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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 07:20 am
Australian readers: please enjoy this call against South African spinner Johan Botha, which was kind of obvious to all of us within two minutes.
American readers: please enjoy picking apart the inaccuracies and assumptions in this piece by US-based Australian correspondent Michael Gawenda.
Male readers: please enjoy these Australian arguments in favour of global warming.
Female readers: please enjoy exchanging in comments your own links that would encourage global warming, because, hey, I’m a guy, you know? I cannot search for these images.
- A rickety wire fence between the US and Mexico is all the Mexicans can afford.Posted by rhhardin on 01/06 at 11:39 AM • permalink
- Gawenda’s serial idiocies continue to be entertaining. The is nothing like bad Trend Reporting, and here it seems Gawenda has really reached new lows. He finds a seemingly not-terribly-employed screenwriter and a couple of other marginals and tinfoilers with very specific, oddball gripes, and from this miniscule sample of cranks somehow divines broad American dissatisfaction with the policies o’ Chimpy W.
The fact is that many Americans who do strongly support Bush (based largely on his genuinely revolutionary foreign policy) still oppose some elements of his domestic agenda. That’s just natural. Though I abhor Bush’s lawyer-bashing, voted against him in 2000, and deplore his having taken a very weak stance on the evil euphemistically referred to stateside as “affirmative action”, I still believe him to be the greatest US president of my lifetime, which stretches back to the Ike administration. The effusions of Unemployed Actors, guys who think the Rotary Club and the Illuminati are really running the show on the Potomac, and other silly one-noters are just not that meaningful, and certainly not to be extrapolated from to demonstrate broad consensus.
Put another way, “It’s The Metonymy, Stupid.”
Posted by VegemiteLovinSeppo on 01/06 at 11:53 AM • permalink
- Michael Gawenda scours America, and finds 100% opposition to George Bush.
C’mon, he found THREE people in Arizona who had something critical to say? There have to be at least four; why’d he leave the other fellow out? “Bush swore allegiance to the Goldwater creed”. That’s right. In a secret ceremony, featuring a small group of elders wearing funny hats. I believe a chicken was sacrificed. And all of us, across this greeeaaat country, wringing our hands about why we are “unloved” by the rest of the world. I got news for ya, Michael: America’s too busy trying to keep the rest of the world from blowing itself, and us, up to worry about the absence of warm fuzzies.
- Michael Gawenda? Wasn’t he one of the actors in Brokeback Nation?
Three cheers for the Australian Burqa, a.k.a. the thong!
Posted by Mystery Meat on 01/06 at 12:11 PM • permalink
- Perhaps Mr. Gawenda should acquaint himself with the writings of Walt Whitman. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”Posted by Beachcomber on 01/06 at 12:22 PM • permalink
- Saw Botha in action last night (UK time) for the first time, and first impressions were: he’s just like Murali.
Joke likely to be lost on American readers:
Q: What is the difference between Sth African spinner Johan Botha and the Duchess of Cornwall.
A: Camilla Parker Bowles.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 01/06 at 12:27 PM • permalink
- Page 1 of a Gawenda, shame on him. Click to page 2, shame on me.Posted by chinesearithmetic on 01/06 at 12:52 PM • permalink
- OK, from page 1:
“the flow of illegal immigrants, mostly poor Mexicans in search of the American Dream.”
Sure, if the American dream is “work in America, live in Mexico, send your money back to Mexico, never learn English, never assimilate.”
“the Minutemen movement’s demand for a 3500-kilometre wall to separate them is an absurd pipedream”
Because it is utterly beyond the capabilities of the US of freakin’ A to build a long wall. Go from a tiny constabulary army with no tanks to arsenal of democracy in a year? Easy. Split the atom? Of course. Land on the moon? Sure. But build a really long wall?
- Gawenda’s idiocy knows no restraint since Katrina, thus making him a perfect follow-up US correspondent to the equally imbecilic Alison Bronowski – she who carries her own copy of the Helen Caldicott gene for left-wing insanity.
Gawenda’s reporting says reams about hid stewardship of The garbAge when he was editor. 1997 must have been the last time you could pick it up and expect to see facts in it.
- I still believe him to be the greatest US president of my lifetime
Don’t think so.
Nixon had to fight a real war and Reagan had to change the perceptions of a left wing world.Bush is good but his challenges are not as epic as some other presidents.
Posted by Go Canucks on 01/06 at 01:44 PM • permalink
- Hmmm.
