Here in Australia the intellectual depth and moral caliber of the fans of big-government handouts is on display. This is a world where your intellect and popularity is measured in how much you hate Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt.
The witless debate ensues, aka the March-in-March protest this weekend: “How much money should we take; you’re a racist, homophobic, corporate a** _______.” Last week a thrash band mock-beheaded Tony Abbott with jets of squirting blood for entertainment. It’s base, it’s barbarian, it’s childish and extreme. Enough.
Last week the ABC wallowed in rants, namcalling and false claims about Andrew Bolt. He who argues we should not judge people by their race, gets called a racist. Tonight the ABC finally agree to “clarify” the claims. (Why not just apologize?) Today, surprise, the ABC finds space for 43 protest photos, but omits the ones that show the depraved nature of some of the protestors. It’s not reporting, it’s propaganda. Privatize it.
Placards from the March in March protest and the “beheading” band.
After Bolt was subjected to abuse he wondered if he should give up. I was struck that what he and what Tony Abbott need are not voices just urging them on, but people willing to do something. Civilization depends on people being civil. It’s not enough to stand by and just cheer on those who fight for logic, decency, and reason. It’s time to speak up against the bullies; to write letters to editors, journalist-activists and politicians. To demand that something be done about the ABC. You may think one voice doesn’t matter. But bullies follow the herd, and they need to know the grownups outnumber them and they are not impressed.
Another Canberra woman, November, said she was upset about too many things to list. When asked what she wanted to achieve, she said, “I want to see Tony Abbott lynched.”— Canberra Times
Yes, both sides of politics have some bad placards, ones that lower the tone and that I’d never hold (see below). But the worst of the last five years is nothing like the depravity and repeated threats to kill.
The worst of anti-Gillard flak: Bad taste, unstatesmanlike, unnecessary.
See also Tim Blair’s approach: “What committees should be added to the March in March? 1. Committee for big giant puppet heads, 2. Committee for non-numeral chants… Committee for downplaying obscene and violent placards….”
- I have an email list here…for Australian Parliamentary Representatives. Incomplete.
Jo,
Unrest is happening worldwide due to the corporate trade and banking systems entanglement to shear profit at the expense of the 99% losing currency buying power.
448
No, its not the banksters, or any of the usual suspects. The unrest is actually caused by high technology.
High tech, and the power of automation, is raising the minimum skill level required to be able to do something economically valuable.
These protestors are largely the people left behind.
And its going to get worse.
Prostitution may have been the first profession, but software developers like me will be the last. Because when they don’t need us anymore, they won’t need anyone.
310
Actually, it is far more than automation.
But you are correct that it WILL be getting far worse.
You have the collusion of governments allowing corporations and banks to run whatever scam they can possibly conceive to keep their profit margins as high as possible. Workers are an expense on the balance sheets and there is a fantastic amount of collusion between the banking community to have those “record profits”. GDP was ONLY suppose to be a banks health but governments use it for economic growth.
726
I can see you have never worked in the private sector because your comments are so outrageous you must live in a parallel world.. You seem to believe the garbage spread about companies and the way they operate and probably espouse the destruction of capitalism, the very system which gave you the tools you now use to write on this blog. ‘Workers are an expense on the balance sheet’. Workers are actually an expense in the profit and loss accounts (expenses) although their superannuation payments are accrued on the B/S until they get paid to their nominated super account. Employment expenses are an expense like any other and need to be managed appropriately to ensure compliance with relevant laws/regulations and to deliver productivity and profitability so that investors can be re-paid, more people can be gainfully employed and so that the company can invest and grow. Company directors are subject to some of the most draconian laws and a personally liable in many cases for mistakes. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a measure of the health of a country’s economy and is a value of all of the Goods & Services in that economy. Your comments display your absolute ignorance of all things financial.
381
Eric, far be it for me to proffer an opinion in this subject, so I don’t and instead offer this: software is being used to write software
How much time did you say you might have ?
60
Manfred – software was being used to write software and there were articles about the end of the software profession… back in 1982.
Can’t see it happening, especially for more specialised fields.
80
Tongue in cheek Wally. I know, I know. A touch of levity.
Is there a tongue in cheek sign?
10
I believe I’ve seen -) used for tongue-in-cheek.
00
Not long. Within many of our lifetimes, it will all come to pass.
The story of how the DARPA Grand Challenge was won is intriguing.
DARPA Grand Challenge was an effort to reduce the casualties suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, from roadside bombs. The idea was, if the driver was a robot, nobody gives a sh*t if terrorists blow up a truck, so long as no soldiers die.
The story goes, the guy who came second built a traditional rules based artificial intelligence. He and his team worked long hours to think up every possible rule which governed good driving. What is remarkable is they succeeded – after countless hours tuning, tweaking, rebuilding, they built an AI which could drive a car – well enough to come second.
But the guy who came first was the really freaky story, IMO. He built a neural network – a learning machine, which tries to replicate the way the human brain works. He gave that learning machine a simple mission – to learn how to drive the way he did. For several weeks, he bashed his car around the desert, while the artificial intelligence learned and grew, and slowly the neural network began to mimic his driving responses. Then finally, when the AI’s driving responses were the same as the humans, the human took his hands off the wheel.
50
Sorry, but I really can’t agree with that (I know quite a little bit about software, too, as it happens). We saw exactly the same kinds of “protests” in the UK, just as soon as the labour party was out of power in 2010, having inflicted damage on the country unparalleled since the time of the luftwaffe. Australia seems to have the same kind of rent-a-rant lefties as the UK does, who just can’t stomach the idea of being in opposition. Also, Britain has a lot in common with Australia in terms of the institutional bias of the state-owned broadcaster, which is quite happy to try to subvert the elected government. The people who have demonstrated in London almost incessantly since 2010 were nowhere to be seen while Gordon Brown was in Number Ten, operating his metaphorical wrecking-ball.
The situation in the US, where Obama, easily the worst president since Buchanan (at least), gets a completely free ride from the media, is actually analogous to what is going on in Australia and the UK, because Obama-groupies, with their absolute contempt for the United States’ Constitution, are only too happy to use blatantly illegal methods to gain and maintain power (except for the kind of power that comes out of power stations, of course).
330
Owen, I’d be of the mind that a lot of our “rent-a-rant lefties” are actually displaced twits, or the offspring, from the UK … the unions are a good place to start looking.
60
That’s certainly true of “Julia”. My father came from South Wales, too, but he didn’t have the same bizarre accent as Gillard did. I met an Australian lady in Shetland, who assured me that Jeeeelia’s speech sounded just as bizarre to Australian ears as it did to British ones.
50
For some reason the left side of Australian politics produces people in so much of a hurry to climb the political ladder that they can’t take the time to communicate clearly:
Albanese – Ostrayah
Shorten – Wif or wifout
Gillard – Hyper-bowl
Thompson – *No example because it wasn’t him
40
Thomson – Boy, that was good, how much do I owe you?
10
To the vast majority of reasonable voters it would simply seem to be a matter of their team losing the election because they weren’t good enough.
To minority of voters in the ultra-left it’s always the war against an ideology that isn’t their own and it is frustrating for them when they just can’t exert their beliefs on everybody else.
These are the same people that preach tolerance and transparency until they don’t get what they want, and they want it NOW.
30
It is a repeat of the changes to society and job losses and new jobs created as the Age of Agriculture moved into the Industrial Age, and now since the late 1990s the Information Technology Age there are new changes taking place with new opportunities emerging.
Here in Australia people have not been well informed, in fact many were misled by deceptive Union Labor movement advertising during 2006/07 against the industrial reform legislation called Work Choices which, some changes needed maybe, was an economic reform for the future ahead.
Younger people should read the book written about the changes taking place that was published in the late 1990s and written by two British stockbrokers: The Sovereign Individual, the end to welfare states, how to survive and prosper.
40
I add that a sovereign individual is a self-employed contractor, as the IT Age progresses employees with award wages and conditions are disappearing, and for very good reasons.
10
They need to make robots and computers that consume stuff or there soon will be no consumption?
01
Eric,
I have been involved in Technology so far back that I remember cleaning valves.
My early Assembler experience was with a soldering iron.
Logic referred to the bread board actually working.
Debug is what you removed from previously working circuits. Although sometimes it was De Mouse, or whatever else crawled into the box.
Insects and small rodents are actually quite moist when they come into contact with a 5 volt rail.
As for code that writes code, it’s called C. Or for those in the know, a very obscure way to write Assembler or Machine code with a lot of logic assumptions.
All Hollywood and Science fiction nonsense aside, these derelicts and misfits are not left behind by anything, except by their own choice.
Sadly, if it’s one thing I know about technology, it’s the assumption that a stupid machine, doing stupid things, very quickly, looks smart.
A human doing the same stupid things, very fast, would still be criticised for doing exactly that.
As for the result, GIGO (Garbage In; Garbage Out) is still the rule of the day.
The mythical man month aside, some people can still make things work, others, just make work.
No program is error free, no coding system can ever produce ‘pristine’ code. It’s simply mathematically impossible.
The Universe itself is built on Chaos.
Chaos tends to be the order of the Universe. Chaos sadly works, except of course, when it becomes chaotic.
Machines will ever be built by mankind. Mankind is always fallible. The result can often be chaotic.
As for having invented everything and having reached the peak of society’s ability to output new discoveries and Technology, it matters little if we refer to alleged statements by Ecclesiastes or in more modern sense, Charles H. Duell, the Commissioner of the US patent office in 1899, or at the turn of the century, Lord Kelvin.
This is the man who dismissed a great deal of technology, sight unseen, including being the author of the alleged statement, ‘Everything that can be Invented has been Invented’.
I hate to break it to you, but I still can’t find a lot of reliable staff, much less, good tradies.
This problem seems to have been around since the age of the Romans. While times change, sadly, the problems don’t.
Rome had their poor, their beggars and the their brigands. So do we.
I also hate to break it to you, but somehow, I think we aren’t going to do away with unskilled or semi skilled labour, any time soon.
Be it a bricklayers labour, a cook or a Programmers tool maker, once their any good, their gone.
Then it’s back to finding another apprentice.
Somehow, I think this problem may well be here a thousand years from now. Replete with not being able to find a good Tech. when you need one.
20
You could be right – certainly there are problems which haven’t been solved. Some of them may prove unsolvable.
But I have seen – I have built artificial intelligences, which had no knowledge of their environment, and watched them grow and quest for a solution to their problems. There is something eerie about watching them wriggle towards a solution – more like watching a tree grow, roots questing for water, leaves striving for the sky, than a traditional, predictable software experience.
The artificial insects of today will be tomorrow’s artificial mice. Then a few years later artificial beings with dog like intelligence. Then after that – who knows.
10
I recall there was a system developed that would, according to advertising, do away with the need for programmers and allow managers to create their systems themselves. It was called COBOL.
10
So why on earth are governments around the world RAISING the age of retirement? Hence raising youth unemployment.
10
Let’s add lefty socialist governments desperate to cling onto power pandering to minorities that want their fair share as well everyone else’s to balance the injustice done to them when reasonable people in a healthy economy question why their hard earned money paid in taxes is squandered on fraudulent Green Scams or the biased education of placard waving democracy haters advocating a busted arse philosophy of “enlightenment through regression”.
140
Ignorant person.
00
Jo
The threats, insults and language tell us all we need to know about the people who use them.
They tell us nothing about the subjects of this abuse.
Cheers,
Speedy
540
Well I notice that spelling is not in their skill set …
Also, I am surprised that so many of them find Tony Abbott attractive enought that they publically declare that they want to have sex with him …
170
… and a lot of them are guys, too ! …. ???????
30
unrequited luv ?
feelings of rejection ?
30
Things have changed. Young people in schools and unis are now bombarded with propaganda. Often disguised and subliminal; sometimes blatant. It comes through social media and Google via professional trolls and PR companies – also through press, radio and TV. Even video games.
The young loony-lefties are naive enough to buy the stuff they’re fed and need a cause to follow. Some knuckle-draggers then go bananas with a flood of testosterone needing an outlet(and that includes some feral – females.)
I propose we add a new curriculum to schools and unis: Propaganda Awareness Studies.
40
Pissants!
A soap filled mortar would sort them out.
200
Seriously, I doubt the people holding the placards are truly representative of the majority of protesters. There will always be crazies at protests and the organisers have no way to prevent such.
I participated and addressed a rally in Brisbane the same day as the Canberra No Carbon Tax rally and there was a Ditch the Witch placard being held up by an aged lady. There was no way we could prevent the placard from being displayed. Lessons were learnt.
At the Convoy of No Confidence rally there was one so called offensive placard and the person displaying such was quietly reasoned with and the placard disappeared.
In defence of the March organisers, they attempted to keep it civil but were overwhelmed. Know the feeling, same happened to the convoyers when six bus loads of Jones supporters turned up and changed the flavour of the protest.
Furthermore, the March protest yesterday was not representative of the opposition or the left, evidenced by the lack of Labor/Greens members addressing the rally.
Finally, being a libertarian, these people are free to display their foolishness and media coverage of such should be encouraged. In no way are these people representative of society and to suggest a breakdown is over emotive.
I must add, reviewing those images, might have to load some shampoo into the mortar.
111
Here is a classic example of a protest getting out of control.
Parliament House riot, 1996.
A lot more disturbing than the pissant display of the March protest.
23
Yep, feeling the pain. As a student teacher I’m constantly bombarded with this sort of hate from fellow students, curriculum that holds anything right wing in contempt and lecturers inappropriate cynical comments. Sad really.
620
This is a blatant attempt to treat children like Pavlov’s dogs. Nobody is going to feel ashamed for these lame protests. They are meant to tie up the feeling of revolution with hearing or seeing ‘Tony Abbott’. ‘Liberal’ etc. It makes no difference if you can see through it. The only successful teachers will be those who play along with it.
I notice the fat Simpsons character under ‘Worst PM ever’. The morning show had a picture of TA in red budgie smugglers shown to Katie Perry that was expanded to make him look fat. Like I said before, you have no idea how low these people can go, and how often. Shame will not stop them.
350
I generally try to find the best in people. However recently UI have come across this 70 year old woman who is probably the most evil person I have ever met – just plain nasty and you cant reason with her. Dont get me wrong – I dont hate her, but pplying common sense I just wont go near her.
I also find we are having as a society a break down in morality. I say this as abortions and all new sorts of perverse “normality” is being pedalled by the amoral media and the left wing fruitcakes who call black, white and call good, bad.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ( Isaiah 5:20 )
What youa re seeing in the protests is the rabid tip of the iceberg, but indicative of the deeper probelms in society. Normally the thugs of the left wing are sort of restrained publically, but for it to get to this point ( admitedly its only a few ) and not be publically condemned is a bad thing. When you have the media supportiong all sorts of bad things, its an indication that society is basically being moulded to become supportive of it. When people dont speak up, they effectively condone it.
When you lie down with dogs you get fleas.
Perhaps this sounds harsh, but horse sense seems to be in short supply these days. When the left get hold of kids and brainwash them into the inept uselessness of the left wing, and try to harness the distemper of the communist hard core thought and attempt to infuse it through society, we have to stand double hard against them, or they will capture and rot our childrens minds with hate and bile and unforgiveness.
194
Sorry, stopped reading at “rabid tip of the iceberg”. Did you paint the placards, too?
112
Amen to that
00
I read a post recently written by the mother of a university student here who brought home pictures of lefty material mounted on walls around campus covering all kinds of far-left garbage, brainwashing materials. She is very angry about taxpayer funded in part universities tolerating this.
100
The ABC is a “left wing propaganda machine” – and how much do us Aussie tax payers fork out annually to prop it up? Well ~ A$1.2 billion – seems like a good time to privatise our beloved “Auntie” – we tax payers will get the proceeds of the sale and get a “socialist monkey” off our back, which makes sense give that 2/3rds of Aussie voters these days are not “left wing”.
720
It never fails to amaze me how hard and noisily the socially narcotized suck on the state nipple and deny sucking at all. Unearned equality, positive discrimation and state largesse are progressive birth rights are they not? Woe betide any counter suggestion.
What appears to have become increasingly obvious is that:
In peddling fear and catastrophe, the MSM generally, and perhaps the ABC in particular injure civil society, something they will of course vehemently deny in their hackneyed vacuous plea, ‘don’t shoot the messenger‘.
They seem like neophyte witches, excitedly stirring a bubbling cauldron of state funded sorcery. Little do they realise that they have of course unintelligently aided and abetted their own demise.
200
Manfred, in peddling fear and catastrophe, the ABC is only singing form H.L.Mencken’s old song sheet-” The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [ and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
90
Identify the problem, create the fear, provide the solution — as old as the squeaking cogs of time……yes indeed, only this time, never have so many so much to lose at the hands of so few.
40
Slightly off topic … apologies, but I thought it worth noting that the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre has officially jumped the shark:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/world/a/22022517/civilisation-could-collapse-within-decades-study/
They can now be added to the list of Malthus-Club of Rome-Peak Oilies-Erhlich and other economic catastrophists. BTW for good measure the US NSF was involved too. This is basically a re-heated corpse of the Club of Rome modelling from the 60s by the looks of it. I think they assume that people haven’t been around long enough to know how laughably pathetic the CoR effort was and hope to befuddle a new generation. I start to understand the depth of my father’s cynicism about these catastrophists while he was still around – I feel like I am seeing this garbage on an endless loop spanning a decade or two.
Save us from idiots that think forecasting models are meaningful*.
* Those that know a little more about me know that I spend most days dealing with economic forecasting models. I know from first-hand experience how dodgy they are. I need a better word than dodgy to be honest.
120
I note that again, the “solution” is to take from the producers and give to the non-producers (wealth redistribution) while driving everyone into fuel poverty with useless wind plants and solar panels (until the current batch runs out, since it takes a ton of energy to produce the panels and turbines). Then we get to live in the dark with minimum heat and little food. Guess at that point there’s no more “rich” people to exploit. Sounds like a utopia, don’t you think?
