Tim Blair

Maybe it was Iooowa.

Moooooooo. All that cud-chewing gets in the way of watching primaries (caususes, too, for that matter.)

"...a transformation of his huge internet support base into a grassrooots activist movement."
Margo, Margo, Margo.
The grassroots activist movement you envision is already here. Greenpeace loving, anti-globalization marching, Michael Moore believing, employment adverse, bathing-impaired zealots make up the core.
BC

This line got me:

"His 'Take back America' campaign hit the spot with me"

Why the hell would an Aussie be interested in a "Take Back America" message? What's the deal? Did the British put you guys up to this? Well, here's a message for you to take back to your paymasters: Forget it! We took it from you fair and square, and you can't have it back! Nyaahh!!

TomK, that is beautiful!

Listen, since we are the greatest evil in the world, should we come to Australia and take it away from the idiot media types like Margo? Oh I forgot, we have Moore. Strange, the only places these wackos can exist is in countries that will fight to the death their right to publish obnoxious, vile trash about how oppressive society is, while the societies they seem to favor would have put their head on a stake along time ago.

Unfortunately, the activist movement doesn't just smoke the rooots.

It's all about the O!

Margo Kingston is such a moron.

I think substance abuse is the oonly answer for Margoo...oor maybe that is the rooot oof the prooblem...hmmm

What the hell is going on with smh's sub-editors? They've been missing dozens of such errors recently. Their only function is to catch journalists' consistently bad writing, and they let things like this through. Time smh hired me instead.

Dean also brought out the best in Gore.

I still love the quote about a sub-editor being someone not good enough to be an editor.

While proving opression in America would be easy, I am sure it is less than that enjoyed by many another nation. What Americans are decrying is lies. Any one who has half a brain will realize this is all about the coming oil crunch and who will control the remaining oil reserves. What those crying out the loudest fail to realize is the majority of Americans are good old folks. they watch the tele, drink beer, go to jobs, and have no idea that the government is lying to them, and if they found out, and found out why would prefer not knowing. Australia that nice land down south may fair better in many respects to this huge land of consumers who are ill equipped to feed themselves, and will most likely fester like all global empires. From both a liberal, and a conservative perspective things are about to happen that will make or break many nations. Be cocky, be foolish, but don't be naive.

Why the bad subbing? A combination of several things (in no particular order): the increasing glamorisation of the 'celebrity' reporter or columnist, causing a commensurate fall in the status of the sub (once upon a time the roles were regarded as equally important and many people would switch back and forward between them); the prevalence of (largely useless) spell-checkers in publishing software; the abandonment of formal English spelling and grammar education a few decades ago (since rectified, if my kids' schooling is any guide), producing a generation of semi-literate reporters and subs; the cults of cost-cutting and managerialism, which have caused bosses who know nothing about newspapers to identify production staff as being easily expendable ...

I could go on ad nauseam.

But Andjam, why do you love that quote? Is it supposed to be funny? I can be as self-deprecating as the best of 'em, but that's just pathetic.

I should probably say that those comments aren't meant to apply to the SMH alone.

BLAIR SPOTS TYPOS (AGAIN).

Really, Tim. Is that all you've got?

Margo writes: Writing a book is a lonely thing to do, but luckily two Webdiarists who contributed to the book - Jack Robertson and Antony Loewenstein - put some fun into it.

Why does it always take at least three lefties to write one book?

(Read the blurb on the Manne et al book - and to think we worry about blogging while inebriated.)

If Dean's "huge internet support base" failed to win him a single primary, what possible use is to going to be come the general election? What is he planning to transform it into - a loose collection of far-left zealots with personal egos that far outstrip any ability to deliver outcomes? The Greens already have that covered.

And yes, I realise Dean won Vermont. Kind of telling that he didn't win a single primary until after he dropped out of the race.

TomK,

Lefties over here always moan that Australia is becoming the 52nd state of America. Maybe they'd prefer to see America becoming the 7th state of Australia!

What the HELL is "crony capitalism"?????????

ixlnxs, did you forget to hit the "send" button in 1968, until now? The U.S. did go to Vietnam "for oil", as you note. [Seriously, I heard that back then.]

