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Last updated on July 16th, 2017 at 06:03 am
California vs Victoria! Blackwater vs Bracks water! Yes, fight fans, we’ve got ourselves a leftoid paranoia battle between American Crazy Randi Rhodes and Australian challenger Terrified Traceeee Hutchison. Who will claim the title of Dumbest Media Blonde of the Week? Show us what you got, Randi:
I started just doing Google searches to try and figure out. You know, arson, arson, it was like crazy trying to figure out why is that being downplayed? Why is that, you know, just a small part of the story? And you know, every time I look for it what comes up, believe it or not, is that Blackwater wants to move to San Diego and build this giant complex in San Diego right where most of the evacuations are taking place and you know.
Yes. And you know. Now over to Traceeee, who sees all manner of conspiracies emerging in Melbourne:
I’ve been mulling this over for a while. That and the increasingly large freighter ships coming out of China heavily laden with steel made from Australian iron ore. The kind of steel one imagines might be useful in making bloody big warships …
It just made me scratch my head and contemplate what on earth might be going on. And it made me ponder whether all this manoeuvring and attempted fast-tracking of the channel-deepening project had anything at all to do with getting things done within a certain time.
Randi:
It just spooks me, I can’t explain to you how creepy this whole thing is that you know, you’ve got these fires. Some of them are thought to be the work of arsonists and in the same breath you’ve got a community that’s on fire that just recently protested Blackwater West. Just recently said no to Blackwater and apparently you don’t do that.
Traceeee:
And it made me wonder why it looks like state Planning Minister Justin Madden is being pushed into approving the channel-deepening project …
Randi:
I mean, I don’t even know what to think. You know, nobody is saying Blackwater set the fires, that is nobody that doesn’t want their house burned down. Nobody is saying that, but it is all so bizarre that this is America and you have to sort of sit there and wonder …
The pair are almost inseparable at this point, trading blow for paranoid, evidence-free blow. Breaking the “wonder” deadlock, Traceeee now takes things to the next level:
And then it occurred to me that all of it put together had the creeping, yet unmistakable, odour of an unwanted paper mill in the Tamar Valley.
Can Randi match her? Can she counter Traceeee’s perfectly-deployed “and then it occurred to me” delirium? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, she can:
And then you find out that some of the guys that used to work for Blackwater are now in Schwarzenegger’s administration.
It’s all so creepy.
Clear win to Rhodes. Should the contest have gone to a tie-breaker, Randi’s vertebrae-snapping compassionate head tilt would still have seen her over the line.
*PLEDGE WEEK* Now in its final days! Kick in some dollars, Traceeee fans, and let’s see if the decision can be reversed.
UPDATE. Contrail:
A car rear ends another in heavy traffic on Sydney’s Parramatta Road, creating traffic chaos. One of the drivers involved is a small businessman who voted Liberal in 2004. On the other side of the world, in New York City, a dog barks savagely at a man in a dark suit and turquoise tie. The dog might have seen Kevin Rudd the night he went to a strip club because the dog was living in NYC at the time. In Afghanistan, a roadside bomb tears apart a bus, killing all on board. The bus is similar to one used by a mysterious Liberal candidate in a Victorian rural electorate. The candidate knows the local party branch chairman, who knows the state director of the Liberal party who talks regularly to the party’s federal director who in turn has links to the Prime Minister himself.
Is it just me and Traceeee or can others see the pattern?
Randi, there’s a good reason why nobody is saying Blackwater set the fires.
Think about it. Not too hard mind you, your brain might fall into the vortex.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 27 at 10:10 AM • permalink
When Traceeee says she’s been ‘mulling’, I’d be the last one to contradict her.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 10 27 at 10:10 AM • permalink
Traceee, the paper mill in the Tamar Valley is unwanted by who, precisely?
Do these women need sex, or somtheing?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 27 at 10:13 AM • permalink
#4. Wimpy, I reckon that would be a yes to both.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 10 27 at 10:24 AM • permalink
And you know, every time I look for it what comes up, believe it or not, is that Blackwater wants to move to San Diego and build this giant complex in San Diego right where most of the evacuations are taking place and you know.
Too bad for Randi that Google turns out to be available to everybody, because I just did some googling on my own using various combinations of the words “arson”, “California”, “fires”, “San Diego”, and I didn’t notice any reference to Blackwater at all. On the other hand, if you google “arson” and “Blackwater”, you do get some hits: all of them, apparently, stemming from Randi Rhodes’ paranoiac speculation.
Ahhhh . . . the smell of fresh b.s. in the morning . . .
Call me a one eyed jingoistic nationalist if you like but our girl Traceeee is much sillier.
Rhodes story is plain stupid , a million miles from being credible but at least it kind of hangs together in an evil corporate/government conspiracy narrative sense.