120
Interestingly I read an article some time ago about how the OECD countries ranked in terms of wealth redistribution. Using the ratio of most wealth redistributed from the top fraction (decile or quintile, I forget) to the bottom … guess which country rated highest in redistribution? Yup, …. drumroll please … Australia.
IMHO Australia has the balance set better than most countries. We always complain about things around the fringes, that’s human nature, but I reckon we have a fairly balanced economic system of distribution. That is one of the main reasons I like this country, and I say so frequently. I have lived in Holland, England, the USA, and a few other places (several years or more), and so far this is the best I have seen.
I wish Australians would take more pride in the country they helped create, but I guess that leads to cultural cringe 😉 I really like the sense of humour as well … big selling point that. You guys/gals are my kind of crazy.
Yes, I was born here, but left when I was two… Dad was an ex-pat for Big Oil … O_o
80
Probably, but the years 2006/07 squandering and borrowing of monies, attacks on freedom of speech and much much more was a blot on our copy book, and I sincerely hope a lesson that will never be forgotten by Australians who want their sovereign nation to continue to be a great place to live in.
50
I know people who saw no lesson for learning.They speak a different language.
20
Here in Australia most of us place a very high value on the right to freedom of speech.
However we do have laws against incitement to commit a crime.
Many of these placards fall into that category. They have been ignored in the past as crass foolishness. However in these times of widespread drug use and the mayhem this causes, e.g. random king hit punches, we should change our policy to enforcing the laws against incitement to commit a crime.
This behaviour should not be permitted.
In September 2012 rioters in Sydney displayed placards calling for people to be beheaded. A few months later a British soldier was murdered in London by beheading. I have not researched the issue, but expect that research would find that there is a direct link between those two events.
280
The British soldier was beheaded by Islamic extremists. Unless your rioters were connected with Islamic extremism, a classic case of correlation not being the same as confirmation.
As far as I am aware, extermination of opponents is not yet the preferred method of the British Left in dealing with political resistance, though one never knows when they will return to their Stalinist roots. Greens, not so much. As a Tory, I believe in flogging and transportation.
210
Sorry, didn’t you get the memo. The borders closed, you’ll have to transport your criminal class somewhere else.
100
🙂
40
Glad I gave someone a reason to smile…
Happy Tuesday for tommorrow
10
Russians to Pomland, or Poms to Aussie?
01
They’ve gone into politics (and the EU bureaucracy…ask to see the auditors report for any of the last 19 years).
50
May I put it to you that the March in March crew think that the beheading of the British soldier was great.
10
Those rioters were indeed Islamic extremists, who had hijacked a peaceful rally. Their theme appeared to have been flown in from England for the occasion, which was an address by a Muslim cleric from Britain. Such behaviour had never before been seen in Australia.
Which leads me to believe that a closer examination would be likely to find that there is indeed a direct link between that riot in Sydney and the subsequent murder in London.
00
One can compare and contrast these protesters with the classic USA legal precedent forbidding yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
In common, they are both forms of speech intended to cause harm.
But in contrast, the likely behaviour of rational people in the context in which the statements are heard is quite different. In a theatre nobody has the information needed to determine if the building really is on fire. This seems a case where Pascal’s Wager actually works because the cost of acting on false information appears to be minimal to each individual. It’s only with hindsight we know this frequently turns into a stampede that crushes people unnecessarily. It’s because there is a strong incentive to act on the false information that we outlaw saying such false information in that context.
However there is nothing compelling anyone to carry out the protester’s murderous statements. In context we would interpret it as a statement of hate rather than an actual instruction.
So on that basis I think this is one of those cases where we may disagree with what the protesters say but they should remain free to say it, in the interests of the long term preservation of the value of free speech. At the very least if people are getting worked up about beliefs that aren’t true, it points to a deeper problem which would might not be noticed if they were inhibited from saying it.
At this point I’m obliged to link to the inestimable Topher’s video on the topic, “The Forbidden History of Unpopular People”.
30
I believe a US court set out a parameter that any speech claimed as an incitement to violence must result in immediate, forseeable violent action. Your claim of blaming later violence on a book or march or speech means you do not believe people are responsible for their own actions. In any event free speech limits should only be judged in proper courts not Human Rights Commissions where complainants virtually always win.
Example, if I “feel” insulted by you doubting my claim to being Aboriginal you are guilty. Guilty of causing my “hurt feelings”.
40
I think a more apt description would be Perturbed by Proxy (PbP).
10
G’day Jo,I have been told that global warming would affect us in unusual ways,this is one of them.Change of government denial on a grand scale.These protesters were well on their way to a socialist utopia when the unthinkable happened,an election.Labor/gangreen lovers seem to be the worst losers in the world,never can I remember a more hostile reaction to a new govt,right from the first day.The most stupid banner last weekend was the one that had”F##K DEMOCRACY”.These people obviously dont know that without democracy they do not have the right to march,not the sharpest chisels in the box,are they.
430
The protestors are not the banksters, or any of the usual suspects. The unrest is actually caused by high technology.
High tech, and the power of automation, is raising the minimum skill level required to be able to do something economically valuable.
These protestors are largely the people left behind.
And its going to get worse.
Prostitution may have been the first profession, but software developers like me will be the last. Because when they don’t need us anymore, they won’t need anyone.
30
Even though they can train monkeys to fly space ships they still need people to sweep the s*** off the seats.
10
Sell the ABC! I am tired of paying for leftist opinion presented as fact. The Grant Kenny ‘skit’ was nothing of the sort. It was disgusting vilification presented as humour. The only thing missing was the funny bit. The assaults on Andrew Bolt and Tony Abbott have long passed any concept of fair comment. Murder seems to be the general theme. For a democratic country, we do not need a massive tax payer funded propaganda machine with a total budget around $1.5Bn and 1,000 leftist journalists.
The SBS included. I can do better for less on Foxtel and that is a choice, not a tax obligation.
410
TDF
Yes, the ABC treat the taxpayig public with contempt and I’m sick of it. Sell ’em.
Cheers,
Speedy
290
abc…..Australian BRAINWASHING COMMISSION
130
A Bunch of Communists
110
I agree with your sentiment, but I think you meant Chris Kenny.
30
I’m sure these intellectually challenged people are hoping to suck Abbott into abusing them on their own degraded level.
Saw a clip on ABC 24 at lunch time today of a group of similar hecklers abusing Abbott during a press stop. After a few moments he smiled and pointed to them saying “we have the hallelujah chorus here”.
I’m pretty sure he won’t be sucked in by these degenerate crazies, some of whom are no doubt Greenies, horrified by Abbott’s stated intention of opening “world heritage” forests up for commercial use.
210
Probably an accurate observation judging Abbott by their own standards and the aggressive response level set by our previous government, notice they only ever attacked pensioners questioning a fraudulent tax or accused the opposition from the Fortress of Privilege.
Misogyny, misogyny, my dictionary for misogyny…
Mr Thompson has my full support…
Mr Slipper has my full support…
Mr Rudd has my full support…
There will be no…
You get the picture.
140
Llew
It is only economically viable countries that can afford to have practical environmental controls. When someone is starving to death, they don’t care what they eat or what sort of mess they generate – the only “endangered” future they care about is their own.
Cheers,
Speedy
10
@- “Here in Australia the intellectual depth and moral caliber of the fans of big-government handouts is on display. ”
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/mining-subsidies-over-$4-5b-australia-institute
“Federal government subsidies to the mining sector has risen by half a billion dollars over the past year, according to the Australia Institute.
The Productivity Commission figures from earlier this month showed the mining industry got direct subsidies of $492 million last year.”
130
Izen can you suggest a way to make solar panels, wind turbines and the associated systems without mining? If the answer is no then perhaps you should aim to hurt mining more by aiming to stop the far far greater subsidies paid out for these things.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/1/22/solar-energy/8bn-solar-subsidies-what
Unless that mining is ok because it mostly occurs in other countries and you really just want to cost Australians jobs?
310
Much of that ‘subsidy’ is to offset the building of roads, railroads, ports etc. Another big item is the greenies pet hate Fuel Rebates which go also to farmers and others in remote areas.
Perhaps izen you imagine that Australia can do without mining? In that case one of the first things that would happen would be for school teachers and university lecturers to lose their jobs, followed the next day or two by hundreds of thousands of public servants (and none of these would get redundancy, super or unemployment benefits).
Think about it, before you claim it couldn’t happen…it would.
140
See also my reply at #15
00
Izen believes the nonsense that electricity can be produced using photo voltaics less expensively than with coal. I have to go to work in a power station this morning, but it TonyfromOz happens to be about, perhaps he would be so kind as to enlighten the poor chap.
160
Yes that link I provided could do with some TonyfromOz corrections too!
50
I love this talk of subsidies, especially when some leftard whinges about subsidies to mining, particularly in the electricity sector.
I always like to point out the direct subsidies paid out to the renewable energy market worldwide.
This shows that the two methods that provide reliable 24/7 base load power receive very little subsidies vs the intermittant low output power sources which receive much bigger subsidies.
80
Heywood.
“This shows that the two methods that provide reliable 24/7 base load power….”
Intermitant wind and solar are next to useless bcause they cannot provide 24/7 (hallucinogenerators). So your point is a good one but what about hydro? Surely it is more flexible than just being able to provide 24/7. Does it get subsidies too?
32
Yes, hydro is useful where it can be used
Hydro is not “feasible” as a 24/7 supply for most modern cities.
The only place in Australia even vaguely feasible is Tasmania, and Hobart is hardly what one would call a major city.
The Snowy scheme can only supply a fraction of Sydney’s needs.
IIRC, Norway has a high percentage of Hydro, as do some western parts of Canada. China’s new dams also provide a reasonable amount
But overall, its very much a geographically restricted energy supply.
40
Well Griss, you could build a pipeline from lake Argyle down through the middle greening the desert as you go (a thousand greenies just fell over and died with one leg in the air), then flodd lake Eyre and surrounding lakes (massive water catchment) pipe some off to Roxby so they dont drain the GAB and the rest send on to Adelaide, as it falls of the plateau push it through a turbine and the rest is history.
Cheers
20
the Griss says this:
Just for some perspective here, as part of China’s huge electrification, hydro makes up a large proportion of that, and here, large is probably an understatement.
Currently in place and delivering power China has a Nameplate Capacity for Hydro of almost 235,000MW (235GW) which is 2.6 times the next highest, Canada with 89GW. Now, while China has that existing total, there is a further 50GW Plus still under construction in China, which will add a further 22% to the Capacity.
China is conservative with its use of Hydro and is slow to gear up to its maximum delivery, as most of those plants are still quite new, so they are proceeding relatively slowly.
To that end the current Capacity Factor for Chinese Hydro is 42% (Canada 61% and Norway 98%)
Even so, this means that actual power delivery from Hydro sources comes in at 855TWH. That amounts to just under 25% of all power being generated in China, and compare that with Australia at around 6% from Hydro.
For some perspective on how much power is being delivered to the Chinese grids, Australia’s total power generation from EVERY source comes in at around 230TWH, so China Hydro delivers Australia’s total power generation multiplied by 3.7.
The ONE hydro plant at Three Gorges delivers 38% of all the power generated in Australia.
Now, we don’t have the vast area of China nor the topography which suits dam projects like this, but this Hydro introduction scheme in China probably makes The Snowy Scheme look like Lego.
And a wry comment on The Snowy Scheme. Thank Heavens it was started after the War, because there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell it would even proceed further than a thought bubble in this day and age.
Tony.
Data Source International Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government site, Energy Information Administration.
90
I suppose some would have a problem with this.
80
@ JDAM24
Yep, and there’s room for a quite a few more bit dams up there to catch the monsoon waters
Has to be by pipe though, because by canal there would be nothing left pretty darn quickly.
IMO, this is what we should be asking the big mining companies to do.. to “give back” to Australia.
Way better than the mining tax, because they could almost certainly find a way of making some money out of it.
Same with the High Speed train idea.. Get the big mining companies to build it and link in with other travel companies, maybe even airlines, to do the booking and running et.
10
“room for a quite a few more
bitBIG dams up”00
@JDAM24
The problem with flooding Lake Eyre is the fact that it is a very shallow salt lake. !
Evaporation rate is enormous in summer, too. A very wasteful way of using the water.
It might be interesting though, to see what effect this would have on climate in the surrounding few thousand kms.
10
@ Mark D “I suppose some would have a problem with this.”
The dying part doesn’t amuse me.. but they lie there with one leg in the air for as long as they like, as far as I’m concerned.
10
ps @ mark D.
A live greenie provides more CO2 over a longer period of time, than a dead one. 🙂
60
@ the Griss 11.3.1.1.4 . Out of interest, what happens to a kangaroo hit by an HST travelling at 200+mph?. What happens to the train? HS track requires high specs. Does the metallurgy/engineering exist to allow for the extremes of temperature encountered in the Australian desert, i.e., most of Oz, between night and daytime temps? Or do you dig a tunnel from Perth to Sydney?
20
Perhaps something you inhaled once has damaged your memory, but the modern-day Australian Greens were founded on Bob Brown leading protests to stop the Franklin Dam and Bob Hawke, a crass political opportunist who sold out contruction workers in Tasmania to get the latte sucking lefty vote in Melbourne.
The Greens don’t like dams either.
40
No they don’t like dams. . .but they’re strangely very happy to include the approx 6% of TOTAL energy production as ‘renewable energy’
🙂
Go figure.
30
Izen: How much revenue does mining bring in? A number of $4 to $5 billion is a great subsidy if you generate $20 billion in revenue, but not so much if you generate $20 trillion. Plus, there are many ways to define “tax subsidy”. Some are outright gifts, some tax credits, etc.
Don’t like what the mining companies get for “subsidies” or “credits”? Pass a flat tax. No one gets a subsidy and no one gets preferential treatment.
And, as Sliggy points out, alternative energy benefits from the mining subsidies and the special subsidies given to that industry. Decrease the subsidies, the price goes up. That’s how businesses work. Take away the subsidy and you have to make up the difference if you want the product. Corporations don’t pay taxes, the consumers of the goods do.
150
“izen” you are obviously one of the nutter “bob browns” EARTHIANS……
80
I think she is the crying tree hugger talking to a tree
10
Izen,
Unlike Green Scams, the mining sector actually continues to increase employment, make real profits, produce real products and pay real wages which in turn are then channelled off by those workers into paying for other services and products which sustain more private businesses and employ more people etc etc who eventually all pay taxes regardless of the tax burden, lack thereof or subsidies on the original primary producers.
You do sound peeved though – did you drop your crack pipe on the way down to Centrelink this morning?
130
In The Netherlands we have municipal elections coming wednesday. Same thing happens here. Demonizing Geert Wilders for his anti EU and anti islam points.
It always strikes me that those persons always ready to instruct people on tolerance are the persons who are the least tolerant of all. Their “tolerance” means “think like me or you are an idiot”. They are so full of themselves. They think their view on reality is the only valid one.
341
Their “tolerance” means “think like me or you are an idiot”. They are so full of themselves. They think their view on reality is the only valid one.
Reinder,demonising Geert Wilders for his anti islamic points is relevant here because what you have written describes muslims perfectly.Your tolerance of muslims will bite you on the RRRR’s,because they have none.Not to you or your wife or your children.I have read that your govt is dumping multiculturalism before it ruins your society,is that a problem for you.
70
Well said “Bones” and extremely accurate assessment of these dangerous muslims with their “death cult” of islam !
20
That is what I mean. If you consider yourself a tolerant person you are also tolerant of Geert Wilder or any other conservative leader. Unfortunately such is not the case. Conservative opinions are often labeled phobias like homophobia, xenophobie, islamophobia. As if those opinions are an illness.
I admire Geert Wilders. He is one of the view with guts. Although he is a pain in the neck of the main stream politics out of fear for him those parties adopt part of his policies. He is one of the most influential politicians of our time.
As a reward he receives death threats for which no one is ever arrested, yet he himself is called a danger to society by the same people who are so eager in educating other people about tolerance. He has to walk around with body guards. He cannot go everywhere like we do. He was even sued for hatespeech and discrimation by those same people. Fortunatey a judge dismissed the charges.For his extreme coureage and a number of his politic views he has my vote.
Geert Wilders is anti EU, anti islam (the ideology) and anti climate mafia (the IPCC)
This call for tolerance is nothing more than a means to silence people. In a way it is a force to accept everything God forbids in society.
60
Having read Aayan Hirsi Ali’s works, I fully support Geert Wilders point of view. I first heard of her when she did an interview on ABC radio some years back, after she published “Infidel”, so the ABC does have its good points, …just not a lot of them anymore. If she came out to Australia now, the ABC probably wouldn’t give her air time on the grounds that she was spreading “race hatred”. It is OK for me to say I don’t believe in organised religion, or God, but if you are brought up in the Islamic tradition, apostasy remains a crime, punishable by death. Not at the hands of a court or anything, but by any homicidal maniac who can use the Koran as his “reason”.
70
Typical abc (Australian BRAINWASHING COMMISSION) stuff.
So it’s supposed to be ok for muslims to threaten, intimidate and commit acts of violence against western culture, but when they are called out on it they term you a racist.
Hypocrites !