But, not to worry: "We have only just begun to drill." GWB

Ixlnxs:
"This huge land of consumers who are ill equipped to feed themselves, and will most likely fester like all global empires."

"Ill equipped to feed themselves"? The US is a net EXPORTER of food. In fact, we grow and produce more food per capita than any other nation in the world. And, unfortunately, we waste too much of it; but that's another story for another time.

We went to Iraq for oil? Oy. I thought we got all that when we went into Afghanistan. Or was that natural gas.

"While proving opression (sic) in America would be easy". Double oy.

"Fester like all global empires".

Triple oy.

First things we did when we went into Afghanistan and then Iraq was to devise strategies to get the hell out.

Some empire.

SMG

"root of the problem"?

Lack of a root, more likely...

Margo writes: "His 'Take back America' campaign hit the spot with me"

Um, would that be your 'G' Spot? And was it because Howard Dean is a dildo?

I particularly like 'Margoo'. Like Mr Magoo, she is totally blind to the real world and everyone wonders how she survives from one episode to the next.

NEMESIS SPOTS BLAIR SPOTTING TYPOS AND WHINGES ABOUT IT ON BLOG(AGAIN)

It seems that's all you've got, Nem.

Margo was bunked up with a couple of horny hippies to work on her "book", eh? Any chance there was some Canterbury action going on? Can't have been; didn't hear about two blokes sobering up in Byron and blowing their brains out.

you are a bad man habib god bless you hope you are doing well in the rain & wind

Wow, is this the kinder, gentler troll for a new generation?

"We went to Iraq for oil? Oy. I thought we got all that when we went into Afghanistan. Or was that natural gas."

Well no, we went to Afghanastan to find that dreaded terrorist and his organization, Al Quieda, or the Taliban, which ever one it was we bombed the hell out of a desert, took pictures, got that opium production back up where it belongs, and helped insure our "pipeline" was protected. The same pipeline we, Americans, were paying tax dollars to protect to a group of swell guys who changed their minds about who was going to build that pipeline. Suddenly they aren't swell guys, and we should rush over there and defend the womens rights to go without burkahs. Afghanastan was about the pipeline that would get the oil out of the Caspian Basin. Iraq is about that oil.

IXALSDJKASHDJANS:

The X-Files was not a documentary.

Ted Rall is not a trustworthy source of news and information.

"The X-Files was not a documentary."

It wasn't??? [pulls out gun -- BANG]

That's one tv set that will never lie to me again.

"The X-Files was not a documentary."

Really? Noooooo!

And plants need water.

Perhaps tho you show how we went to Afghanastan for Oil, rather than the pipeline Unocal wanted to build. And went into Iraq because thats where all the high jackers came from.

Whoops. Didn't happen like that. We went into Afghanistan to protect the pipeline that would be shipping the oil out of Iraq. And 15 of 19 high jackers were from Saudi Arabia, and as yet America has not attacked them, but rather pulled forces out of that country. Funny that was one of Osama Bin Laden's demands.

The sky is high.

You are one gullible fool, INHLXLXLXLXLXL. But go ahead, keep posting this two-year-old troll crap. We'll keep on mocking you. It's good typing practice.

IXLJKASJKDHAJKSD:

The pipeline story is a steaming pile of BS, served up by Mike Moore's inaccurate "fact-checkers" and debunked by people from both sides of the political spectrum.

No one more than with half a brain believes this crap. Stop shoveling.

Habib - Loewenstein is hardly a hippy. Have a read of his work, the young man has terrific insight.

Hey, Mxlpltnk or whatever the hell your name is:

"While proving opression in America would be easy"

What the hell are you talking about? Do you live in America? I do, and there ain't no oppression here. Why, I can even disagree with President Bush if I so desired and I won't have stormtroopers knocking down my door and killing my family. It's amazing!

(meanwhile, in an nearby black van staffed by agents of the Democratic Underground . . .)

"Sir! We've got another one who doesn't believe he's being oppressed!"

"Send out the small, yapping dogs!"

"It's not working! He's a bigger dog!"

"Then we'll tell the others that he's in on it! Why, if they find out that they're not being oppressed, they might start doubting all the other crap we've been feeding them... Like that whopper about the pipeline!"