totem/spirit deity the next time they need a Western Hospital.

    Posted by Nic on 2008 04 19 at 09:24 AM • permalink

  31. The Chairman of NewsLtd, John Hartigan, set the scene for the Rudd Comedy Festival on Lateline Friday when he produced proof of his knowledge of all things Aboriginal.

    Apparently he was asked ,a couple of years ago to give the “Indigenous Retaliation address” at some other windbag do.

    Posted by watty on 2008 04 19 at 09:43 AM • permalink

  32. #15 You mean lawyering?

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 04 19 at 09:49 AM • permalink

  33. Cate’s baby pretty much sums up the whole event on his own. Plenty of oohs, ahhhs and goos, lots of dribbling and the only thing they’ll produce is a fair mount of piss and wind and a whole lotta shit.

    Posted by Toosmoky on 2008 04 19 at 09:51 AM • permalink

  34. David Marr…sneers...I’m just here for the yak. I’m thinking not paying for these poons travel and accommodation was a good thing. I hope they’re also expected to bring their own lunch money.

    If the Aussie cultural cringe ever existed and died, I think I am going to resurrect it this weekend. If this is our brightest, that’s worthy of cringeworthy.

    Posted by saint on 2008 04 19 at 10:05 AM • permalink

  35. This is our Nation’s Leader?

    What would he do in the face of a major crisis?

    Take the counsel of a bunch of out-of-touch-with-reality, cocooned minor celebrities who have personal managers to do their shopping for them and pay their bills?

    Even if it is a cynical ploy to find someone to blame for any later recriminations, it sure ain’t Leadership.

    The f*cktards from the Left must want a respite from Leadership?

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 04 19 at 10:17 AM • permalink

  36. #9 WC

    Just out of curiosity, what other “profession” would have the nerve to brazenly demand state handouts, in public?

    The answer is Academia!
    What do I win?

    Posted by Merlin on 2008 04 19 at 10:44 AM • permalink

  37. #13 Chicomexochtli? That’s a new one on me. It sounds like something that goes good with refried beans.

    Posted by ErnieG on 2008 04 19 at 10:51 AM • permalink

  38. “I came, I saw, I conga-lined with the suckholes ...”

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 04 19 at 11:13 AM • permalink

  39. #38 Oh dear. I genuinely fear that you’ve found the name for Rudd’s next biography.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 04 19 at 11:19 AM • permalink

  40. #36 You win .... a magic stick! Oh, you already have one, you say.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 04 19 at 11:37 AM • permalink

  41. Tim:

    Good morning from the Ottawa Valley in the Dear Old Dominion of Canada! 

    And a beautiful morning it is too so I am abandoning the keyboard and heading out with my old dog for a bit of a road trip.

    Your pointed remark about being “too busy eating prawns and watching football” reminded me of this great quote from the
    philosopher Roger Scruton:

    Western civilization is composed of communities held together by a political process, and by the rights and duties of the citizen as defined by that process. Paradoxically, it is the existence of this political process that enables us to live without politics. Having consigned the business of government to defined offices, occupied successively by people who are the servants and not the masters of those who elected them, we can devote ourselves to what really matters—to the private interests, personal loves, and social customs in which we find our satisfaction. Politics, in other words, makes it possible to separate society from the state, so removing politics from our private lives.

    Let the social tinkerers, busybodies, political panhandlers and other fix-its drone on; the rest of us have lives...

    Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2008 04 19 at 11:58 AM • permalink

  42. Hmmmmm.

    “Writer and television producer Marieke Hardy said that while she recoiled from the phrase “artists’ dole”, due to the association with the word “bludger”, she would like to see a welfare program for unemployed artists, similar to schemes in Canada and Ireland. “

    I will now immigrate to Australia to become an unemployed artist.  My art?

    I will produce sculptures of fetuses I’ve aborted from my womb.  That I am male and thus unfortunately without a womb is merely incidental and quite non-PC of you to point out.  I thus will conceptualize how it would go IF I had a womb and IF I had aborted fetuses from the womb I might have had.