60
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a Dutch politician for the liberal party VVD. After Submission, a movie she made with Theo van Gogh (who was murdered after this movie) she was thrown out of the political party and had to leave the Dutch parliament because she lied about her request for asylum. This lie never was a problem as long she kept her mouth shut about islam but was used as an excuse to dump her the minute she openened her mouth. She left The Netherlands and went to the USA to participate in a conservative anti islam thinktank. That is how she was treated in the so called tolerant The Netherlands
10
even on abc’s religious program on sunday nite, john cleary allowed obvious political partisans to phone in & call the PM a liar & hypocrite, without censuring such talk & without asking for specific instances, & then involved his guest in debating such accusations, as if they have some religious meaning. under the previous govt, i can’t recall cleary or his callers showing any concern whatsoever for hundreds of dead boat people, but now it’s a huge issue.
similarly this so-called protest is demanding “climate action”! helloooo. think of how many people would suffer under the actions they demand. it’s quite ridiculous. now we have David Icke’s website promoting this, & no doubt other alt websites will follow suit, having no clue whatsoever of what’s behind this crowd, namely partisan politics:
Massive uprising in Australia, 16 March 2014, Melbourne March in march .
Published on Mar 16, 2014
Together we stand, divided we fall. Important information about the anti-protest law that the Australian government intend on implementing on the 1 September 2014. March in March Feel free to download and re-load this vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9Q9gJcw1A
as of posting, the video – which i’m not watching – has 551 views, 5 comments, one of which says: “not that massive”.
40
I wonder what percentage of those people are on the dole, whether working for the govt, welfare, student loans, green subsidees, etc?
I recall the protests in Greece, most of the government offices were empty because the ‘workers’ were outside whining.
Dave
140
These protesters should demonstrate that they are serious about their commitment to “saving the planet” and stop producing that evil carbon DIOXIDE by stopping breathing !
60
Uncalled for, we should not advocate harm to anyone, though, I advocate that we enforce requiremnts for schooling, to the point at which they can add, subtract, multiply and divide, and at least understand the carbon cycle.
Then they should do the sum
0.03 x 0.013 x 0.05 x 400, which is the number Of PPM CO2 to be reduced over business as usual in 100 years by the carbon (dioxide) tax/ets.
Our education systems have completely failed, and the climate change debate is absolute proof of that.
70
But “bobl” they would be making the ultimate sacrifice for their beliefs.
We wouldn’t want to deprive them of this opportunity !
00
Jo,
There is not a single person that can be voted in that will touch the problems society currently faces…no matter how many promises of jobs.
If your income does NOT rise to cover inflation, then you spiral into the debtors hole to try and survive the constant rise of costs…Worldwide Inflation exported by the US Federal Reserves monopoly on currency manipulation and constant monetary printing of US currency through their QE program which just saves the banking system at a cost to ALL people.
101
Joe, you are bordering on hysteria. Get it together buddy, after all it’s a democrat (leftie) in charge over there.
BTW The worst thing QE is doing is creating a stockmarket bubble, and they are not exactly printing money, the US treasury is buying mortgages and other banking liabilities from the system. This has the effect of removing those liabilities from the economy, and freeing up money for other purposes, say lending to small business. The big challenge will be when the US treasury starts selling those liabilities back into the banking system. Also, if the government owns your mortgage you still have to pay it back, the government could then cancel that currency meaning that nothing effectively changes over the long term but liquidity is improved, it’s actually kind of clever how it’s being done.
The problem with it that a lot of that extra liquidity is being offered in cheap margin loans which is fueling the stockmarket. One has to be quite careful.
42
Bobl, Joe is correct. It is not the US Treasury, it is the US Federal Reserve Bank which is the problem. It is conducting the QE not the Treasury. If you do your homework, you will find that the US Federal Reserve is a privately owned consortium (like our Federal Reserve) that is now partially or wholey owned or controlled by the Chinese. Both “Federal Reserve Banks” have nothing to do with government. You might also learn that the USA does not have their own currency. The USA dollar is in fact owned by the Federal Reserve – not Treasury. There is a new gold backed currency coming very soon to the USA and it IS a true US government currency printed by Treasury. The new notes have colours similar to ours. The ‘new’ $100.00 bill just issued in the US is a Federal Reserve note NOT a Treasury note. The old greenback is dead. The IRS is a private trust registered in Peurto Rico and has nothing to do with the US government. The IRS is in fact a corporate arm of US Federal Reserve not Treasury. The use of fiat currency by the US Federal Reserve is also coming to an end. If they want to print a trillion in currency, the US government will have to have an allocated amount of gold or the like to offset the value of the printing. This is the same for any bank wanting to lend money. To lend a million, they have to have an allocated deposit of $1Million. It will not be able to be used for any other lending. Thus Fractionalised lending is also coming to an end – where banks create fictional money and then charge you interest on money that doesn’t exist. New worldwide banking protocols called Basel 3 (IMF) (there have been 1 & 2)have that requirement. Every government and bank in the world will come under Basel 3. There is a huge Global Financial Reset (GFR) coming and you won’t have to look for it. It will just appear.
40
I agree, you are right it is the Fed conducting QE, but the mechanism is as I outlined, they are not “printing money”.
I also agree that banks creating credit out of thin air is unsustainable, however, I can’t see a return to the gold standard anytime soon, for one there is not enough gold. Good thing I have gold stocks too. The best way to back out of fractionalised banking would be to increase the reserve fractions, but I don’t see that happening do you?
A gold backed currency might come, there is nothing stopping it, but it’ll be alongside fiat currencies, not replacing it. Like bitcoin but with assets in back.
00
Sorry Bobl, you are way off line. Every country and every currency will be gold/asset backed very shortly. That is what the Global reset is all about. A country may not have much gold per se but very rich in other assets / elements / minerals. QE is just an idiocy put out by the Fed Reserve to cover their arse. The Fed Reserve does print the money as it pleases and it is called FIAT money. There are several other countries that do the same. The world will be at gold standard very soon. Stocks and shares are 2 things I would not consider owning as Wall Street is highly manipulated. Info I am getting out of the US is dump all shares as the coming crash will be bigger than 2008. Most of the billionaires in the US have already dumped some or all of their shares and in particular bank shares. There will be no fiat currencies. Full stop. Period. Russia left the SWIFT system overnite – a huge amount of funds from Russia used to flow thru SWIFT. The BRICS organisation started with just 6 countries and now has over 150 member countries who now buy and sell using their own currency and gold. BRICS are building their own international bank. The petro dollar is trying to be resuscitated by the US. The USA $$$ is set for a massive devaluation and the new reserve currencies will be held possibly by Canada, Australia, IMF issued SKRs and possibly Iraq. Obama is now like a cat on a hot tin roof. He didn’t get what he wanted in Ukraine, in fact it has backfired on the US government. To add to his humiliation, Congress has voted to veto USA joining the UN on civilian disarmament. Don’t believe everything you read or hear in the media.
Just as an aside, Zimbabwe is now regarded as the most asset rich country in the world.
10
Boris, you said (emphasis added) …
I think you have transposed “Federal Reserve” and “Treasury” in the second sentence.
00
The “new” $100.00 has been issued by the Fed Reserve NOT Treasury. How do you tell? It has Federal Reserve printed on the top of the note.
00
OK Boris, now read the first sentence of the passage I have quoted and then read the second and third.
Can you see why it could be considered to be misleeding?
00
Hmm, our biggest export earner gets a mere 490 million to employ 1/5 of all Australians (directly or indirectly) and green tech that will never be commercially viable and employs next to nobody in Australia gets how much?, 10 or 20 BILLION by the time you take into account Carbon taxes, RECs, and other subsidies like feed in tariffs, not to mention the grants and cheap green loans. Let’s create a level playing field, sure let’s dump any mining subsidies, and at the same time revoke all the costly greentape imposed on those businesses, all the green subsidies and grants, including any government funding for green organisations like greenpeace, WWF, or the IPCC, plus revoke their charitable status and have them pay taxes like you, I and those evil mining compqnies and their hordes of tax paying employees do.
20 Bn plus vs 0.49 Bn, hmm I wonder who’s feeding at the trough…
110
PS, that was meant to be in reply to Izen, but apparently my tap on reply wasn’t recognised, dunnon whether the overworked mods can fix that, (or whether it’s even worth fixing)
40
should have mentioned the “massive” youtube video is nearly 42 minutes long.
00
1 minute per person x 42 people, sounds about right
10
i have no problem with protesting specific actions by govt – including the following, but i can’t stand selective, partisan criticism, which is what’s been happening since Labor/Greens lost the federal election. abc hasn’t accepted that change of govt at all:
18 March: News Ltd: Federal Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos’ job under enormous pressure after latest ICAC allegations
FEDERAL Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos’ job is under enormous pressure after ICAC alleged he was offered up to $20 million to use Liberal Party connections to secure a contract with the O’Farrell government…
The allegations before ICAC include:
● THAT the state government-owned Sydney Water unwittingly became a major Liberal Party donor after Mr Di Girolamo siphoned payments intended for water infrastructure to the party;
● THAT former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid’s family took a secret 30 per cent stake in AWH and Mr Obeid aggressively argued within the Labor government for a PPP agreement with AWH which stood to net the Obeids $30-60 million; and
● THAT evidence was discovered on Labor powerbroker Joe Tripodi’s laptop that he falsified a Cabinet minute recommending the contract go ahead which the then Infrastructure Minister Tony Kelly presented…
http://www.news.com.au/national/federal-treasurer-arthur-sinodinos-job-under-enormous-pressure-after-latest-icac-allegations/story-fncynjr2-1226857484729
sickening.
30
I suspect the ABC is like the BBC – top heavy in ‘management’, all feathering their nests as fast as they can. Left wing capitalism is mostly found at the top of quasi-government organisations.
One thing the ABC has to be better at than the BBC and that is paying the surplus ‘management to leave – £277 (A$507) million in just 7 years!
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fculture%2Ftvandradio%2Fbbc%2F9208714%2FBBC-spends-8m-on-20-redundancies.html&ei=QgMnU7epAsvxhQeyroC4DA&usg=AFQjCNFua30Y8OV2GdoNR0qqmlKvF4hZtQ
30
small Articaine ser No 525764 07-2015
@-bobl
“Let’s create a level playing field, sure let’s dump any mining subsidies, and at the same time revoke all the costly greentape imposed on those businesses, all the green subsidies and grants, including any government funding for green organisations like greenpeace, WWF, or the IPCC, plus revoke their charitable status and have them pay taxes like you, I and those evil mining compqnies and their hordes of tax paying employees do.”
The justification for subsidies to big business is always that it returns more than it pays out in job creation and economic activity. The same argument is equally applicable to sociual welfare payments, the US food stamp system generates almost 2 dollars for every dollar spent in economic activity, but the point is seldom made for that subsidy to the poorest.
I must admit amusement at your idea that the mining companies pay tax on a level playing field. while their workers might, the compaies are generally able to offset any possible taxable profit between their multi-national enterprises. Big business regulatory capture of government long ago meant that only the individual is really subject to the full tax and regulation regieme.
026
Who do you think pays the wage earner that pays the tax – it is all from the same tree and a healthier tree it is for the increase in CO2.
80
Izen,
The thing with Social Welfare Payments – you do know that governments do not generate the money that is paid to welfare recipients – that money is actually the tax proceeds from private businesses and the employees of private businesses.
80
“only the individual is really subject to the full tax and regulation regieme.”
Big multinational green is far worse!
The liitle people pay for these tryrannically imposed green parasites to become a big burden on all before they get to the tax dodge stage. The only up side is they mostly fail. This ends a bailout cycle of bleeding edge technology. Then we find out about the large local management wages and underpaid foreign workers or similar pure greed inspired green nastiness. All this occurs while a blind eye is turned to the evironmental damage they do.
60
Izen, mining companies pay royalties to the states and taxes to the federal government. The fuel rebates are returned taxes on fuel, not a subsidy to buy fuel on the grounds that the taxes were for roads and the fuel is used to power machinery that does not go on the roads. Not a subsidy but a case of not paying for something that they don’t use. Some of what you call a ‘subsidy’ is also not paying twice for infrastructure that they use. If they make a road instead of a tax payer, they get a tax break.
90
There is something fatal in the spiralling expectations of non-participatory, non-productive members of a society who by and large shun the obligations of their community in order to embrace an culture of dissent then turn around and expect everyone else to support their alternative lifestyle choices while raging against the establishment that supports them.
130
Oh, Izen, and greenpiss pays tax at what rate and it inhibited from repatriating funds how?
Most of the so-called subsidy comes from the diesel rebate, which is only applicable to on road vehicles. Even you, if you have an off road vehicle like a tractor can get that rebate. Take out that rebate and what do you have left.
How much taxpayer money did BHP get given in grants, how much did Geodynamics ( so called green geothermal) get? How much does BHP add to the ecomomy, how much does geodynamics.
People who live in glass houses should avoid throwing stones
PS, your keynsian economics regarding food stamps, while true fails to understand the point, food stamps are welfare, they don’t get leveraged while free enterprise, leverages it’s funding. For example there are more than 5 people employed in Australia, by virtue of mining company spending for each person directly employed in mining, not even counting the pensioners being paid from BHP shares! Just not sure how many pensioners might be supported by, grant farmer, geodynamics shares this year…
Oops, sorry, those pensioners all had to go back to work because they lost it all…
80
In fact because food stamps come from taxes, they probably also prevented a job being created in private enterprise due to escessive tax liabilities, another way keynsian economics falls flat.
60
Izen it gets better – Tim Flannery makes out like a bandit because he has a major interest in………..
Geodynamics…
then he goes and spends his hard fought Green Scam Grant Money purchasing……….
waterside property.
You really need to get out more try less crack and more pipe.
100
Izen , do you have any shares in any “big business’, like the banks, or the large mining companies? No ?, Didn’t think so. If you did you would see that every time you get a dividend cheque, the tax has already been pain on that dividend at the company rate. Do you work for the “public service,” or are you on the dole, Or both? Or do you work for the ABC?
50
That is false. If the dollars the food stamps came from where found in a leprechauns magic bucket that would be true. However, those dollars come from other people who would invest/spend the money in a more economical and productive way. Thus the lie about 2 for 1 is negated by the fact that the money in the earners hands would have produced over a 3 to 1 multiplier had the dollars NOT been confiscated. Thus Food stamps are a net loss.
30
I know you Guys down-under are a sensible lot but obviously you are plagued with the ever present, disruptive, leftist, know it all brain-dead minority that is the curse of first and third world society. Go kick some arse before you get your very own Mugabe.
110
She was a prime minister here for a while and so was his twin.
20
Was Magabe’s twin?
Talk about overkill on anal bleaching!
10
If we are talking about KRudd, then he was all a***!
00
I don’t say anything very often. Now I think it’s time to say what’s been on my mind for a while. Instead of worrying about climate and climate tipping points, mightn’t we be worried instead about society and whether we have reached a societal tipping point?
Trying to affix blame is pointless. Yes, there are many to blame. But why bother? It only makes the problem worse. Why complain when you can’t offer a solution? That also makes the thing worse. The question now is how can it be fixed? We are all in this together. We all stand or fall according to what the world does in the next few years, or maybe next few months.
Where are the leaders we need? How do we get them into the right positions in the world so they can lead? What possible plan can back us out of our current situation successfully? This is what we need.
It’s hard to see how anything lasting can be done to fix the problem at this point. I keep hoping but it gets harder and harder.
60
It’s a self-correcting thing. Either the loud, obnoxious people lose power soon enough that society is damaged but not destroyed or it all craters. Can we do anything? Well, not to actually stop it. It happens over and over and over and is part of the human condition. People refuse to act before hitting the edge of the cliff. It’s just the way we’re made. You don’t believe your child does drugs until he overdoses. You don’t believe your spouse cheats until you catch them in bed with someone else. If the child lives, he may be saved. If the spouse can forgive, the marriage may last. But up to that critical point, nothing changes.
What can we do? The only thing I can figure is that it is our job to provide information and guidance that will allow the society to slowly recover after the fall. When everything goes down the drain, someone has to have the knowledge on how to rebuild. You see what happens when societies go from communism to freedom and have no idea how to run a country. Same thing happens when the loud, unproductive takers pull down the society. They can’t rebuild–they only know how to be loud and nasty. So it’s up to those who saw this coming to educate those who will listen as to how society should work and can work. When people are at the bottom, they are more open to listening. It’s important that there be rational voices out there so society can rebuild. Otherwise, the loud and nasty keep society pulled down much longer.
This is not warm, fuzzy and hopeful, I know. It’s just the way things work. It seems far too late to stop the train wreck. There have been train wrecks in the past and we recovered. It would be nice if we could avoid this, but I really don’t see how. Humans are not so bright when it comes to their own survival as a species. Never were.
121
Get the socialism out of the education system and teach kids, math, science, and reading/writing without the post-normal filter. That how you fix it.
100
Exactly.
Also some proper geography and history and not the rubbish taught at the moment…..
20
Exactly bobl. I trained as a teacher back in the early ’70s. I now have B.Degrees in teaching and HR. We should get rid of the lefty greenie far right socialist idiots out of the curriculum and bring back exactly what you say. The 3 ‘Rs’ are what is required. Kids are pushed thru school regardless of results and abilities. When I was in high school there was a teaching stream for ‘special’ students. Yes they were in separate grades but they had special teachers who dealt with their students shortcomings and usually lesser than average IQ. There always will be these children, but I will bet that those kids from early times came out of high school better educated than those of today who are integrated into mainstream because it is socially acceptable. – On whose evaluation? When you do the basics in any skill and education is a learned skill, the rest follows. Interestingly though I spent the next 31 yrs as a police officer and that’s where I saw the difference amongst the street kids, the social misfits etc. The main trouble makers were usually those in the lower skills area – in other words they were the dropouts or the collateral damage of a poor education system. Then we had that review of the Force and we saw idiot academics decide that in the main only people with degrees should be admitted to the Force. That was a dumb arse decision as many were semi illiterate, couldn’t spell to save themselves and the like. When they couldn’t properly complete their application forms, that should have been it – end of story. Don’t get me wrong, there were some very skilled people and well educated people come through the ranks. The curriculum designers in this country should have their heads read and just be given the heave ho and someone with a bit of nouse return learning to the basics. Take away the iPads, laptops and calculators until year 3 or so until the kids have the mental ability to do all the requirements of the 3Rs. Yes have these in the classroom, but limit their use. When you have teenagers who are unable to do mental arithmetic of the most simple type, unless they use a calculator, is a blight on our educators and more importantly the setters of curriculum and teachers are only as good as the curriculum they are set to teach.