Even by the low standards of conspiracy theorists, Traceeee’s story does’nt make any sense.
If Traceeee were writing a JFK conspiracy, at this standard, she would have placed the second gunman on a grassy knoll in Honolulu.
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 10 27 at 10:42 AM • permalink
Not too hard mind you, your brain might fall into the vortex.
What brain, W.C.?
Call me a one eyed jingoistic nationalist if you like
OK, eeniemeenie, you’re a one eyed jingoistic nationalist! ;-P
‘Cuz while Traceeeee is sillier, Randi is clearly nuttier. I have spoken.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 27 at 10:57 AM • permalink
Wake up you fools! Don’t you recognize that this is a vast conspiracy to bring doom to Ozland and the Excited States?I know a cover-up when I smell one.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 10 27 at 11:12 AM • permalink
Speaking of pledge week, I still want to know where to send my inheritance without using PayPal. You have my e-mail address; please use it.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2007 10 27 at 11:21 AM • permalink
Aw, Jaysus, Randi, have another Bloody Mary and sit down…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 10 27 at 11:23 AM • permalink
- Randi must’ve hit her head really hard…
.(OK, so it’s not original, but on the money)Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 10 27 at 11:54 AM • permalink
To be honest, we now know what Randi’s problem is; so what’s Traceeee‘s excuse?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 10 27 at 12:03 PM • permalink
rinardman, does drug assisted dingbattiness count?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 27 at 12:22 PM • permalink
- Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 10 27 at 12:34 PM • permalink
Blackwater is the new Halliburton.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 10 27 at 01:33 PM • permalink
Well, whaddaya know, Ash_. This site tranlsates all that. A screamer is a party lover, a two pot screamer is as you said, a ‘pot’ being a 285 ml glass, whatever a ml is. Anyway, it all makes sense now.
Seppos (just learned that word too) use the word ‘screamer’ to describe women who are, um, enthusiastic during sex.
Remember, my pledge drive never ends. You can always contribute to the cause!
Posted by mythusmage on 2007 10 27 at 02:37 PM • permalink
…whatever a ml is.
It’s a “milliliter”, in the metric system. 285 ml comes to 9.6 US fluid ounces, so “two pots” in Australia is roughly two beers in the US.
And a “two pot screamer” sure can’t hold their booze! Well named, Oz!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 27 at 03:32 PM • permalink
Indeed, #40, Ash_. I visited Fremantle ca. 1985. For all the ‘shouting’ going on, I can’t seem to remember the lingo I learned.
TRJS #41, thanks for the info. You’re no James Taranto (last item):
Vacationing in Jerusalem last week, we went to rent a car. Well, it turns out that Israel is one of the countries that still use the metric system, as we discovered when the young lady at the Hertz office told us that our rental rate included 250 kilometers a day.
“How many miles is that?” we asked.
“I really don’t know,” she said.
Here is someone who has lived all her life in a country that uses the metric system, and she still doesn’t know how far 250 kilometers is! This proves beyond all doubt how confusing the metric system is.
- To: RWDB command
Subject: Operation harpoon a dolphinGiven the searing investigative talents arrayed against us I am seeking advice on whether to proceed with tip-top-ultra-black-need to know only, operation harpoon a dolphin.
Thats the one where we were going to make a giant set of propellers run by whales and dolphins on treadmills to propel Australia out of its territorial waters and bump up against the Californian coast where Blackwater could annex it.
Given that Traceee has rumbled the propeller delivery and now ms Rhodes has found the blackwater links what are we to do?Yours in grovelling obseqiousness , thefrollickingmole.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 10 27 at 06:05 PM • permalink
That contest between the two moronites reminded me of Bulbous Bouffant for some reason.
A car rear ends another in heavy traffic on Sydney’s Parramatta Road, creating traffic chaos. One of the drivers involved is a small businessman who voted Liberal in 2004. On the other side of the world, in New York City, a dog barks savagely at a man in a dark suit and turquoise tie. The dog might have seen Kevin Rudd the night he went to a strip club because the dog was living in NYC at the time. In Afghanistan, a roadside bomb tears apart a bus, killing all on board. The bus is similar to one used by a mysterious Liberal candidate in a Victorian rural electorate. The candidate knows the local party branch chairman, who knows the state director of the Liberal party who talks regularly to the party’s federal director who in turn has links to the Prime Minister himself.
Is it just me and Traceeee or can others see the pattern?
Hey, don’t diss the International System of weights and measures (aka the metric system) or you’ll make the French cry. It is much easier to make calculations in that system than in the English system, since it is based on powers of ten. It was expressly designed for people who require the use of their fingers as an analogue computational instrument in order to successfully calculate when confronted with mathematical problems.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 10 27 at 07:59 PM • permalink
thefrollickingmole—Go to plan B, the ginormous frikkin sails. That way we can say it’s a green solution and they’ll be helpless to stop us.