    I plan to use a shoebox and call myself Loretta.

    Posted by memomachine on 2008 04 19 at 12:50 PM • permalink

  43. “I’d like to put on the agenda the impact of climate change on low-income households,” he said.

    Well, let’s see…

    We’re raising their gas prices by opposing new drilling.

    We’re raising their food prices by burning food in our trendy eco-conscious cars to show how much we care about the environment.

    We’re shorting them heating oil in the winter, see drilling.

    We’re shorting them cooling in the summer by not building newer, more modern power stations, and raising their utility rates to pay for seasonally- and weather-dependent, wilderness-destroying wind and solar programs.

    So basically, John, I’d say we’re sodomizing them with the corn cobs left over from the ethanol plants, does that sound about right?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 19 at 02:18 PM • permalink

  44. #43 Sounds dead on the mark, Richard.

    Who was it who said “For every ten thousand struggling artists starving in wretched filthy garretts, 9999 deserve to do so” ??

    Posted by Rod C on 2008 04 19 at 05:33 PM • permalink

  45. I just heard Hugh Jackman say that Einstein was ‘the most creative person he has known’ [but hadn’t known, too].  Interesting choice for his ‘creative group’. They have so few real heroes of their own in the last 100 years
    Jackman thinks that Creativity should be a separate subject, from pre-school on. It can be taught, for God’s sake.
    Even ‘someone washing the dishes’ can benefit from creativity training to make them better at it, opines Hugh..
    Idiot.

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 04 19 at 07:05 PM • permalink

  46. For a guy whose fingernails trim him, little Hugh doesn’t seem too sharp…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 19 at 07:21 PM • permalink

  47. There was something familiar about Bolta’s commentary. It is the chapters in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy that deal with occupants of Ship B trying to survive on Earth.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 04 19 at 08:38 PM • permalink

  48. #26 - Nilk, from your link:

    The chief secretary of the Salvation Army, James Condon, criticised organisers for seeking to champion the cause of the oppressed, the marginalised and the disadvantaged without actually including any of their ranks in the summit’s working groups.

    “Where are the homeless people? Where are the people who’ve been addicted to alcohol? Where are the gambling addicts?” he asked.

    Including some ranting, homeless, smelly, mind-fucked alcoholics and druggies certainly would have produced some “left-field” ideas.

    People would have be running around asking things like, “Have you seen my handbag?” and “That mobile phone looks awfully like mine”, and “You can take my wallet, but please let me keep my Sydney Theatre Company membership pass”.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2008 04 19 at 08:58 PM • permalink

  49. A drummer in a pop band counts as one of Australia’s 1000 best and brightest?  A drummer?  Say it ain’t so, Joe.

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 04 19 at 09:23 PM • permalink

  50. Where are the people who’ve been addicted to alcohol?

    I’d suggest that the alcoholics where quite well represented at the conference.

    Posted by monaro on 2008 04 19 at 09:35 PM • permalink

  51. #13 Nic,
    I suppose Ba’al would be appropriate; didn’t Cate Blancett just have a baby? 

    #48 Mr. Creosote,
    Didn’t he notice the “artists” there?  Surely some of them must count as alcoholics and druggies, if not homeless.

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 04 19 at 09:39 PM • permalink

  52. #49 -  Michael Lonie.  Coulda been worse.  Coulda been a bass player.  Or the lead singer’s girlfriend on tambourine…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 20 at 02:16 PM • permalink

  53. Richard,
    That’s worse?  I thought drummers had the lowest IQ of all band members, and at least the lead singer’s girlfriend is likely to be pretty, even if she is a drug-addicted groupie.

    Holy Schlemazel, the left has passed into the bizarro world.

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 04 20 at 11:00 PM • permalink

  54. Michael Lonie— What’s the difference between a bass player and a pepperoni pizza?  The pizza can feed a family of four.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 04 21 at 09:48 PM • permalink

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