00
BB: I believe we have crossed that tipping point in society. Western civilization has started to rot from the inside and once this starts it is hard to stop. The rot of all great historical empires started from the inside which led to their eventual collapse. I read a lot of history and am of the opinion that the reason we do not have the leaders today that have vision and can move society in the right direction is because we lost the cream of the crop in 1914-1918. With that generation slaughtered, we have been in a downward spiral ever since and it is just gaining momentum. I’ve personally become a cynic in my old age (I still have some little bit of hope) but I truly believe that I will not be around when this all collapses.
70
Well i think you’ll find if things get worse, you will have the same conditions soon that brought Hitler to power.
The mecahnism is the same – dissatisfaction, society upheaval by distress and lack of sense of purpose.
50
Yes, we will have similar conditions but that does not mean that we will follow the same path. As noted before, the 60’s in the USA were about dissatisfaction, “free” sex, lots of drugs and a general lack of sense of purpose. Yet in the 80’s we had Reagan. We also had Carter and Clinton. While the current phenomena seems bad and more worldwide, I don’t know that we are in a worse place than the 60’s, the Cold War, or the Great Depression. None of these resulted in a new Hitler (while we may have conditions right, we also need someone who can exploit those conditions.)
20
My apologies, English is my second language.
I am confused by the messages these bullies are saying. Every time I see a “F**K Tony Abbott” T-shirt, I am left wondering if they are promoting that everyone should sleep with the Prime Minister. Or do they hate him because they don’t get to have him, so they are angry about it? Do they know he is a married man?
*confused*
I have seen these bullies before. In Communist Chinese history books; Chairman Mao’s Red Guards. These were militant university and high school students with their little red books. They force everyone to carry those red books. If you did not carry, they see you as their enemy! They were part of the Cultural Revolution. They destroy Chinese culture and customs to install their own (Communism). They also destroyed wonderful antiques, books, and Buddhist temples. They beat up teachers, monks, landowners, and anyone who they suspect. The Red Guard bullies behave like those bullies in Western societies of today…They want to get rid of anything that they view as old. Even if the old things worked well.
Here is the important point:
After 2 years, these bullies almost wrecked China (socially and economically). It forced Chairman Mao to disperse them. He shipped the Red Guards out to the country to work on farms. To learn the life of a peasant and be productive.
So that could be the answer to these bullies in Australia. I think you would solve some problems; You get more people working on farms. They become more productive. They are kept busy and have little time to cause trouble.
Australians should be very careful of bullies like these. If they have lots of political power, they will hurt many with it. I don’t like them. They remind me too much of Mao’s Red Guards.
200
F**K is an insult, not an actual reference to sex in this case (it literally is a reference, but people don’t generally use it that way). It is a term that is considered vulgar and is not allowed on network TV (yet). While English is my first language, I always found it confusing as to how this became a “cuss” or “swear” word not used by polite people. It’s one of the things about language that is fascinating–how words are “good” or “bad”.
I understand why these people are unnerving to you. They do behave very badly and are very rude and gaining power. However, having lived through the sixties in the USA, I have seen far worse. Animal rights groups were very frightening too. There were anti-war protests, sex parties, a complete rejection of morality. People died. Up until recently, though, they quieted down, having aged up and having to work for a living (see my comment below).
You observation on sending people to work on farms is good. In the US, the high unemployment allows people much time to get into “causes” that reward their lack of work and their socialist viewpoints. High unemployment encourages people to vote for handouts and demand their own way. They lose consideration for society as a whole and just care about themselves. In societies where people are more fully employed, they don’t have time for this. (Assuming these people are not being paid to protest, which is not unheard of. If it’s their job, well……).
100
Isn’t it interesting that one of the finest things life has to offer can also be the sign of complete, total contempt?
We humans are a strange breed. It’s even more interesting that we have no verb for it that western civilization accepts except the vulgar F-word or its derivative, to screw someone. We’re stuck with clinical terms like intercourse. Or we beat around the bush with, “having sex,” whatever that means.
One might think we’re actually afraid of our sexuality. Oops, my error, we are afraid of it. We treat it as anything but what it really is. If you don’t believe me take another look at the top of this page or a good look at the offerings in your local movie theater or your TV screen. Or just listen to conversations around you in crowded places, even in restaurants.
And speaking of TV, we can now get vulgarity in high definition wide screen that fills our living rooms.
On the other side of the spectrum we used to have a world where even pregnancy was a taboo subject. Ricky and Lucy slept in twin beds.
We cannot handle our sexuality. Is it any wonder that we can’t handle subjects of arguably lesser importance? And until you can handle what you, personally, are all about, attention to other things is all wasted.
I pity these protesters, whether they ever get their way or not. They will die unhappy and unfulfilled.
90
This is extremely insightful. And your English as a second language is excellent and far better than one can expect from a great many Australians.
I understand your concern completely. It is not long ago that political disagreement was a gentlemanly argument. Even while being on opposite sides of the political spectrum to friends or neighbours could maintain respect for one another and come to each others’ aid if necessary.
This hatred on display this past weekend seems to me to be the harbinger of a civil war of some sort. The Australian lemmings seem to have reached the cliff edge, as Sheri points out. While it is unlikely that we will have conservative government in Canberra and every State next week, it is only because the gerrymandering in SA overcame the 53% 2pp vote in that State. Yet the concession speeches of the ALP and Greens leaders in Tasmania smacked of “I am not responsible. I am a victim”. This is despite the all time low for the ALP and a 40% drop in votes for the Greens when compared to the last election. The whole thing seems to have overtones of 1917 Russia, 1929 Germany, and 1950 China.
110
HK_teen – you are wise beyond your years.
Boredom breeds mischief.
60
Yes and the farms are oddly appropriate in view that the F-bomb originates from an old Germanic word similarly pronounced which means to prod a hole in the soil for the purpose of sowing seed.
30
I don’t recall any T-shirts saying, “F**K Gi…..”
Sorry, can’t even type it… really nauseated feeling…
50
Don’t worry, a hot shower and a scrubbing brush will make you feel clean again.
30
If there were f#%k Gillard T shirts the outrage would be heard at neighboring star systems despite the intervening vacuum.
30
HK_Teen, it is your innocence of the language that makes your post so funny! Others have given you the correct answer (Sheri first), but thanks for the questions (all good) and the post!
00
If you want to see how youthful Aussies describe Abbott and the purpose of the protests to the rest of the world, there are probably half a dozen places in social media where you can read their grievances.
Here is just one of many, http://imgur.com/gallery/OzuwW4N , read the comments.
If I had to single out one for further questions, I would like to know how Abbott “cut off funding for eduction” as education has for the most part been a State responsibility, with the exception of Universities which have all had federal funding since 1974.
The other complaints seem to be explicable as either false beliefs or as unpleasant actions that are economically justifiable against the backdrop of Labor’s debt.
80
Andrew: Are you implying that in Australia the media still has some compunctions against outright lying or are you hoping they might? In the US, lies are the media’s business as usual. Political lies abound “You can keep your doctor”, “You’ll save money”, “Conservatives hate poor people and are racists”. It’s all part of the narrative and reality plays no part whatsoever. In fact, I think it is a requirement to lie constantly and hold contradictory ideas as both true in order to be in politics and the media. Both sides do this all the time. And have for decades. Mark Twain made jokes about lying politicians. So did many others. Maybe we just don’t find it so amusing as in the past? I mean we do seem to be impatient, impulsive and less likely to tolerate adversity, so perhaps this is nothing new, just we don’t like it so much this time.
60
I apologise for occasionally lapsing into optimism.
In this case I was trying to highlight the honest opinions of people as causes for the protest, rather than expressions of the same filtered/twisted by the media. I did not take the next step down the rabbit hole of supposing they obtained their honestly held false beliefs from deceptive public figures and an incoherent media, but you are right to spot it as a major cause.
30
Sheri,
You forgot to mention Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, who now rants like a senile old man, calling people liars when they relate their recent very financially injurious experiences with health insurance “reform” (Obamacare). Did it right in the Senate chamber too. And given his “leadership” he may well be.
I have no patience left for this nonsense. They need to be given incentives to grow up before they do any more harm. And nothing will do it faster than having their government provided perks taken away. The specter of soon being hungry is a very good motivator as Bill Clinton’s welfare reform proved once and for all (actually Newt Gingrich’s but Bill got the credit).
30
Obamacare……MUSLIMS can opt out of it but CHRISTIANS can’t.
Very interesting.
60
Very disgusting actually.
60
In a word, Gonski. This was to be Education’s NBN equivalent. Elve’s gold, all glamour but gone in the morning.
10
I was hoping for some new insight into dealing with the hatred. But I guess it just goes beyond rational thought. Some say misery loves company, but I do not find solace in the fact that your ABC is pretty much the same incompetent bunch of boobs that our MSM is.
Standing up to the idiots is the only way, no matter how much invective they throw at you. The alternative is to join them for nothing short of that will mollify them. But then you become them, and lose in every respect.
40
Phil,
I call it a war. It may not be the classical war as history or a dictionary defines it but war nevertheless. Class warfare has been going on a long time and the sooner we realize what it is the better, ultimately for everyone.
You take it seriously and you fight back. The weapons are ideas and political but you fight back.
20
Phil, there is another way, but it takes wisdom and patience. If you listen to them and ask what their concerns are, sooner or later you find they believe (Occupy-style) that corruption and cheating is rife, and that politicians and corporates are in bed together, and that some people are getting an unfair advantage. In some ways that is not that different to our concerns — just that ours our more nuanced and sophisticated. They think all business is corrupt. We know some is and some isn’t. They think all NGO’s are saints but we realize that they are businesses too. They think fossil fuels “drive” the debate, without realizing the marginal benefit to fossil fuels of promoting skeptics is tiny and conflicted. Fossil fuels (gas) pushes windfarms to help their gas projects, Coal wants a free market because it’s cheaper. Shell gets carbon capture subsidy money. And Nuclear likes the “CO2 is scary” story (because it hobbles coal and oil, its biggest competitors).
On the other hand the renewables industry is united. It is 100% dependent on subsidies and has much more incentive to try to influence the political debate.
I’ve sat next to Green-folk on planes and when I start discussing the influence the financial sector gets (eg high frequency trading and then profits from brokering carbon trading) I find them a willing audience and we reach common ground where they will at least admit they don’t like big bankers any more than they like big oil. Tap into their uninformed uneconomic grievances…
Of course, they are missing years of real world business experience, have no notion of what it’s like to take real financial risks (as any mining investor knows all too well). They have simply never heard of the broken window fallacy. We should be teaching it in school. All this makes it a long term project to help them realize their sense of “wrongness” is correct but not well placed.
Most Greens are good people. (I used to be one). They just have no idea…
141
Disagree
The issue is that such people do not want to have full contact with reality
I’ve dealt with them for over 30 years on a regular enough basis to understand this finally
As to why this is so, I can only make an educated guess – I suspect that at the bottom reality frightens them. Facing such fear is genuinely hard for most people, so “Govt” has to protect them, they wish. No amount of exposure to rational thinking will change that fear, nor can Pollyanna
30
Jo,
Here’s my take on what you said to Phil. As we’re working to slowly educate those protesters we have now, a whole new generation is coming along behind them. Why? Because it’s in the interest of those who drive the fear mongering to make it happen. That looks hopeless to me. The schools and nearly every life experience is now aimed at making the young and easily influenced into exactly what the mature among us don’t want. I pay real close attention to what Obama is doing and he’s right out in front leading the charge down that dead end street. And it’s not only Obama but the UN wanting to drive us in that direction.
You’re right, the protesters aren’t bad people any more than you were or I am. But if we can’t shut off the incentive to do destructive things and turn on some incentives to take responsibility for themselves the problem stays self perpetuating.
As I see it if we can’t force the situation then we’re not going to solve the problem. And it’s a big problem now, at least where I live. Nearly half those of voting age would rather get a handout from big brother government than work for their room and board. And Jo, your realization that it wasn’t true isn’t being duplicated as fast as new acolytes for the cause are being created.
We have one small hope here — the left bit off more than it could chew when they invented Obamacare. They’re running scared and it’s likely that Republicans can get control of the Senate and increase their majority in the House this November. But then they actually have to lead. I hope they can do it.
10
Roy, Phil just asked for “insight into the hatred”, not for the complete resurrection of law, order, manners, and an educational system that trains it’s students to think, understand history, and learn about the way great democracies rise and fall. 😉
Obviously I want those things too. And I’m well aware that most of these great achievements came at the cost of lives in bloody warfare, which I’d kind of like to avoid if we can.
We still have the Internet. My post was a call to action for the onlookers to stop just egging Bolt and Abbott on, and for people to do something.
Telling like-minded people how bad, how depressing and how pointless words are is not what I had in mind. If we dissolve into pessimism and inaction at this early stage, doesn’t that make a dark prophecy more likely to be self fulfilling?
Most people know that there is no free lunch. They know the handouts are not sustainable and they know that threats to kill are beyond the pale in a free civilization.
Instead of fighting or hating greens we can find the decent side, co-opt their fears — point some of them at a better target, then in a thousand small interactions every day across the West people could be chipping away at the certainty, the confidence, and the strength of their hate campaign. It won’t work on the leaders of the movement, but it cuts through the strength and conviction of their following. The leaders need their herd.
I don’t put science up on this site for the believers to read. I write the papers up for us. We need to know our actions and words are based on a hunt for the truth. For the sake of our own conviction and confidence we are burdened with a need to do the right thing. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Complacency is our biggest enemy. Inaction and passive helplessness is next on the list.
We still have the Internet.
10
It seems to me that Jo’s observations are similar to that of a Philip Atkinson.
Especially a section in there called “Living with the decline”.
Whether you agree or not, it is an interesting outlook on contemporary Australia.
00
But for how long? http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/03/15/us-government-cedes-control-of-the-internet/
00
I will disagree with you slightly. Some of the protestors are indeed evil. It is just the randomness of human nature. But as a whole they are not evil. They are lazy, and perhaps a bit dim witted. Led easily by those that are evil, simply misguided or greedy (I put Algore into the latter category).
10
Joanne, You get no disagreement with me. But that is what Roy and I are saying about fighting. That is what you are doing. Fighting does not always mean a punch in the nose or a slap to the face. But to constantly reason with them and show them the facts.
Some, as you indicate, can at least be brought to reason (if not to agreement with your viewpoint). I see that frequently, just not frequently enough. The ones that can be reasoned with are the ones thinking about what they are saying, believing and doing.
And those are usually not the ones that are loading rail cars with prisoners bound for the ovens at Dachau. The latter group cannot be reasoned with because they never think. They are the sheep in Animal farm. The believe because they have been told what to believe, and no amount of reason or facts will persuade them to either your view point or reasonableness. You see some of them here.
Those people must also be fought. But they cannot be fought with reason, only with containment or by becoming one of them. I do not suggest, nor do I want to become one of them. So that leaves containment. And the containment is not to change the laws to create “hate speech” or limit their ability to make fools of themselves.
But by preserving the freedom of everyone. And to incarcerate those that infringe on the real freedom of others (you do not have the freedom to not be insulted – you in the royal sense).
The problems we face today is with corrupt politicians who selectively apply the laws that we must all abide by. At least I have not heard of this happening in your country so far (but then it may just be my ignorance). Sadly it is happening here in this country constantly. We have a rogue government that does not enforce laws equally, choosing instead to do so at their pleasure – like the royalty of past centuries. It makes fighting them much harder.
We have one hope left. And that is the current corrupt regime will not try to stage a coup and retain power beyond its term. I hold out some hope, but a lot of fear on that issue.
Once they are gone, we cannot, even in the satisfaction of pay back, allow the next regime to do the same thing, regardless of our vote for or against them. If this lawlessness is allowed to be set as a precedence, we have lost. And then the only real option is the physical fight. Or to meekly go along with the rest of the sheep to the slaughter.
10
Phil,
I’ve been thinking about that very thing for a long time.
If it did happen, who would step up and put them out of power? Congress has no enforcement arm except the Department of Justice, a DOJ clearly in Obama’s pocket. The federal courts, including the Supreme Court are in that same boat. Would the military do it? Maybe. But I’m doubtful about it. Would the Secret Service? And remember, Obama commands the military. If they were to stay loyal to him, it’s all over.
So it seems clear to me that what you and I fear could happen. I shudder to think about the consequences. And clearly they are paving the way for the current modus operandi to continue.
00
Roy–You really believe that people who hide behind “executive orders” and TV cameras are going to stand up and be shot at? How long do you think Harry Reid is going to come out in front of cameras if he really thinks people are out to get him? As for the military, those in power just reduced the size of the military and turned it into a social experiment. Seems unlikely the military is going to defend those who are out to destroy them. They might, but I doubt it. For all the bravado, liberals would not deal well with actual threatening of their lives. They continually threaten conservatives, knowing conservatives aren’t going to start the fight. Their worst nightmare is the people who have waited all their lives for exactly this thing to happen. People who are eager to put down a government run amok. Maybe there will be some combat, but I don’t see it lasting long. Tyrants here seem to mostly work on psychological warfare, not actual warfare. Maybe you think I’m naive and I might be. But everything I have learned about bullies–and make no mistake, that’s what these people are–says bullies never really expect to fight, only to intimidate. Obama lacks virtually all characteristics of a dictator–he’s not very bright, he’s out of touch with reality, etc. Right now, we have a bunch of aging adolescents who see their power fading and trying desperatley not to lose it while having no clue as how to win people over other than bribes. I guess we’ll see how things turn out.