(Oh, and don’t worry, the sails and their masts will kill hundreds of thousands of birds so we can still pull VRWC cred)
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 10 27 at 08:00 PM • permalink
- Pssst! Reese, I have grave fears that you may have staggered (steamed?) away from Fremantle before you became aware of the traps involved in Oz drinking rules.
My Oz colleagues here seem to be reluctant to enlighten you. No doubt they are planning to take full advantage of your lack of knowledge the next time you visit our fair shores.
When we gather at a bar for a few quiet ones, we often drink in groups.Let’s start with an example group of five sober drinkers.
Someone in the group volunteers to “shout” (pay for) the first “round” of five drinks.
Running tabs is not customary, and the drinks are paid for in cash across the bar as they are poured.
When the fastest drinker approaches the end of his first drink, it’s time for someone to volunteer to shout the second round. The second round must be ready to drink before anybody’s glass is empty.
(It’s the law in Oz that every drink must be served in a fresh glass — no refills. It’s something to do with hygiene, but is probably the quickest way of spreading disease known to science.)
This process is repeated until all five members of the group have shouted, then drinker #1 starts it all over again.
It is a capital offence to leave the premises while you still owe a shout. This is one of the few crimes in Australia where the death penalty still prevails.
This means that, if you join a drinking group of 5, you must drink a minimum of five drinks followed by multiples of five. It’s not possible to have, say, 7 drinks.
You must also be prepared to drink your 5, 10, 15… drinks at the same speed as the fastest drinker in the group.
If it’s time for your shout and there are empty glasses on the bar, all conversation will stop and you will find that all eyes are on you.
The system generally works well but sometimes falls into chaos as the party progresses.
For an autographed copy of my excellent publication, A Survivor’s Guide to Shouting in Oz send me $20 (AUD or USD, there is little difference in value these days) preferably in used bank notes. I guarantee that you will save the cost of this informative book by just reading Chapter 1, The Importance of Timing, Arrivals and Departures, When to volunteer for your first shout.
No disrespect here, Mr. Lonie. I’m a big ‘powers of ten’ fan as a physics guy, but I like to ask for ‘pints’ (and now ‘pots’) over so many ml. Seems there’s this Pom pub owner or bananna dealer got in trouble over this. Screw that!
~~~~
I think Traceeeeeeee wins because of the AUS/USA population handicap. Your per capita moonbattery is on the order of that of California, but California only contains about 1/10 (a deci-) of the US population. Therefore her weighting is higher. Kind of like how Australia’s influence on pop music since Olivia and Garett and all those ‘80s bands was disproportional.
Sorry, not being Australian and all, and having nothing but contempt for the metric system, but I seem to have missed Traceeeee’s logic bus.
Okay, I get the deep channel, the steel for major warships (although I believe the new LHDs are going to be constructed in Spain so somebody better redirect all that steel), the obvious connection to China, but she lost me at the paper mill.
At least Randi tells you up front who’s behind it all.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 10 27 at 08:36 PM • permalink
I love how Traceee is unable to state any opinion straight out without telling us about her thinking process first.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 10 27 at 08:48 PM • permalink
Wow, Skeeter. Parity between AUD and USD? When I was there it was about 2:1 I think. Seems I’ve got a leftover pile of paper and coins here somewhere (let’s see—Pilapina pisos, Singapore bucks, Macau, Hong Kong bucks, Thai bhats, Paki rupees…) A-ha! A 1984 Australian dollar with QEII on one side and ‘roos/wallabies on the other. Worth double what I paid for it. Slow but successful investment. It’s on the way for your guidebook—surely a better investment.
When you down a fifth of vodka before your radio show, who knows what “revelations” will come out of your mouth?
I have it on the good authority of an ex-ABC journalist that one of our high-profile presenters always goes live to air fortified with copious amounts of Scotch. If he anticipates a difficult interview, he increases the amount of fortification. My source claimed that a full bottle was used by the presenter before he interviewed his own boss live on air.
Disclaimer: Nobody should construe from the above that I have disclosed the name of the network or the presenter involved. Interested parties should just carefully watch all presenters on all networks to see if you can work out which one I have written about.
- #72 Reese. Not quite parity but close. It’s been hovering around 90c lately.
I used to visit the USA at a time when an AUD would buy you $1.28 ‘Murrican.
Spent a lot of time in Sears as I stocked up on Craftsman tools to take home to Oz. (Spent even more time and $s in Lefty O’Doul’s bar on Geary).