I must say that I heartily approve of global warming now. Excuse me while I go build a big-ass bonfire to emit even more carbon into the atmosphere.
As an aside; the next time a young guy complains about his life I’m going to give him a right hard ding in the ear. When I was a young guy girls didn’t wear this stuff.
- Speaking of sports, congrates to the Gold Medal win of the Junior Canucks.Posted by Go Canucks on 01/06 at 01:49 PM • permalink
- Actually, I didn’t see Gawenda’s article as all that bad. I’m sure there was some self-selecting going on, but most of the article seemed reasonable. There are fiscal conservatives disappointed in Bush. There are religious conservatives disappointed in Bush. There are Kinkadeites who pine for and idealize a rosy past that never really existed (would you like to re-create a time of segregation, of silence about sexual abuse, of marginalization of women)? Gawenda’s silliness is in thinking this is somehow novel. Change the names of the president and the groups, and you could plug this into any president’s second term.
- When I read that articles description of the party on the border, I half expected him to talk about a local businessman setting up a gun-fight contest and hauling in a local priest who used to run with his gang to participate in the contest…
Im angry with Bush about domestic policies as well, but I also know he is not the sole bearer of the idiocy – John McCain comes to mind – but I’m a Broken Glass Republican. Guess Gawenda doesnt think we exist anymore.
Posted by S Ferguson on 01/06 at 02:55 PM • permalink
- I agree with Dave S……the article is not that bad. But Gawenda tries to paint a picture of people stampeding from the Rethuglicans and King George. And that’s simply not the case, regardless of what Mikey wants to believe.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 01/06 at 03:03 PM • permalink
- #15 I have a strong suspicion that when we were young, girls carried handkerchiefs with more material.Posted by Pat Patterson on 01/06 at 03:07 PM • permalink
- I’ve been to Tombstone. Three times. It’s basically a very small amusement park, with a small residential area attached, out in the middle of the desert. Anybody who goes there thinking to make his fortune is stupid. Anybody who stays there on the same quest is a complete moron.
That said, Gawenda’s article is standard tripe. Can you go to any town in America and find people who disagree with President Bush on something? Sure, especially if that’s all you’re looking for. The only accurate picture the article paints is Gawenda as a biased hack.
- I tried to read the Gawenda article; I really did.
But I was completely floored by the fact that Gawenda saw nothing notable about the fact that the country/western band was playing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”
There is no doubt in my mind that the country band was, in fact, playing Motown hits – country music right now borrows from all popular music (Kid Rock, Elton John, and Jimmy Buffet all appear on my local country station, and Johnny Cash covered Nine Inch Nails.)
But don’t you think he would have considered it noteworthy?
- Go Canucks sez:
Nixon had to fight a real war and Reagan had to change the perceptions of a left wing world.
Bush is good but his challenges are not as epic as some other presidents.
Nixon, great in many ways, nonetheless stupidly let Kissinger play to his paranoia about leaks when Ellsberg gave the Penatgon Papers to the New Duranty Times. In fact Nixon should have given the damned things to Abe Rosenthal himself; they made the Dems (JFK and LBJ) look bad. This led right down the slippery slope to Watergate, and its ugly stepchildren, the Pike and Church commissions, which defanged the CIA and FBI.
Reagan let his left wing manipulate him into pulling the Marines out of Lebanon a few months after the barracks bombing. Lebanon, already suffering for too long at the hands of the PLO, was thus given over to the tender mercies of the marvelous Assad family for two decades. I cannot imagine Bush acting in similar fashion.
Hell, I can’t imagine *Brian Mulroney* acting in similar fashion.Posted by VegemiteLovinSeppo on 01/06 at 04:46 PM • permalink
- Yes, Michael Gawenda is correct, the euphoria has ended about the prospect of hot chicks roaming around in skimpy bikinis due to global warming/cooling when the thought of Margo, Helen Thomas, MoDo, Ted Kennedy etc. roaming around also.
One fact Michael does get wrong though: I can tell you that everyone I know wouldn’t be caught dead in a teensy-weensy 10 gallon hat. Even the most frugal American wears nothing less than a 30 gallon hat (it’s more wasteful!!!) these days.
Looking back at my top post I may have confused two of the links with one another.