00
Sheri,
You’ve been living out in the wilds of Wyoming for too long. No one is going to take a serious shot at the president if he tries to stay in office. But even if he was assassinated, someone else from within the ruling elite will step right up and take over the job. And how much worse do you think assassinating him would make things? Then there’s the Homeland Security domestic army.
In the face of a coup you need a lot more than someone taking shots at Harry Reid or Barack Obama. Assuming for a moment that a coup is in the pipeline, if political means cannot prevent the coup then anyone with any sense is going to bow to the King. Risking death to accomplish something is one thing but suicide is quite another.
And yes, the military could stop him if they want to. The current state of our military leadership doesn’t encourage me about the prospect, however. I see good reason to believe their loyalty might (or soon might) be to the president and the free lunch mentality rather than to The Constitution. The troops will follow a clear, obvious leader but they won’t act on their own initiative. So who will take action?
🙂
But there is hope as I said. They bit off far more than they can chew and are now choking on it. I hope the opposition is up to the job.
00
The way I really expect it to be engineered if it happens is to find a way to wiggle around the two term limit and allow Obama to run again. That would be what I would try. And to back that up I have seen the proposed means of getting around the limit written up and sent around.
Could it succeed? I don’t know.
Would it bring on terrible consequences? Probably. But not nearly as bad as an all out coup.
This is all uncharted territory so maybe you’re right and I’m wrong. But we only need to wait a few short years to find out.
00
Actually, the wilds of the west are where all those crazy folks with guns ready to defend their rights are rumored to be hiding……..
If Obama were removed, we would have Biden. Biden is fully white. That’s a huge step up as it removes the idiot racist claims.
Should Obama decide not to quit, there’s Hillary who is not going to be happy. “They” owe her. Also, he’s already messing up her chances by extending the implementation of Obamacare into “her” term. Obama going for a third term would be a definite violation of the constitution. To date, everything else has skirted the constitution but not outright defied it. The military is sworn to uphold the constitution, so trying for a third term definitely would force the military to chose. I’m sure there are all kinds of ideas circulating. What I would love to know is how mostly rational people have looked at what is not that far off from the past and suddenly declared it disastrous. That’s exactly what feeds global warming–the belief that disaster is coming and everything now is worse than it has ever been. It is true that global warming gives itself decades before predictions can be verified while Obama predictions have only a mere three or less.
00
I almost have less faith in the opposition. But it is still a hope. A peaceful hope. And the only one we have left.
The militarization of the federal civilian agencies is most worrisome, and reminiscent of the tactics employed by another socialist 80 years ago.
00
So, the whole Obama third term thing. Does it actually have any more legs than any of the other proposals to repeal the 22nd amendment??
02
Good question.
I don’t believe a Constitutional Convention will ever be called. It’s too dangerous because the Founders never wrote rules for such a convention once convened. It means that ANYTHING could be considered even throwing out the whole constitution and starting over.
The big question on presidential term limits, has been, (even before Obammy) what would happen if a standing president refused to step down and gathered support from at least part of the armed forces. The various options have been discussed among many for fun and out of concern. I don’t believe Obammy is well liked enough to be able to pull that off. As PhilJourdan has touched upon though is that this administration has been procuring arms and ammunition for non-military government agencies. They ostensibly aren’t bound by the oaths and allegiances the armed forces are bound by. Also, each State has a National Guard presence under some control of each Governor although this has been morphed over the years.
These things are why I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and would even support freer ownership of fully automatic weapons, grenades and a variety of other weapons currently restricted. The Founders gave free men the right to possess state of the art weaponry for a reason to insure against an oppressive rogue government from ever gaining power. Today the government has the vast upper hand in technology. The United Nations attempts to disarm everyone is folly at best and subversive at worst.
But maybe you didn’t want this much of a reply.
00
That’s cool Mark. I am always interested in peoples perspectives on topical issues. From my reading on it though, it seems that bills for repealing the 22nd ammendment are something that comes and goes on a pretty regular basis, under pretty much all administrations, and is more based on some peoples focus on the purist theoretical mechanics of democracy than anything else.
I suspect that’s one topic where we diverge on a philosophical basis. 🙂
01
Catamon, It couldn’t be done with just a bill in congress.
Moving on you say:
In all sincerity, I’d like to hear about your view so long as your willing to hear mine?
00
That some Americans are a bit too fixated on having to defend themselves from their Govt, and way too many people die from guns and associated violence in the US now.
Start getting on to the right to own machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers and i would consider that to be considerably “out there” territory.
Its funny how the deaths of so many innocents (as well as the not so innocent i’m sure) in the US seem to be accepted by some as a fair price for a theoretical ability to be able to engage in armed struggle against their Govt. From an Australian perspective that’s just weird, but then again we have public health care that works as well which seems to get up the nose of some in the US.
02
Cat, in every argument I’ve had with beginners on this path, I’ve had the luxury of very current examples of governments abusing their citizens. I’ve been arguing this point for 30 or more years. Have I run out of examples?
The issue of “innocents” is a straw man or red herring depending. People die, people are murdered. Always has been that way. Possession of the device or too does not make the murderer. It is the mind of the murderer that causes the murder not the device. Rational people have no problem with this. People in denial of this simple truth have a problem.
It really does not matter what the device is, to have trust that your neighbor isn’t a murderer has value. I have never felt uneasy about being around armed regular folk. It wouldn’t matter if the device they were armed with was one shot or hundreds, explosive or rocket powered. They had enough power to kill me with a knife. Only mutual trust and respect saves me. I trust and respect people that share a common goal (living) with a common value in the sanctity of life.
Do you think this is “out there”?
00
Absolutely. In the US there is a strong element of the society that seems to feel uncomfortable if it doesn’t have the ability to kill people quickly, and gets rather antsy and hysterical if its right to have to tools to do so immediately to hand is questioned. That seems to me very silly.
Fail. Someone killed in a driveby, or a child killed in their school can not be so easily dismissed as that.
It actually does. Automatic weapons are, strangely enough, purpose designed to kill lots of people in the minimum time, at close range with all that that implies. Hand deliverable high explosives as well.
Mark, i have to go, but thank you for your engagement on this. Actually talking to nutbaggers (without the risks inherent in actually being in the room with such) is one thing i like about the internet. 🙂
And remember, if you are going to shoot yourself in the foot, do it right, do it with LAWS. 🙂
02
I have to go too.
But you’ve completely ignored my points and heaped on more straw men.
Automatic weapons are, strangely enough, purpose designed to DEFEND against lots of people hell bent on killing.
Those children killed in your imaginary drive by; do they have more value than the children killed by a rogue or tyrant government?
I support laws when put in place by a democratically elected government constrained by a constitution that protects minority rights.
There is much more for you to learn. Come back again.
00
Mark D
Perhaps we have to apologise for the kitty cat.
He seems to think he is a typical Australian, but I rather suspect not.
I suspect he is a typical young upwardly mobile professional something or other that is part of the latte sipping, chardonnay swilling inner city rabble.
Completely brainwashed within an indoctrination system that passes for “education”, pussy cat is more than likely totally unaware of the frantic planning and execution behind the curtain as he watches the show, believing it to be true.
When the excrement smashes into the giant fans some day, it is Cat and his ilk that will scream bloody murder for someone to save them, but we will all be out in the bush defending ourselves against the rabble fleeing the Big Smoke. Having paid little attention to history, and cradled from birth in prosperity, Cat has no inkling that the civilisation he unknowingly destroys is about to suffer a cataclysmic reset.
00
Err….i think you have a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of firearms. And you frequent this site? Hmmm not really surprised.
And i will look forward to a Scots accented Singer with a big swinging weapon coming to my rescue then. XXX
or not. 🙁
Interesting how this post has brought the real nuttbaggers out of the woodwork??
02
Interesting how a blog can out some pseudo intellectuals.
A B-double is easy to get a hold of. With one malicious or even careless turn of the wheel, a whole family can be wiped out. Maybe it requires more maliciousness or very bad luck, but a whole class room full of kids can be destroyed.
A bit fantastical? One recently swiped the trees outside my home and then flipped on its side and came to a halt about 40-50 m from going through the neighbours house. The driver said he blew a tyre but I suspect that he fell asleep.
I can’t see anyone holding up a store with one, but illegal guns are easy to obtain in Australia. My point is that they are tolerated even though the possible carnage due to misuse is huge and has occurred.
00
Can’t go three posts in a conversation before the insults start eh Cat?
One of the most successful automatic weapons is the AK-47 designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov. Lets see what he says:
and:
Seems he agrees with what I’m saying.
You have a twisted view of what makes a “ratbag”.
****************************************************
Rod Stewart, no apologies necessary and good comment. I especially liked “cataclysmic reset” good pun.
Vic:
You need to be more clear about whom you are targeting. 🙂
00
Catamon: Automatic weapons are designed to throw a lot of ammo downfield. Cover fire and maybe one or two people get hit. If you really want to hit something, you use a sniper.
It is interesting that people fear most the thing they feel safest from. Those who live in countries with only weapons that are registered and regulated (which, of course, many weapons are not–as the case of shotguns in Canada) fear countries where guns are openly carried. Those who live in democracies fear socialists more than automatic weapons. Both sides think there’s is the “correct” way. Actually, there is no “correct way”. Americans have an amendment that says we get to carry guns and most Americans outside of the news arena aren’t bothered by that. Australia values its belief that it is safe from gun violence because people follow laws and don’t have guns. People always think their way applies to every one. I once worked with a person from England who wisely noted that the English had not had guns and did not miss them. Americans had always had guns and that trying to compare gun ownership restriction in the US to England’s was not valid because we are two very different countries.
As for guns being the “source” of homicides, Wyomingites have a very high rate of gun ownership. In over 50 years, there has been one school shooting that injured 4 children. In 50 years. There was an attempted bombing of a school that killed the bombers and injured children. So I would agree with Mark D–I know which people to fear, and it’s not based on whether or not they carry a gun.
00
Sheri
For clarification, there are many legal firearms in Australia.
On Sunday 28th April 1996 Martin Bryant won the attention of the Western world by having the time of his life. Shooting everyone he met as he wandered through Port Arthur, Tasmania, he enjoyed a wonderful thrill of exultation and power, and gained a level of satisfaction that he had never experienced before, and is unlikely to experience again. He is now imprisoned in the Wilfred Lopes Centre near Risdon Prison Complex, serving 35 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The general and hysterical reaction to this massacre — a demand to ban all guns — revealed a widespread lack of faith in the self-discipline of gun owners; a tacit confession by the populace to an inability to resist temptation. Their reaction to thrill killing was not one of disbelief, despite the rhetoric, but the opposite. They knew all too well that should they feel the desire to kill, should they lust after the thrill of murder, then they would jump at the chance; and the only way they could see of protecting themselves from people like themselves, was to make such weapons unavailable; A stance that ignored the fact that such legislation could only disarm the law-abiding and so empower the criminal.
Ownership of firearms in Australia is associated with a whole host of rules and regulations, most of which are actually quite reasonable. A firearms licence is required to purchase guns and ammo. The owner of a firearm must maintain it in a locked unmovable cabinet, or it must be stored at a shooting range. They cannot be carried in a vehicle unless they are being moved by the shortest route possible to or from a range or hunting area. There are strict limits on the type of firearm and the size of the magasine is quite restrictive. The intent is limit their use to varmint control and game hunting. All handguns are illegal, unless they are stored at a shooting range.
Urban legend has it that a great number were buried in carefully sealed containers when the regulations went into effect and were supposed to be surrendered to the police.
There are of course a number of illegal firearms, and we are just beginning to see the phenomenon of drive by shootings. This of course has a lot more to do with the growth of “bikie” gangs and in influx of illegal immigrants under the previous administration than it has to do with firearms. My observation is that an inordinate number of lethal violence takes place with knives rather than firearms.
10
Obviously in reference to Catamon, John Brookes, Heeby Jeebies, MTR, etc.
00
@Catamon – I do not see where Roy, Sheri or I talked about the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. Non Sequitur.
Obama has demonstrated his contempt for both enforcing laws, and applying laws in a justice blind manner. A polecat does not change his odor just because you call him a cat.
00
Sorry Mark D, my mind was elsewhere.
I just can’t understand why anyone is worried about guns (or sharks) when at least once a day they are a metre from the last thing going through their minds being a Kenworth badge.
00
What is most interesting in all of this is the reality that those who are antigun are antigun everywhere–even when it’s not their country. Canadians and Australians often jump into this arguments with huge amounts of rhetoric as to how bad guns are and how stupid Americans are for having them. On the other hand, I rarely see Americans advocating that Canada and Australia re-arm themselves to make we Americans happy. We don’t care if you have guns or not. We don’t care if you’re socialist or not. We don’t care if you have universal health care. Yes, some sordid politicians do this as do their minions, but by and large, the average American does not care what you do. If we want “free” health care, we tell people to move where they have “free” health care. If you don’t like guns, move where they don’t have them. If you want guns, move out of New York and California and don’t move to Canada or Australia. We don’t care. Why do those who advocate socialism and no guns have such a need to make everyone think and do the same as they do?
00
There is a group in Canada, Mothers against Wind Turbines, that organizes protests, writes a blog, hold dinners, etc. They seem to be pretty acitve with their protests, yet they are not violent and don’t seem to be extremely rude or poorly behaved. The whole idea is to educate people. (They do call the industry Wind Weasels, which is cute but also rather nasty, even if it is accurate. That’s about as intense as they get.)
People need to be sure they have tried everything before resorting to actions that are irreversible. In the end, it may be the only option, but make sure it was the ONLY option when you start using it.
00
You are right Phil, sorry Jo, but their ideology needs to be fought because it is the same ideology that eventually metastasises from violent placards to violent demonstrations to violent attacks.
The Hilton Bombing in Sydney in 1978 was one such example in Australia carried out by ultra-left wing members of the Ananda Marga which translates as The Path of Bliss.
“The only thing required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” -Thomas Paine
00
SATIRE OF THE CHARACTER OF JOSEPH ADDISON
If Dennis writes and rails in furious pet
I’ll answer Dennis when I am in debt.
If meagre Gildon draw his meaner quill,
I wish the man a dinner and sit still
But should there One whose better stars conspire
To form a bard, and raise a genius higher,
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to live, converse, and write with ease;
Should such a one, resolved to reign alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes,
Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise,
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend,
Fearing e’en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne’er obliged;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hit the fault, and hesitate dislike,
Who when two wits on rival themes contest,
Approves of both, but likes the worst the best
Like Cato, give his little senate laws
And sits attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence praise
And wonder with a foolish face of praise:
Who would not laugh if such a man there be?
Who would not weep if Addison were he?
…………..Alexander Pope
“Who when two wits on rival themes contest,
Approves of both, but likes the worst the best”
“Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike”
00
I always wondered where people found the time off to protest? I have fought a few battles with government and won, but by reason and publicity and common sense. Governments are not evil, nor are most people. The demonstrations, signs, paint and vandalism always seemed absurd, gratuitous and even parody of real protests, usually without any effect at all. The participants seem to really enjoy it! You also get the same people, professional protesters who will join any such event, especially in sunny weather on a nice autumn day.
Real uprisings like the one in Kiev are very different, violent, dangerous affairs in the middle of a freezing winter, as in Kieve where police snipers shot 60 people dead but the protesters persisted with incredible courage. Our marches seem more like pretend, fun events for those who can afford the time and enjoy the outing, public entertainment and chance to get in the papers and on the TV news. Then you get the serious troublemakers who love the opportunity for a bit of aggro or public vandalism. It has always been this way in Australia, faux protests, a few signs, paint, a bit of yelling and then home for dinner. However you have to wonder who is paying for all this? Everyone else I assume.
60
For the most part, protestors fall into 2 categories (at least in the states).
#1 – The offspring of the wealthy – they do not have to work for a living. Think OWS
#2 – Paid Protestors – mostly paid by special interest groups – in other words their job is to protest.
Occasionally you get a short protest that is planned, where people take time off from work, or a spontaneous protest (a real one, not a mock up). In the latter case, think lunch hour as people hear of a cause and show up. But those are very few and far between. Most are paid for and planned and the participants are in the 2 categories above.
00
As much as I dislike Abbot (excluding AGW Policy obviously) I have to admire his ability to bring out the worst side of the left!
25
There you have the root of the failure of western civilisation in a nutshell, where even an apparently sensible person like Robert JM, who sounds conservative by nature, dislikes a man who exemplifies service to the community (volunteer fire-fighter, surf lifesaver), who has strong moral code (whether you happen to concur with all his beliefs or not), is fiercely patriotic, well-intentioned, is humble and non-narcissistic (c.f Kevin Rudd, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama to name but 3), is keen to under-promise and over-deliver on his promises, has a social welfarist conscience married to a practical understanding of the limits of government (and that larger government doesn’t mean better outcomes), and has obviously been a good family man with a generous nature who has raised 3 delightful, well-spoken and intelligent young women who manage to come across as highly independent and liberated, rather than the expected brow beaten 1950’s style domestic goddesses.
What used to be considered an aspiration in behaviour and attitude has not only been completely abandoned, but frowned upon and derided, so is it any wonder that we are governed usually by such empty vessels as Kevin Rudd, or overgrown Trotskyites like Gillard who have not the slightest comprehension of how to manage good governance, or for that matter to even have the best interests of the populace foremost in their minds?
200
Sadly Winston, I think you will now find that those life style choices in Australia are now defined as ‘alternative’ because whilst the leftists controlling Their ABC and SBS are happy proponents of everything but picking the nose that sort of positive community spirit is viewed as abnormal.
30
I respect Abbott as a very smart politician, However I dislike him because he is a politician, you cannot trust any of them!
21
Have you met Tony Abbott? Have you held a conversation with him? On what basis have you decided that you don’t ‘like’ the man.