Kae, do you know what mint-condition GB £1 notes are worth. I have a few left over from the time when I was a traveller in aluminium tubing.
Skeeter: Florida is on Eastern Standard Time except for the westernmost part of the panhandle, which is on Central Time. I’ll fix the italics.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 10 27 at 09:57 PM • permalink
#3 swinishcapitalist, when you ‘mull’ ale, you stick a redhot poker into it. Perhaps Traceeeeee sticks a redhot poker into her nose or ear or some other orifice when she attempts to convince us that she can ‘think’.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 10 27 at 10:03 PM • permalink
Well, at least you hold-out anti-metric Seppos are in good company!
- #84 Yep Reese, that’s the one. 333 Geary.
And Lordy-lordy! according to my internet thingy it’s still there, largely unchanged after all these years.
Just watching the commercial and it looks like even the menu is the same.
There is no frickin way a leftward Australian could out-crazy a left coast American. No way.
You Australians are in the minor leagues of moonbattery compared to our looney tunes.
(wronwright holds a small American flag)
Posted by wronwright on 2007 10 27 at 10:20 PM • permalink
Ummmmm – just back to Traceeee’s article for a while, I wouldn’t “presume” that the hulls will necessarily be loaded onto a bigger ship. How would you get them off without sinking the carrier ship? Why not just tow the bastards to Australia?
Surely some of youse lot would know how these things are actually done?
TFK
TFK, smaller hulls actually can be moved using a carrier that submerges enough to get the hull on the deck. This is how the USS Cole was moved from Yemen to repair docks in the US.
But I don’t think there are a lot of those carriers in service, it’s pretty specialized work, and they ought to be fairly obvious. Maybe the mariners here can elaborate.
Besides, it sounds simpler just to tow the hulls.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 27 at 11:51 PM • permalink
I didn’t want to do this but you’ve forced my hand
If you get through more than one of his articles your a freak.
His artworks are pretty special as well. I was going to set the nob up for ridicule by seeing what he charged for a booking, how he wanted to get here (fist class id assume) etc, but his reply smacked of desperation so I didn’t have the heart to lead him on.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 10 28 at 01:03 AM • permalink
- kae
He got famous off a trial in England for obscenity and it was all downhill from there.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 10 28 at 01:25 AM • permalink
What was the name of that pommie destroyer that crashed onto the rocks down this way a few years ago? It had to be taken home on a floating dock. There must be a few of them around. I’m sure one can be booked now, given that the hulls won’t be ready for about 3 years from now.
As for using lots of steel in the building of a warship, I thought they were mostly aluminium these days (or aluminum for our yank friends). Maybe a swabbie can enlighten us on this?
Does anyone know the size of the largest container ship that will currently fit into Melbourne? I looked a bunch up yesterday, and they draw 14-17m of water, whereas the new LHDs have a draught of 7m.
I think Traceeeeeeeeeee has NFI about how small these things are in comparison to a bulk carrier or a container ship.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 10 28 at 02:21 AM • permalink
When you’ve scrapped through the bottom of the barrel there’s always the earth beneath.
IOW, when you’ve run out of wood, the barrel is empty.
Posted by mythusmage on 2007 10 28 at 02:28 AM • permalink
#99 – I’d bet on the hulls being towed, they’re much larger than typical loads carried by a flo/flo (float on/float off) heavy lift ship.
As for steel vs. aluminum, the latter was in vogue during the ‘60s and ‘70s for superstructures due to weight considerations, but after the Falklands War many navies reevaluated it and returned to steel for all major structural components. The USN never built hulls from the lighter metal, although I believe the RN’s Amazon class frigates were all aluminum.
The LHA that was my first ship in the USN (very like the new LHDs but somewhat larger) was steel from keel to flight deck, and the island was aluminum. She was designed in the mid ‘70s when aluminum was still cool. The successor ships in the USN are all steel – and incidentally the islands are lower and skinnier to keep down weight.
Incidentally, concerning the spelling – Humphrey Davy first identified the metal in 1808 and named it “aluminum.” But nooooo, that wasn’t good enough for you guys, oh no, it didn’t sound pompous and prissy enough so it had to be “aluminium.” Just like you guys have to say “aeroplanes.” Which sounds funny when spoken in a John Cleese voice but otherwise is just lame.
But hey, you guys all had to get all sloppy with the French and go metric. I swear, you’re all like “Oh thank you, Mister French guy, for inventing this new system! Now we can join the Efrickin’U and be like all the other Euro-wienies!”
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 10 28 at 07:33 AM • permalink
- Posted by carpefraise on 2007 10 28 at 09:08 AM • permalink
Yeah, that’s right Ozzies! We bad! Stupidest shit, right here in the U!S!A! baby! USA!