- The problem with the article is that Gawenda leaves out 50% of the information. He quotes a liberal professor but doesn’t mention that the professors his wife is part of the democrat machine in Kansas, Gawenda mentions that while driving he listened to the #1 radio talker in the state, he forgot to mention that the talker is #1 in the 11am to 1pm time slot for sports talk.
What else did he forget to tell us?
- There are several journalists whose writing I have difficulty reading, including Gawenda. David Marr I don’t even bother to try, he’s in the same category as Bob Ellis just not so crazy as far as I am concerned.
As for the global warming link, thanks Tim. My missus was already wondering why I spend so much time on this site. Walking in to see me ogling bum floss first thing Saturday morning just confirmed her suspicions.
Have to say I now fully support global warming.
And re Botha, Muralli was the first thing that came to my mind when I watched him in slow motion yesterday. They both chuck.
Finally, would it be possible to have Peter Roebuck’s Australian passport cancelled and throw the prick out post haste?
- Lots of people on the border _are_ pissed off about the illegals, and blame Bush for it. I don’t blame them.
Most of the article is silly, though. Americans, worried about not being loved? Unless he was talking only to bed-wetting lefties (a distinct possiblity) the most common reaction would be a shrug.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 01/06 at 08:06 PM • permalink
- #31 Oh yeah big time on Brendan Fraser.
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 01/06 at 08:46 PM • permalink
- The conumdrum for Michael Gawenda would have been if the band had been playing Soldier Boy, also a hit for the Shirelles. Further proof of the militaristic impulse among unemployed rednecks?Posted by Pat Patterson on 01/06 at 09:05 PM • permalink
- This quote from Gawenda strikes me as an outright lie:
Has Bush, a born again Christian, delivered what he promised evangelical supporters – a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, support for “family friendly” initiatives, and a Supreme Court that would overturn the 1973 Roe versus Wade pro-choice ruling on abortion?
When did Bush ever promise anyone “a Supreme Court that would overturn the 1973 Roe versus Wade pro-choice ruling on abortion”? Or even “a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage”?
Particularly the Roe v Wade claim seems to me like the fevered product of Gawenda’s “creative” imagination. He “knows” George Bush thinks that way and he “knows” that religious conservatives expect it of him (maybe he researched this by speaking to 3 losers in a bar or something). So the “promise” is all unspoken, nod-nod-wink-wink stuff obviously apparent to superior analytic minds like Gawenda’s. It’s not like Bush has to explicitly say it or anything!
This is what The Age thinks is piercing analyitc journalism. But it’s what you and I call totally made-up bullshit in service of an unshakable pre-conceived political agenda. Gawenda is a grubby, lying bastard.
Can anyone prove me wrong? Did I miss GWB announcing on the “Hour of Power” that he was out to get Roe v Wade, while the audience dissolved in shouts of “praise the Lord!”???
- Because it is utterly beyond the capabilities of the US of freakin’ A to build a long wall.
Hey, if the Chinese could build a big wall 2000 years ago, well we by God can today! ‘Cause, you know, we’ve got lots of Chinese immigrants.
Three cheers for the Australian Burqa
Now THAT is freakin brilliant .. the Australian Burqa…
- Perusing today’s Australian, Ice cores show warming ‘natural’, and also (opposite to this perhaps) is Climate fund’s $100M kick start.
OT I read in the Courier Mail that Sophie Heathcote, who played Biddy Marchant in the first ABC series of Grass Roots died suddenly in the US of an aneurism. She was also suffering from skiin cancer and pancreatic cancer (melanoma which metastised?). She graduated from NIDA (National Institute for Dramatic Art) in 1974, more info biographical info here.
Sophie and her husband set up an annual fundraising event which brings in $500,000 annually for the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital after they assisted her first child, Madeline, recover from respiratory problems after her birth. Sophie is survived by her husband, Chris Clarke, daughter and 16 month old son. Sophie was 33 years old.
- Kae
Your link to the Australian article shows at least that the Australian seems to be taking a balanced approach to AGW unlike the SMH and its Fairfax press stable mates.
Bob is good value and worth listening to if you ever get the opportunity. I listened to one of his presentations
in Sydney last year at an AIE meeting and he makes so much sense. The earth’s climate has always varied and the variations can be explained in terms of the suns activity and the way in which the earth’s orbit and axis vary around the sun. Beyond that, as has been pointed out by others, the contribution from human activities to greenhouse gases is less that 0.25% in any year but that doesn’t deter the AGWists. They seem now to have reached some sort of crescendo Gough style of Maintain the Rage. (That’s apt 30 years on – hmmm – I wonder how they’ll be 30 years time)It’s all quite funny really – talk about the Emperor’s new suit of clothes … anyway I do like the bikinis – they are definitely hot.