I’m not trying to be a smartass. I would really like to know.
I have read time and time again that anyone who knows Tony Abbott personally finds the man honest, hard working, open minded, sincere, and responsible. By the same token I have read over and over again that anyone who has met Kevin Rudd personally found him to be an egotistical boor, and so self obsessed that it is nearly psychopathic. On the other hand, I understand that Julia Gillard can be very sociable, even though I consider her philosophy and here politic to be ghastly and evil.
This is not idle curiosity. My wife’s niece, who is about thirty, recently was astounded to find out that I ‘like’ Tony Abbott, and that I don’t ‘hate him like everyone else.
I responded by pointing out his tireless efforts to volunteer, his loyalty to his family, his concern for people in general, and how this is in stark contrast with the self-centred egotist that is Rudd or the pathological liar that is Gillard. I also pointed out to her how dreadful it must be it be a political entity, and how grueling the work is, and how they are human beings just like everyone else, with good an bad traits. I also pointed out that in a democracy one should make decisions in the ballot box based on policy, intent, and strategy, and that it really should be immaterial whether you ‘like’ a person or not.
She didn’t have an answer. She just said that she ‘hadn’t though about it that much’ and that all of her mates hate Tony Abbott. She mumbles something about his ears.
Does this seem logical to you? It does not seem even remotely reasonable to me.
160
Yep, been there.
Most interesting is the blank look I get after asking “Why?”
30
Thanks Rod,
That was my point. We have reached a point in our civilisation where it is seemingly more important to appear than to actually be, to be a man of empty words rather than of positive actions, and to be judged by one’s media persona (as determined by the brain-dead zombies who populate the MSM) than by what deeds a politician has actually performed in his life experience to justify our voting for him.
In the US, I feel genuinely sorry for the population, who have a Hobson’s choice between “Demican” stooge 1 versus “Republicrat” stooge 2, each one bought and paid for by Goldman Sachs and JPM, survivors of a multibillion dollar stage managed farce where the good guys always finish last, and a corrupt POTUS is inevitable. In short, there can be no other kind of President- the system does not allow it.
Here, we at least have some semblance of a possibility of diversity of personality and policy, as the difference between Abbott and Rudd/Gillard could not be more stark. The concern is that the Left are determined to sabotage Abbott, particularly wherever he is successful.
My hope is that this will backfire heavily in their faces, which I believe it will on present evidence of their crumbling public trust and recurrent public brain explosions on twitter etc., and that the over-reach of the Carbon tax and the open sabotage of our economy will be the death knell of leftist politics in this country for a generation or more. For us, it is not too late, and whether people trust Abbott or not, he is our ONLY hope of preventing a slide into banana republic status on the one hand, and bureaucratic stagnation on the other.
50
I think the quote about Abbott and Rudd rings fairly true.
I’ve had dealings with both of these gentlemen in the past and I personally can attest to the truth in the above.
10
People like this talk big in a group but shut up and alter their attitude greatly when confronted one on one, this is from personal experience as I’ve always believed it to be far more honorable and morally acceptable to handle any issues you feel strongly about in this way.
Not many people enjoy confrontation but some explore that possibility in this pack mentality, say’s a lot IMHO.
50
Yonni,
I hope you’re right because I’m about to have some strong words with my local government over an issue that could end up costing me a lot of money for something my tax dollars should be paying for instead. At least I know a lot of my neighbors are as upset about it as I am and I hope they show up to say so.
Wish me luck.
30
Sorry for the late reply (long work hours) Roy I wouldn’t expect anything less from you to stand up for yourself 🙂 and I wish you the best of luck but also remember that while people seem to agree with you and are willing to follow you into battle quite often they will back off and leave you stranded fighting by yourself for no real reason.
This is something I have experienced for many years and while this doesn’t make them bad people it just highlights that not everyone is up for organized confrontation or are more followers than leaders in the instance of their personality, maybe try and find out if any of them have done this type of thing before and bring them up to the front ranks for a strong front.
Phew I’ve done enough military analogies so get to it and good luck!
00
Thanks, Yonni,
We have a meeting this evening where the next step will happen. I expect verbal support from quite a number of neighbors, thanks to one of them who bothered to send not one but two letters alerting everyone to what’s going on. How effective that will be depends on who from the government side attends to hear what we say and of course, how we say it. Unfortunately the letters were angry in tone and more than a bit inflammatory, which doesn’t help.
It should be great fun. 🙁
00
Exactly !
Mad Dogs hunt in packs.
14
Not always. I recall having a “discussion” with a lefty once about climate change – he was as “dyed in the wool” as you could get and determined to fight to the last man.
You couldnt reason with him – he was educated, intelligent and worked in IT.
GO figure.
40
Educated into STUPIDITY……
10
People like this talk big in a group but shut up and alter their attitude greatly when confronted one on one,
Yonnie,one of the best examples of this was juliar when in the middle east was asked about woman’s rights by a journalist,the answer contained a lot of errs and umms and she did’nt feel it was her place to comment on another country’s culture.I never knew one could backpeddle so fast when not surrounded by ‘yes men’and friendly msm
10
Yes it’s very much a universal survival instinct, even for neo feminist’s.
00
I thought Australia would have some form of “Hate Speech” law. If this sort of display doesn’t fall within that law then it is a waste of time having the law. The head of the police or some other senior legal person should come out with a warning. It will not be listened to so then an example has to be set. Just like parents with a spoilt kid.
As an aside –I read this morning Greenpeace is going to sue Russia ( in the European Court of Human Rights) over the Arctic 30.
Can you hear Putin laughing from where you are ??!!!
60
“Ross”, it’s more than simple “hate speech”.
More like incitement to TERRORISM & MURDER.
These “people” need to be tracked down and jailed ASAP as they are a serious danger to society.
71
Not sure that you need laws to control 15 year old girls with stupid signs. They will have to live with their image on the internet. Should be great in a job interview in a few years.
Generally such extreme signs mean nothing and reflect very badly on the person carrying them. No one is really encouraged to rape and murder or to even think that such a thing is condoned by society. Do individuals feel threatened by this? Possibly, but that is public office for you and it is far worse in most countries. We have never had an attempt on the life of a PM, unlike almost every other country in the world. As for the idea that lawyers should determine right from wrong, they are probably the worst people to have a clear view of this. To a lawyer, it is what they interpret the law to be. For many, criminal is only when you get caught.
30
They will have to live with their image on the internet.
TdeF,If you look at the U.S.this may not be considered bad for your future.Three leaders of the weather underground protesting the Vietnam war and bombing federal buildings are advisers to obama.
00
Ross: ‘Greenpeace is going to sue Russia over the Arctic 30’ – thanks for this post, I can’t stop laughing either! What planet do these people live on?
20
The problem with Liberals ( the left ) isn’t that they are ignorant, it’s that they know so much that isn’t so.
Ronald Reagan 1964.
There’s group in this country that is running on a series of banners which they recycle over and over, egged on by GetUp, Avazz, Greenpeace, WWF etc most of which are NOT true.
For example – “Tony wants to destroy our world heritage forests in Tasmania.”
In it’s haste to gain the green vote at the last election the Labor party rushed through a world heritage application in June last year to declare 170K hectares of forest as world heritage. They actually deceived the international world heritage committee (to Australia’s embarrassment) because the area included operating farm land, previously logged areas and pine plantations!! Does anyone seriously wish to declare a pine plantation as world heritage? Really? Don’t you think a review into it’s creation is appropriate?
Similarly with the banners stating “Tony wants to destroy the Great Barrier Reef”. – The moving of sand 45 km from the reef in a shipping channel does NOT constitute destroying the 2000 km long Reef.
How about “We lost the election because of Murdoch and his greedy newspapers” – if that’s the case, which it isn’t, then you should be holding up banners saying “We won the election because of Murdoch” because he supported Rudd in 2007. In fact, only the Age supported Rudd in the last election.
The results of the elections held last weekend should be a wake up call to those who continue to proliferate these inaccurate banners and slogans. The rest of the country is awake to it and it’s time they took a good hard look at the integrity of their belief systems and their politics.
80
What do you expect from a bunch of ‘climate change nazis’. Dr Spencer is correct.
50
Exactly “Magoo”.
The only things missing are the brown shirts and swastikas !!
20
Useless idiots on parade, no brains and happy with out them.
20
“Useless idiots”, too stupid to live who have lost the gene pool lottery aptly describes these “characters”….
10
And probably so — at the moment. On the other hand, there but for the grace of God go your children or mine. What’s needed is to provide them incentives to become productive, to stand on their feet instead of on our backs, to understand and embrace some real values and become part of the solution instead of the problem.
Now how do we do that? My opinion of them is as low as yours — and many others’ — but they’re here and have to be dealt with. I suggest that the required method is something other than simply writing them off.
If my neighbor hates me, hating him back helps nothing.
50
I agree – hate is never the answer. Being wary and watchful and not fighting fire with fire is a smart move. Great force when encountering nothing, has a tendency to defeat itself.
We have to really educate our kids about Mao, Stalin, Hitler – all the mass murderers who destroyed and built nothing except hate. Our kids need a true unfiltered history of what left wing politics is, what propganda is, what damage hate does to society, how to live quietly ( but armed with knowledge ( or hardware ) as needed ), how to diffuse arguments, when to walk away, how to defend your opinions peacefully, what works and what doesnt. That is a true education. It equips them to not become canon fodder or become someone elses fool.
40
I do not recall the origin of the saying or cliche’, but I will always remember it. It basically goes – I will not let you set my mood for me.
00
Easier to say than to do. But the correct outlook on the world and its affairs nevertheless.
00
I’m often amazed at the way in which we humans can lay blame for our actions and words, at the feet of inanimate objects,products, etc.
WE are responsible for what we do, and think. WE,the human need to grow up. A fellow, by the name of Paul, once said,”When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways”.
WE press the buttons,and power up the machines. WE put our tongues in gear before switching on our brains. WE, the sheeple, are led around like children by the rhetoric of gurus with strong, but,often misguided opinions.
50
My son has already stated for the record that Tony Abbott will lose the next election, he is a second year Mech eng student at Adelaide UNI and he states that every female he meets hates Tony’s guts. My son often takes on the lefties (political activists) and generally comes out covered in bruises but always with his dignity intact.
Cheers
50
I write letters and emails all the time. The addressees take ages to respond and then its a gobbledygook reply which does not focus on my questions or comments. Typical pollie speak. So I have to write further correspondence. Same again. Then I go to twitter but all I get is abuse. I could sit here all day verbal jousting with morons but that just wastes my time. So I’m thinking what next? I have a blog but its topic specific. That won’t work. I feel threatened. I feel like I will be forced to respond to violence in one way only. In kind …. A sad, sad world we now live in thanks to the moronic ‘Useful idiots’ on display in the March in March and elsewhere. I’m not sure what the answer is.
50
People mock the US 2nd Ammendment, but now you understand why it was included.
History repeats itself.
00
Hey Steve, I have many, many American friends and I have travelled there over 80 times. I have always understood why Americans support the 2nd amendment, although one of the main reasons is a distrust that the government will turn against its people. Many friends who have not owned guns in the past are now, unfortunately, arming themselves.
40
I don’t blame them arming themselves with oBUMMER ruining the US…..
00
My 80 year old Uncle recently purchased one for the first time since he was a boy.
Many do not have a “distrust that the government will turn against its people”, rather they wonder how long people will abide the fact it already has.
20
I think people in a criss are usually a bigger problem than th ecrisis itself.
That said, if the US govt goes to the dogs, the canon fodder that politically support the incumbent will likely become willing brown shirts.
At that point, yes hardware is necessary.
Here in Oz of course with gun registration, all law abiding citizens will be forcibly disarmed, then thrown to the nihlists/wolves.
00
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.
It would seem a certain Thomas Jefferson was trying to get this idea across to Americans in the 18th century, hope it’s not completely forgotten for liberty’s sake.
00
One thing I dislike about people of the left is that anything that they do or think is always moral and true, and anything that anybody else does is evil and false. This despite continually changing their tune. They have long claimed to be on the side of “science” and “reason”, but cannot comprehend any possibilities outside of their own imagining. Further in the leftist world, any imagined problem automatically has a solution. If physics were like that, Einstein wouldn’t have struggled for a decade on his general theory of relativity. If medicine were like that, we would now have cures for every type of cancer and AIDS. The sad truth is that the left’s disconnection from the real world has long been the case. Karl Marx thought that evil capitalism would be swept away, leaving to emerge a global communist paradise. Instead, the communist regimes that emerged killed over 100 million people in the last century.
110
One sign had Abbott alongside a swastika and communist flag. Interesting isn’t it that the person carrying that sign doesn’t see the irony in that the march was organized by people of the very same socialist/communist/marxist ilk ….?
50
Most of the nutters who celebrated hysterically when thatcher died wouldnt have even been alive when she was in power.
GO figure…
60
Steve,
Knowledge is not a prerequisite for hatred.
30
correct Winston. Knowledge, especially of the past, is a pre-requisite for not making the same mistakes as in the past.
30
I believe that the communists fought the natzis …….
00
“I believe the communists fought the natzis (sic)”
Yes and no. The Communists both fought Nazis/Fascists and played “footsie” with Nazis and Fascists. The spats, prior to June 1941, more along the lines of a tepid blood-feud between rival clans of the same tribe–the back-stabbing and blood-letting, in such affairs, never coming close to matching the diabolical, lethal intensity of the Communists’ intra-clan faction-fights, let it be noted.
Indeed, until Hitler stabbed Uncle Joe in the back before Uncle Joe could stab Hitler in the back, the ritualized Communist-Nazi/Fascist dust-ups were more theatrical than real, with the warp-and-woof of their relationship more along the lines of regular, sneaking-around,needy, torrid affairs of mutual benefit (e. g., Fascist assistance to the Commies’ eradication of Spanish Anarchists, the German Commie take-out the Social Democrats so as to guarantee the 1932 election success of the Nazis, the carve-up of Poland for the lebensraum, dining pleasure of all concerned (with the Baltic States, Karelia, and Bessarabia for snacks), etc.)
The high point of all this being, of course, the memorable, public display of Nazi/Soviet, “good-buddy” solidarity, that was paraded before the world of 1939 with such a grok-frenzied, heavy-petting ostentation that it required, when all was said and done, the insertion of the pointy-end of an ice axe into gadfly, chatter-box Comrade Trotsky’s fervid brain in order to steady the good-comrades’ shaken sense of party-line discipline.
10
French Revolution 101
First: license the mob
Second: construct the guillotines
Seen it all before
30
I’m begining to think Australians have lost their mind. We live in a democracy, and that freedom of speech comes with a degree of responsibility. But lately it appears those opinions are imbued with an invectiveness and hatred I’ve rarely seen in this country. The level of abuse seen in the above collage at the “march in March” with the exhortations to shoot or behead anyone with whom you disagree, the language used in commentary on various newspapers and blogs, has bought our public discourse down to nothing more than vilification and insult, adding nothing to any debate. I have to wonder why. Is it because the Left feels they are losing the argument, or is it something more basic like a shift in values? I have no idea, but I don’t like the way it all “feels”.
20
For an interesting perspective on the question “why” might I suggest “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe. Written in 1996, it is based on the authors’ generational theories, and given the circumstances of the last couple of decades since it was written are enough to make anyone sit up and take notice.
Each generation experiences a social fabric that is the result of their upbringing.
The current period S&H refer to as “winter”, and persists for a generation.
Previous winter periods include the American Revolution, American Civil War, and the depression prior to WWII.
20
Ya gotta laugh …
And you will … at Imre Salusinszky, who is having too much fun with the March in Marchers.
Click on each image to embiggen.
(via Tim Blair)
10
Wait till you see what happens when household food costs 40% of income. They’re really gonna be able to cope with that! We’re in for a ride we havn’t seen for 100 years! And we’re in it because the last 100 years is now being ignored or dismissed! History rhymes people!, history rhymes!
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/food-price-threshold/
20
last nite i guessed what the issue of the day would be for abc’s Tony Delroy on Nightlife, & he didn’t disappoint. it was the March In March, with exaggerated numbers (mostly unchallenged), claims it was a grassroots affair, across the political divides, cos people are fed up with both parties. towards the end, Delroy reads a text from a listener saying – on the same day as the protest, liberals won in a landslide over labor/greens in tasmania, a good subject for issue of the day. Delroy laughs & says he’ll get around to that one day. i’m paraphrasing cos last nite’s program is not up at the website as yet. however:
ABC Nightlife with Tony Delroy: friday nite/saturday morning during “The Challenge”:
26.43 Hour Three: Midnight to 1 am:
Caller Brad: we have a march in lismore tomorrow against tony abbott. expecting 10 to 15,000 to march. if u include refugess, it is a [Snipped – label has given too much grief] govt. i’m expecting there might be some violence around the country.
Delroy: good grief, let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
Brad: i believe it will, tony, because i’ts the opportunity for so many people to vent their antagonism & it won’t be allowed to happen again after that.
Delroy: thanks for the update. we’re in the middle of the challenge at the moment, so i have to ask you….
http://www.abc.net.au/nightlife/
hour ends with andrew romano/newsweek & the usual obama lovefest.
00
In ages past, naughty members of the underclass were despatched either to rot in hulks moored on the Thames, or sent to Van Dieman’s Land.
Given the decline in population on that fair island, perhaps it is time to resuscitate the Tasmanian Solution for such unhappy folk?
Why, a restored Sarah Island would be just the place for remedial eco-tours of Macquarie Harbour and the eco-enchanted environs.
When full, there apparently is a big demand for whale-watchers on Macquarie Island, which has 360 degree vistas of the Great Southern Ocean.
30
The scum has risen to the top for all to see. What a cesspool of anarchist slime.