And I didn’t take much notice of Botha when I was watching the cricket yesterday. I suppose I was too interested in our batsmen and all those runs.
- “Go Canucks” said:
“Nixon had to fight a real war”
Oh, like I’m going to listen to a Canadian on what constitutes a real war.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 01/06 at 11:50 PM • permalink
- My sister is a hardcore Bush supporter and has been since 1998. If the idiotboy had come to her small town (pop. 260) he would have gotten an earful from people unhappy with Bush who are not about to vote for any lefties in 2006 or 2008. They don’t like or agree with everything Bush does, but they sure as hell know the difference between him and Kerry, say. He evidently doesn’t understand that modern conservatives recognize that they can’t have everything. Unlike lefties, they don’t throw you out of the church for disagreements.
As the “progressives” get more and more insistent that everyone toe the party line they also get a smaller and smaller voter base. Wonder if they’ll ever notice? Probably not. They still think their only problem is that the stupid voters aren’t ‘hearing’ their message, so they need to shout it louder.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 01/07 at 12:28 AM • permalink
Even the most frugal American wears nothing less than a 30 gallon hat (it’s more wasteful!!!) these days.
Make that a 30-gallon hat with hemi and straight pipes, and you got a sale.
Oh, and a nice feather band. From endangered Amazon parrots.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 01/07 at 01:21 AM • permalink
- Andrea you must be too young to remember the early 70’s.
I had 2 uncles that went on a European jaunt though Sicily, Italy, and the Scheldt in the 40’s.
They said it was hell.
Posted by Go Canucks on 01/07 at 04:54 AM • permalink
- #26 Donnah, I did not realize that about the Shirelles.
Where We Both Say Goodbye, Elton John’s duet with Catherine Britt, was getting airplay on WKHX 101.5 in Atlanta, when last I listened to country. I like the song, but Elton drifts in and out of accent, which can be distracting.
Elton John’s Turn Out the Lights When You Leave, he apparently did as a duet with Dolly Parton for the CMA’s. I haven’t listened to it, but the Peachtree Road album may have some of a countrier feel to it. As I understand it, the album is supposed to be reflections of Atlanta. He’s something of a local boy here, you know. LOL!
(I listen exclusively to Christmas music after Thanksgiving, and the kids and I are listening to books-on-CD in the car right now, so it has been about six weeks since I’ve listened to country.)
- I’m not a Shirelles expert, VKI. I just know the song was Goffin/King and that tunes from the Brill building didn’t go to Motown. It was all in-house from start to finish.
Sorry to hear about WKHX sinking so low. I hope he doesn’t turn up on my local KISS Country. It’s the only one in this market and the cassettes in my car are in pretty bad shape.
- So Gawenda talked to an unemployed knifethrower in the Bar of Country Stereotypes; a hotel worker who can parrot the liberal party line word for word; and a couple of bumptious Fundies (Old Monkeyboy is an Evangelist, which is not fundie) and decides Americans hate Bush?
And that we trouble ourselves in the least with World Opinion? Hell, my African-American Democrat colleagues will tell you, in chorus, that they don’t give a flying fuck about what “the world” thinks. (And ever since it’s become obvious Bush isn’t going to reinstate slavery, they don’t mind him so much anymore, either.)
Also, the majority of Americans are pro-choice with CAVEATS such as not in the last term or two; not without parental consent, etc. Liberals always forget those bits.
When is Gawenda actually going to visit the US, does anyone know?
- Re: Botha – that whole sport gives new meaning to the word ‘arcane’! (And #7 – I get it. But if I’m going to watch a sport with incomprehensible rules, I’ll stick with Australian Football.) “Silly mid-off” – what’s that, a new fashion trend?
Re: Gawenda – at least he’s not in the U.S. There. I’ve exhausted my supply of nice things to say about him.
Posted by scott crawford on 01/07 at 06:04 PM • permalink
- Whoops:
…US-based Australian correspondent Michael Gawenda.
He is in the United States? Rats, there goes the supply…
Posted by scott crawford on 01/07 at 06:22 PM • permalink
- I much prefer Blairs travel commentary about the USA to this Gawenda guy. This even though his description of my hometown was based on a rather narrow sample.
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