30
forgot to mention that one caller to ABC’s Tony Delroy re the protests pointed out her 9-yr-old son had a placard that said: Mr. Rabbott – crawl back into your hole – or whatever. she said to Delroy, this shows how broad-based the protest was!
ABC’s Richard Fidler last nite – same hour as Tony Delroy above, with a repeat from 2012 – a vicious, all-out attack on Sarah Palin, with non-stop guffawing by Fidler:
ABC Conversations: Joe McGinniss
A repeat of Richard’s interview with veteran US journalist Joe McGinniss, who died this week…
He also wrote an acclaimed book on Alaska, a place he adored and feared for.
On election day 2008 he began on the ground reporting on the background of Alaska’s most famous daughter.
Joe’s research famously began with his decision to rent a house right next door to the Palin family in Wasilla
Richard recorded this interview with Joe when he was visiting Australia in 2012.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/03/14/3963444.htm?site=conversations
the ugly insinuations by McGinniss that Palin’s downs syndrome son was not even her child. McGinniss feigning – as he always did – that he couldn’t understand why his moving in next door could be considered creepy.
Fidler asking if Palin saw herself as chosen by God. yes, says McGinniss, who gave no example of HER thinking so, yet here is Obama, in his own words:
Newsweek’s Andrew Romano who has Obama lovefest with Tony Delroy each week, had ***this line in the original, but it appears to have been removed in the update:
2008, updated 2010: Newsweek: Andrew Romano: Obama: For Now, Perspiration Over Inspiration
***In New Hampshire and South Carolina, for example, the senator was fond of telling audiences that “at some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you’ll say, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”
http://www.newsweek.com/obama-now-perspiration-over-inspiration-218112
2008: Columbia Journalism Review: Gal Beckerman: Seeing the Light in South Carolina
When he (Barack Obama_ took the stage he said, “At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you’ll say, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’” …
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/seeing_the_light_in_south_caro.php
2008: Washington Post: Exeter, New Hampshire:
An Obama event is not a friendly place for cynics, skeptics, the permanently jaded, the chronically unimpressed. This is revival-tent stuff. The senator from Illinois used the metaphor of a religious conversion:
“I am going to try to be so persuasive, so that those of you who are still wavering…will suddenly come to the conclusion – a light beam will shine through – will light you up – and you will experience an epiphany – I have to vote for Barack!”…
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/01/barack_obama_and_dave_barry.html
not forgetting the halo-ed pics the MSM published of Obama.
00
following Fidler’s Palin-bashing, ABC RN had one of those Monocle programs, which i thought were generic & broadcast from London to various countries around the world.
anyway, subject was crosswords, & first guest interviewed was Fairfax’s David Astle, who brought up his global warming crossword, because he believes in CAGW, and how COWARD became HOWARD (see below link to get an idea). i thought surely listeners outside australia wouldn’t even know what he was talking about:
2011: DavidAstle.com: Verbal Warming (or Cooling)
You may recall a clue I wrote last week in the Fairfax crossword. The idea toyed with a shift in temperature, moving from C to H (or Cold to Hot), a reference to shower taps or possibly weather maps…
FROM COMMENTS:
Sam: 12 – howard coward
Boniface: 12. H/coward
Sam: 12: Tampa-gate villain (6,6) = HOWARD COWARD
http://davidastle.com/da-blog/post/verbal-warming-or-cooling/
something is seriously wrong at the ABC.
00
couldn’t make this up:
18 March: Qld Country Life: Kate Stark: Meat and greet: carbon bus tour
THE words ‘bus tour’ don’t usually seem to inspire much of a reaction from me but shove the word ‘carbon’ in the sentence and curiosity starts to build.
Before I know it I’ve been very willingly wrangled into joining the Future Farmers Network northern ‘carbon bus’ tour – travelling the back roads west of Townsville on a mission – a mission that could potentially save the world…
As part of the tour, I have also been given the opportunity to document the Young Carbon Farmers ‘maiden voyage’ in a series of blogs. But where to begin when we haven’t actually begun?
Sitting in the foyer, tapping away, I start to think about all the fun (dear boss, when I say ‘fun’ I mean ‘educational experiences’) things the group are going to get to do today.
First up we’ll be heading to Lansdown Research Station where Snow Barlow, professor at the University of Melbourne, will give us a run-down on carbon farming. This guy is all kinds of smart and I’m just waiting for the perfect opportunity to chat with him and figure out how we can save the planet, together.
Oh geez, he just sat down next to me, he’s super excited too! He reckons we need to decrease methane emissions not only because it will be great for the environment but methane in itself is actually energy for the animal and if we can reduce the output, we can increase the energy. Mind. Blown…
http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/news/agriculture/general/opinion/meat-and-greet-carbon-bus-tour/2691978.aspx
00
this looks like a press release being published as news!
18 March: Bundaberg News Mail (APN Media): Find out about making and trading carbon credits
PRIMARY producers, rural advisors, and agribusinesses are invited to join Ben Keogh from Australian Carbon Traders for the latest on making and trading carbon credits through the Carbon Farming Initiative.
Proudly hosted by the Burnett Mary Regional Group, Ben is an engaging and dynamic speaker who will give a presentation at the Brothers Sports Club over breakfast, on Monday, March 31.
Ben Keogh works at the coalface of the carbon market and is highly experienced in brokering on-ground Carbon Farming Initiative projects.
He has an intimate, practical and contemporary understanding of the issues facing landholders, service providers and investors in a growing carbon market…
The business breakfast address by Mr Keogh is the first of a series of presentations that he will make in April. Mr Keogh is additionally meeting with Landcare groups throughout the region, in Monto, Eidsvold, Booubyjan, Kingaroy and Pomona, to provide relevant and accurate information to landholders on the Carbon Farming Initiative…
Mr Keogh’s visit to the Burnett Mary region is an initiative of the Carbon Farming Project, a collaborative project of the Burnett Mary Regional Group, the Burnett Catchment Care Association and the Bundaberg Fruit & Vegetable Growers. Funded by the Australian Government’s Extension and Outreach program, the Carbon Farming Project aims to create a carbon farming savvy rural community and assist producers to reduce inefficiencies in their farming systems…
To book your seat please RSVP by Thursday the 27th of March by contacting Vikki at BMRG on 4169 0720 or emailing admin@bmrg.org.au…
http://www.news-mail.com.au/news/find-out-about-making-and-trading-carbon-credits/2201990/
00
HSBC appoints new climate change chief
LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) – HSBC has appointed a new head of climate change research to replace Nick Robins, who stepped down earlier this year to help lead a United Nations-led project into how to decarbonise the global economy.
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4522563?&ref=searchlist
EU carbon prices sink on technical selling
LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) – European carbon prices fell by as much as 11 percent on Monday, after breaking below technical levels at around 6 euros, and then later partially recovered to around those support levels.
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4521789?&ref=searchlist
00
Society cannot continue on the trends it’s on?!? We all agree on that I assume? Well, if something cannot continue?…. IT WILL STOP! I’m not suggesting we stop it, I’m not suggesting the barbarians will stop. If something cannot continue?…. IT WILL STOP! The huge questions… how? by who/m? and under what circumstances?
The more this mindlessness and depraved, utterly immoral behaivour continues? well, Oh dear! We’re being taxed to pay for this garbage! How’d ya stop that? The “taxers” have a monopoly on force.
The more force that’s required to stop it?… Well, I’m not sure I’d want to be a by-stander when that balloon goes up!?!?
“Time to prepare your effects and papers”. There is no fixing it now. The system has whole generations coming through that identify with this zombie minded depravity. Just let it run it’s course and hope like hell you can be out of the way when it dismantles.
We’ve got a few more years of this, and if Tony has to go to another election?… Maybe more! The steam will build, laws will be passed (Universily, which includes you!), We may all get caught up the crap!
Time to prepare yourselves, get ready to abbandon ship. This one’s going down! And this is nothing!…. If you examine the “Aircraft Carrier” (Incredibley hard to turn and packs some firepower) that is the northern hemisphere? It’s leaning! Wow! History, people, history!
10
Thank you Jo, I must say that these “enlightened progressives” are a phenomenon to behold!
20
The girls who hate Prime Minister Abbott must be immature and very easily brainwashed. Please explain to them that the infamous speech that former prime minister Gillard made directed at him was written for her by a man, her British 457 Visa import John McTernan who rehearsed the presentation of it with her. And by the way he engineered the same attack on the now British PM when he was leader of the opposition.
In other words the speech was not an original, the smear camapaign was not an original and the attack was low and a complete deception crafted to take in gullible woman. So they who fell for it are fools.
Also, the speech was delivered to the Parliament at a time when PM Gillard was defending Peter Slipper, the Speaker who had stood down following allegations of him abusing a staffer. On appeal that staffer recently won his case against Slipper.
If she is the young women’s role model they need to be redirected to Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs, deputy Liberal leader, law degree, MBA and was the managing partner of a large law firm.
60
Maybe the young women will wake up when Victoria Police complete their investigation soon of the AWU slush fund matter and other related matters? And when the Royal Commission into the union movement begins to investigate the slush fund matter and many other areas of corruption involving a certain former solicitor who can no longer practise law and who held the position of prime minister (see Micheal Smith News for all the details and published evidence).
Tell them about this former prime minister handing $100 million of our borrowed money to the University of Adelaide where she is now a visiting honorary professor. And about the $300 million she handed to the UN IMF Education Fund that she was invited to chair, that grant was far larger, more than three times larger than any other nation gave the IMF.
And remind them that this nation at federal level (state/territory debt is also substantial combined) when Union Labor Green left office is close to $670 billion and the total of budgets in deficit over $120 billion all during a mining boom when terms of trade, revenue was at an all time record high. And explain to them that they have to pay taxes to retire that debt and the annual interest liability, more tax and even fewer services are the penalties for at least fifty years depending on economic prosperity, GDP growth and other factors.
It angers me that there are foolish people who are apparently not angry about the position our nation is in today because of Union Labor Green and who led the governments since 2007 to 2013. How could any intelligent person follow the left. I think I just answered my own question.
101
Sorry to laugh DT, Doesn’t mean I hate you or dislike you in anyway, or am discriminating against you, or I think you any less of a human being (Enough Qualifiers?), see where it’s gone? but you’re describing 80% of the population “who hate Prime Minister Abbott must be immature and very easily brainwashed” Anything else obvious? LMAO
17
But you are wrong, so obviously wrong, his government won by a landslide that was bigger than any earlier since Federation. I note that you did not attempt to refute the rest of my comments.
41
You must have cut and pasted a spray you received, Nick. An idiot like you would have a bucket load of retorts like that. Dont waste them. Make sure that you don’t declare a man who led a party to a landslide victory is hated by 80% of the population next time.
10
[If she is the young women’s role model they need to be redirected to Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs, deputy Liberal leader, law degree, MBA and was the managing partner of a large law firm.]
Seriously?? The womon who has serially fwarked up EVERY portfolio position she has held since entering parliament? There is a reason she is not treasurer you know. Its not exactly her choice, but more the party remembering what a hash she made of anything to do with numbers while in opposition.
16
Careful Cat, your bias is showing.
31
Seems to be all the rage here Heywood, just getting with the theme. 🙂
And when someone posts something as nuclear weapons grade kool aid like DT @ 50 its hard to resist calling it as bollocks.
15
So DT thinks that Bishop would be a better role model than Gillard. So? I tend to agree.
Hardly “nuclear weapons grade kool aid”. A little ‘hyperbowl’ from you don’t you think?
21
[A little ‘hyperbowl’ from you don’t you think?]
Not at all. Examine her actual history of appointments and performance and she is one of the worst performers the fibs have. Its astonishing she hasn’t been put out to pasture. Basically she is there because the W.A. branch brings in dosh and she has had the right “connections” over the years. Every portfolio she has had as shadow or minister she has either fwarked or done nothing in. Remember this is “passports, we all do it” Julie after all.
Still, the W.A. Fibs have hung onto Chairman Sniff past his use by date as well havent they??
02
Arguing with leftards…it’s like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it’s victorious.
😉
30
Are you having a widdle dummy spit Heywood??
You would appreciate this. It encapsulates her latest public fwark up pretty well.
“Foreign affairs is all Oyu Tolgoi to Bishop.” 🙂
04
Catamon, only Crikey thought that it was news worthy. Not even the feral Fairfax press thought it was news worthy, and even they conveniently ignored Manus Island was set up by Labor when bagging her out.
Julie Bishop was a managing partner of a Law firm and sat on a number of boards. She didn’t fleece unions for money before entering parliament.
Let me guess Catamon, daddy got you a job as a shop floor steward so that you wouldn’t cut your hand off?
30
O/T, but an interesting post:
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/tony-thomas/2014/03/finally-real-climate-science/
I hope it’s accurate
00
18 March: Brisbane Times (Fairfax): What would the Australian media look like without the ABC?
by Brian McNair and Adam Swift, Queensland University of Technology
The Conversation UK recently asked what Britain would be like without the BBC, as it too struggles with looming cuts. But what would Australian culture be like if the ABC didn’t exist?
The most obvious absence would be impartial news and current affairs journalism of a certain quality and tone. All commercial media organisations produce news and current affairs, and often very well, but to very different criteria than those laid down by the ABC’s Charter…
Our research highlights the growing importance of the ABC in Australian political culture. During 2013, we mapped the Australian public sphere, including established and familiar formats such as broadsheet news, current affairs and magazine television, “expert” or “insider” panel and debate programs, and public talkback radio, along with new and experimental human interest and infotainment genres, satire and public participation formats…
Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Adam Swift does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article/
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/what-would-the-australian-media-look-like-without-the-abc-20140318-34yuj.html
18 March: SMH: Peter Hannam: Food security, economy to be hit by climate change, leaked IPCC draft report shows
Global warming will displace millions of people, trigger falling crop yields, stoke conflict and cost trillions of dollars in lost economic output, a United Nations report will warn.
A draft of the report to be finalised later this month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and obtained by The Independent in Britain, says “hundreds of millions of people” will be forced to move because of coastal flooding and land loss as sea levels rise…
Poverty and economic shocks from climate change will have a significant impact on migration, increasing the risks of violence from protests and from civil or international conflicts, according the draft version of the report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability states…
The summary of the draft report alone runs for 76 pages, with the full 30 chapters extending for hundreds more. The draft summary notes that the number of papers on adaptation to climate change had doubled in the five years to 2010, adding to the material to be assessed by the reports’ authors.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/food-security-economy-to-be-hit-by-climate-change-leaked-ipcc-draft-report-shows-20140318-34zpm.html
12
No loss there. LOL
00
18 March: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
A draft of the final version seen by The Independent says the warming climate will place the world under enormous strain, forcing mass migration, especially in Asia, and increasing the risk of violent conflict.
Based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies and put together by hundreds of respected scientists, the report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade for the rest of the century – at a time of rapidly growing demand for food. This will in turn push up malnutrition in children by about a fifth, it predicts…
AND ON AND ON AND ON…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/official-prophecy-of-doom-global-warming-will-cause-widespread-conflict-displace-millions-of-people-and-devastate-the-global-economy-9198171.html
10
The PM refused to endorse appointment of the SBS Chairman, he said he will not accept socialism masquerading as environmentalism and he identified a certain not funny cartoon as an ABC event his government will take into account when considering ABC funding. His deputy, Julie Bishop, has her DFAT monitoring ABC Asia broadcasting following complaints from Australians in Asia Pacific. The writing is on the wall.
30
The far left, the Socialist Forum for example, created by Juliar Gillard as a hiding place for misplaced people of the far left, that she lied about claiming not to be the founder but just a secretary. Be in no doubt people, Gillard and Comrades are far left international warriors, the enemies within our nation. As for a role model for young women, really? Please tell me what she achieved that young women should be wanting to do? Failed solicitor is the bottom line.
40
Great article, even though the photos of those people makes my skin creep, you almost wish that the great crash would arrive just to witness the misery it will bring to these good-for-nothings.
40
16 March: Siberian Times: Russia gains vast new area twice the size of Crimea with ‘the energy riches of an Ali Baba’s cave’
Highly prized victory comes without a shot in anger after 13 year battle in the corridors of the United Nations.
The Siberian land mass is officially 52,000 square kilometres bigger after an enclave in the Sea of Okhotsk was recognised as part of Russia’s continental shelf. The decision comes from the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf…
The treasure trove includes hydrocarbon resources exceeding one billion tonnes, believes Donskoy. He has described it in the past as ‘a real Ali Baba’s cave in terms of resources’, adding that access will long-term bring ‘enormous opportunities and prospects for the Russian economy’.
Moscow sent a request in 2001 for the entire continental shelf, including the Arctic shelf, which the UN rejected demanding more data and evidence that the enclave is the natural continuation of the Russian territory. The decision, released at the weekend, is a first step in a Russian campaign to claim huge new rights based on the Lomonosov and Mendeleev Ridges being extensions of the Siberian continental shelves.
If approved, Russia would gain 1.2 million square kilometres of Arctic territorial waters.
http://siberiantimes.com/business/casestudy/news/russia-gains-vast-new-area-twice-the-size-of-crimea-with-the-energy-riches-of-an-ali-babas-cave/
00
this Oxfam report is all over the UK media,(pity Oxfam has pushed CAGW, which has cost the poor so much) but only the Guardian could include the following line, even tho the report is about non-catholic UK & obama is not their leader! it epitomises everything i loathe about political partisanship, especially as expressed via media, & especially at “our” ABC:
17 March: Guardian: Larry Elliott: Britain’s five richest families worth more than poorest 20%
Oxfam report reveals scale of inequality in UK as charity appeals to chancellor over tax
The pope and Barack Obama have made tackling inequality a top priority for 2014…
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/17/oxfam-report-scale-britain-growing-financial-inequality
mind u, judging by what the young beautician, Gemma Worrall, from Blackpool, England tweeted recently (which the MSM jumped on from various partisan perspectives):
“if barraco barmer is our president why is he getting involved with Russia scary”
it’s obvious the media might be partly responsible for her ignorance.
10 March: UK Telegraph: Toby Young: How did the ‘Barraco Barner’ beautician get 17 GCSEs? Ask Labour and the teaching unions
I’m speechless. Not that a 20-year-old beautician from Blackpool thinks “Barraco Barner” is “our” President, but that she has 17 GCSEs. Anyone reading this will think that’s a misprint – or a factual error – but no. The last Labour government dumbed down GCSEs to such an extent that this is all too plausible…
I’m not blaming Gemma Worrall. The fact that she took so many GCSEs indicates she had an appetite to learn and her tweet, for all its shortcomings, does suggest a willingness to engage with international politics…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100262885/how-did-the-barraco-barner-beautician-get-17-gcses-ask-labour-and-the-teaching-unions/
10 March: UK Independent: Grace Dent: Who cares if she spells it Barraco Barner?
Gemma Worrall is more employable than some bookish arts graduate
And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed Gemma’s slight confusion that Obama is a high-level influencer in British politics – no Westminster pundit in the land would quibble at this suggestion. Also, her worry about provoking Russia and her fear of war aren’t silly in the slightest, they’re absolutely bang on the money. Perhaps Gemma isn’t enormously au fait with the history of the Cold War or the break-up of the Soviet Union, but she’s possibly seen photos in the tabloids of Vladimir Putin with his top off riding a tank or letting stallions nuzzle him – and that’s enough to guide foreign-policy strategy for most of us…
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/grace-dent-who-cares-if-she-spells-it-barraco-barner-gemma-worrall-is-more-employable-than-some-bookish-arts-graduate-9182487.html
00
At least they’re organizing Note the person with the list of Lefty hate-speech?
“racist, unfair, greedy, homophobic, shameful, cruel”
One suspects their dictionary has, at most, one page.
00
Wow! What a long list of grumpiness! Please try to remember that most of these people are naive, honest and a bit dumb. Their problem is that they have been to our schools and universities paid for by our taxes. Those places of ‘education’ have not taught them how our society works and how they could make a place for themselves in it. Instead they have been taught that anyone with a white skin is evil and probably a murderer, that socialism is the only fair system and communism is it’s ultimate expression, that the only reason they are poor is that nasty rich people are stealing what they deserve. They have been told that their total lack of artistic skill or academic ability doesn’t matter and they still deserve a government funded living as an ‘artist’ or ‘teacher’. The ABC is not a cause, but a result of a destroyed education system. We need to privatise education completely. it is the only way we can cleanse the system.
10
Surely we can bring this hatefest back to the topic of Climate Change? As usual, The Con is one step ahead…
Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?
http://theconversation.com/is-misinformation-about-the-climate-criminally-negligent-23111
His use of the prosecution of seismologists for the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake is a vague and muddled analogy, since he doesn’t believe the scientists inaction should have been punished by prison. It is not difficult to find geologists who will agree that the scientists should not have been punished [Alden, Batt].
His argument presumes that one side knows the Truth about climate and therefore anything else is mischievous misinformation. I would counter by saying the longest running disputes in science have typically been cases where not enough good evidence was available to either side.
I wonder if this is the beginning of a race, where the natural climate change deniers try to put all the man-made climate change deniers in prison before the NCC deniers end up in prison themselves. Criminal negligence cuts both ways.
00
Sorry I didn’t spell out the flimsiness of his argument well enough.
If geologists should not be punished for failing to publicly correct misinformation which alleged they were certain the future would be safe, surely therefore other geologists should not be punished for having the gumption to publicly correct misinformation that alleged they are certain the future is definitely dangerous.
00
A bit like the NutterTruckers and the Convoy of No-consequence who set the bar fairly low really.
Except there weren’t, as far as i know, any federal politicians standing in front of the signs endorsing the sentiments this time.
was one good one i heard of though, that i’m hoping wasn’t a troll photoshop effort.
“Abbott, putting the N in Cuts”.
Crank up the outrage meter people, you know it gets the circle moving faster!!
15
LOL at the “Worst PM Ever” sign.
He in 6 months, he cant get any of his policies through because of the Senate and somehow he’s managed to do something that makes him the worst PM ever?
Far from putting the C back in Cuts, these people put the Mental back into Environmentalism.
When you consider these same people would have been bleating their fleeces off at the “ditch the witch” signs back in the day and no doubt making such lofty statements as “lowering the tone of the debate” when it was directed at Juliar.
When it comes to saving welfare and trees, all bets are off basically. These people will happily kill people to save plants and defame public servants while holding their hands out for assistance. Fruitloops to a man.
20
To be honest mate, the “Ditch the Witch” and let’s not forget “Bob Brown’s Bitch” (yeah I am sure that tickled you) were irrelevant fluff, pretty much like most of the Anti Mr Abbott (I don’t know, is it disrespectful to say anti Abbott without the Mr..?) in reality. There were far more diverse opinions and concerns articulated on the day. It may have required a both eyes open approach, but I can’t be sure.
Of course, in comparison, nothing to date (yep, NOTHING)compares to that lowest example of humanity (aka Alan Jones) comments regarding Ms Gillard’s father having died of shame, worst, whilst she was still grieving. You really want to go for harsh? You really want to claim some moral high ground? Epic fail, that comment absolutely hands down wins the award. Let’s face it, it covers all the bases;
Cowardly – Check.
Nasty – Check.
Bullying – Check.
Irrelevant – Check.
Hurtful to extreme – Check.
Inexcusable – Check.
Yep, currently this article and nothing presented by supporters even touches that one.
00
Really, Kipling?
This was a quip made at private function. How does that compare with, for example, the stripper impersonating John Howard at a Laba Pardy function for that old goat Keating?
How does it compare with the famous “misogyny” speech written by a bloke and delivered with such crocodile tears?
And how do you know that John Gillard DIDN’T die of shame because his daughter is a pathological liar and died in the wool Communist? Wouldn’t you?
00
Wow, are you serious?
It compares very badly to anything you have to offer. No strike that, it is comparable to your last question.
To even suggest a father died of shame, particularly over political garbage is the lowest of low. So have fun down there with your mate Allan.
If you honestly think that is ok to question then you have lost your basic humanity along the way son. To be perfectly honest, think Jones was lucky Ms. Gillard went lightly with him, most people decent people would have been sorely tempted to arrange a meeting between Jones and their recently deceased father. How can you not get that.
As to the Misogyny speech funny that your bring that up, that was in response to Mr. Abbott making a reference to dying of shame as well… I a sure it was very innocent too, well, he got more than he bargained for.
No points scored here by you today I am sorry.
Bench mark low and all you can do is try some lame moral equivocation. Come back when you find your humanity.
00
I think you forgot about putting the con into conservative there…Just saying.
01
Unless of course you consider Alan Jones / chaff bag / dumped at sea for threats, and the bankrupt Pickering for depravity.
Low bar set by the political right in this country, but it does stroke up the outrage i suppose.
04
So that licenses leftards to parade around with the signs you see above??
Do two wrongs make a right??
10
No, but it does disqualify the kind of Grumpy True Disbelievers and other right win morons who supported the Convoy of Frothing at the Mouth Idiots from having any right to complain about it. If you dish it out, suck it up.
05
While many of the bloggs on this site are relevant,it seems to me that others have lost the plot. Lets keep to point; The issues on this blogg as raised by Joanne are twofold:-
Fistly the attack on our Prime Minister Tony Abbot by the so called protestors ‘March-in-March’ last weekend.(Note the the Australian people did their MARCH on Sept 7th last year and voted overwelmingly with their feet!).This was ‘a march to nowhere’ by a bunch of losers and bad losers at that; consisting of climate reactionaries, fearmongers, out of work dropouts and would be students, etc etc.
Their placards were to be condemned for their base vulgarity, not to mention their incitement to violence and their overall lack of interlect. To these people I say except the fact that now we have a new government for the people of Australia and that sanity will prevail over fear and lies.The carbon tax is now dead! I say ‘Get a Life” and try working for a living instead of waving banners!
Secondly the attack on Andrew Bolt by the ABC programme ‘Q & A’:-
Andrew Bolt is a journalist who has every right to express his views freely and openly as he indeed does. I do not consider his comments to be racialist or indeed to be able to be interpreted as such. His simple message appears to me to be saying that in Australia, regardless of race, colour of skin, ethnicity or whatever else: then everyone is entitled to the same rights and liberties without exception. No one person or group of persons should expect preferential treatment from government. Not withstanding this, there are groups of disadvantaged people in our country whom we should help and assist in order to improve their lifes to a level that we all expect for ourselves.
The ABC should appollogies to Andrew Bolt.
Geoff W Sydney
10
One, the March had many and varied issues it raised, I realise that his is far too complex to contemplate for many. It was not simply a “hate Tony Abbott” session, I don’t personally hate Tony Abbott, I don’t even know him personally. I do not agree with how he Governs, but, he was elected under our current flawed system like all those before him – that does not, nor should it ever – be an issue to STOP people exercising their democratic right to protest. I find it curious that the ideas put forward in your kind of post attempt to dumb down the conversation to simplistic slogans. I guess that is an effort to make sense of the complex. I am surprised that otherwise intelligent (seemingly at least) people buy into this. Although, obviously, the intelligent ones driving this myopic view of what the March presented have a vested interest and therefore push their hateful propaganda. Dangerous move considering the vast majority of people who attended that, in effect, you slander.
I will refrain from being explicit regarding your command/use of language – although as a hint, I think you were looking for the word accept, not except…
As to Andrew Bolt. Well I do agree he has every right to express his opinion, I support that, sadly Bolt by his own actions is not so magnanimous about others rights to express themselves. In point of fact, given the high profile vehicle he uses he has the privilege of, not only having said right, but far more access and opportunity to present that “opinion” to a wider range of people. As to him being a journalist, well, I am sure he has a piece of paper saying he is one, but that is where his myopic opinionated, divisive and hate filled rubbish ends it’s association with journalism. He presents a narrow view, an opinion. Just quietly, anyone can do that, we just don’t all get the high profile ride he gets.
He has, as a journalist, a responsibility to research, source and, as best as possible validate facts he wishes to present. Bolt has been shown to have failed that test on numerous occasions and, has responded fairly consistently leading with a glass jaw, that his freedom of speech is being curtailed… And now this drivel.
By the way, the ABC has apologised, rightly or wrongly.
In short, this article, as you pointed out, is a two trick pony and both tricks are not very intelligently or thoroughly articulated, researched or verified. In short, there was a much wider range of issues articulated on a much wider range of t shirts, posters, placards and banners than the few appalling and disgruntled ones chosen by Ms Nova et al to denigrate those who chose to exercise their democratic right to protest.
It is concerning to see that Ms Nova et al and posters like yourself have so little respect or care for your democracy.
01
Example? You will be hard pressed to find even one.
00
So just one will do will it? Seriously…. ROFL
“But Bolt’s lawyers had to concede even before this case began in the Federal Court that nine of these named “white Aborigines” had identified as black from childhood. All nine came to court to say they didn’t choose this down the track but were raised as Aborigines. Their evidence was not contested by Bolt or his paper.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/in-black-and-white-andrew-bolt-trifled-with-the-facts-20110928-1kxba.html#ixzz2wXz9tzX2”
There’s your one…
Next.
00
It was with delight I began reading your defense of the marchers. Then I ran afoul of your diatribe. To wit:
Then I merely burst out laughing! For you seek to denigrate someone’s misuse of a single word – and you misuse a word in your admonition! Slander is speech. Libel is written. And all on this page is written. There are no playback buttons to listen to what the poster has to say, we must READ the words.
So the next time you are throwing stones, make sure you are not in that glass house.
Oh, and just for the record, why should the marchers be the ONLY ones to have the freedom to exercise their “rights”? Is it not everyone here exercising those same rights in mocking the marchers? It would seem strange from a purely logical standpoint to see someone expounding the right to make a statement, and then condemning others for doing that exact same thing.
But as your hypocrisy has already been demonstrated with your admonition about the use of a word, your hypocrisy on rights is merely another entertaining and informative feature of your diatribe.
00
I have noted before that “freedom of speech” is only extended to the group currently speaking. The most intolerant are those who preach tolerance. Many attribute this to Saul Alincky’s rules, but it’s actually just a failure to mature on the part of humans. When cornered as a 4 year old and you’ve stolen the cookies, you’re best and first action is to point at a sibling or name one and say THEY did it, they started it and left you holding the bag. You immediately blame someone else. As you get older, you learn to do pre-emptive strikes: my brother Joe took the money from your purse, sister Jenny was smoking crack, not me. Blame preemptively. It’s not even a concious thing sometimes. If you mature, you learn a more moral, upright way of dealing with the world. You apply rules to everyone including yourself. Sadly, many/most don’t achieve that level. They spend their lives blaming everyone, either pre-emptively or post rule violation, for their own behaviour. It’s not THEIR fault. The only way to deal with this is to stand for what you believe. They already have you beat at the “blame game”–you won’t win. So you just keep repeating what is right over and over and over. Eventually, it may take. It’s a real pain, but it’s the way people work. It seems now that the blame game is most common, but that kind of behaviour collapses on itself if no one props it up. You see it in the renewables fiasco–freezing voters count far more than rich utilities. Subsidies cut, contracts reworked, windfall profits taxes on renewables (never thought we’d see that one!). It does take patience and a lot of repetition but I know of no other way to defeat this.
10
1)One, the March had many and varied issues it raised, I realise that his is far too complex to contemplate for many.
Like the marcher who wants an inquiry into the Manus Island riots, that is already in the planning. The Coalition were all for it because unlike those protesting, Australians are smart enough to realise that the centre was set up by the previous Labor government.
2)It was not simply a “hate Tony Abbott” session,
Yes it was. A cynical attempt to have children associate Tony Abbott with ‘bad’.
3) but, he was elected under our current flawed system like all those before him
The majority of Two Party Preferred vote went to the Coalition and the they would have won the majority of seats in a first past the post election (they would not have had competing candidates). What is your idea of a fair democracy? Let Kipling choose? If you have a socialist card you can vote?
I’m not half way through the first paragraph of this overly verbose drivel and I’m going to dismiss you as a troll.
10
Jo. We were there first
http://www.marchmarchmarch.org.uk/#MarchNature
00
How clever!
00
That is so depressingly English
00
I have seen this protest described as being of no consequence and now it seems to be “just bully boys”. Where is your credibility, thorough exploration of the issue (namely in this case the March, the people who attended and the wide variety of messages presented).
I note a couple of things that stand out to me, my opinion in other words, specifically regarding the wider commentary about the March in March.
It seems that those opposed to the March in March (for whatever reason), did not see a clear point to it. Fair enough I say, there was no single clear point, that is the point though, there are many and varied “points” of concern for many and varied people. The fact that some do not see the complexity of this is actually their problem, not mine or those who protested.
The appallingly narrow focussed
mediapropaganda coverage of a few cherry picked slogans, t shirts or banners actually detracts from those who oppose the march more than those present. Let’s face it, if the propaganda machine actually provided news coverage and wide news coverage, then there would be quite clearly a diverse array of “slogans” from the protest, then, there would be an opportunity for a reasonable and logical debate. By not presenting the broader ideas/concerns of some more thoughtful protesters (and by extension not even acknowledging some thoughtful people being present) those opposed to this protest have done democracy a disservice. You might not like the message, but, in a genuine democracy, you would support the person’s right to air it.It has been more than clearly articulated that the original organisers of the March asked for people to be thoughtful with signs/banners etc and to try to make the day a family day. Nice request. Clearly though, some people’s grasp of their personal right to freedom of expression (you know, one of those pesky basic tenants of a genuine democracy) overrode their sense of decency and propriety. I may not like it, but so be it, it is the price we pay apparently for freedom of expression.
Would anyone here seriously want to lose that freedom, that right?
To my mind, one of the main reasons the “message” may have been a wee bit too confusing for some is the inherent and (to my mind) deliberately dumbing down (in political education context) of the wider Australian public. This March attended by a broad range of Australian’s (not just the pigeon holed few that the scared and nasty amoebas angrily deride) was a shout out about being disinherited by the Political System we have bridled ourselves to. The non-Representative, Representative Democracy. I mean, be honest, many here clearly are of the opinion that six years of a Labor Government has brought us all to the brink of ruin. I am not going to argue about that, hell, it could be right. However, there are many (not necessarily here) who, whilst not arguing with that, have realised that in six months under the Liberal party Government we may, in fact, actually be even closer to ruin. Inconceivable you say…
Some have made the point that the March was somehow meaningless because it did not have any backing/support from any major political parties. I laugh at this idea, openly, and if that seems derisive, well I apologise. I laugh, because I am a sixth generation Australian, as such, I don’t feel the need to have some suit who does not represent me give me permission to this my thoughts. Further, I don’t need support when I protest a problem from someone who is part of the problem. I realise this may confront some thinkers (thinkers used in it’s broadest possible meaning).
I hope that the March in March was/is both a warning bell and a beacon – it is appropriate that we move (as a country) toward genuine political change, not a change of Government, a complete change of how we do “Government” from the grassroots up.
00
Really, JoNova??
Have you actually witnessed the behaviour of your beloved politicians in parliament?
What exactly is there to look up to, trust and respect?
00
I am sure your comment is in reference to this collection of paininthesass ignoramuses; Julie Collins, Terri Butler, Pat Conroy, Mark Dreyfus, Chris Bowen, Brendan O’Connor, Matt Thistlethwaite and Nick Champion. There are a damned sight worse of their ilk in the senate.
They were sent out of the camber yesterday for an hour.
They behave like spoiled children. There should be a facility for the speaker to expel them until the next election, as was once the case with being expelled from school.
00