Tim Blair

The professor must be contagious!

No, bills are contagious. So is the itch for money!

Enjoy your time off.

I'll bet to $$$ you can't stay for a month, but good on you in any case.

A whole month without commenting on Margo?

You're taking a whole MONTH off? Geez, with Instapundit, Lileks and Andrew Sullivan, I'd think you guys are seriously trying to qualify for membership in the French transit workers union. Except that the French transit workers get paid for their work. I hope you shame many of us into hitting the tip jar.

Look for a 0.2% increase in US worker productivity figures this month. We won’t have anything better to do.

A whole month without commenting on Margo?

Yeah, Bruce, I don't see it happening either. My bet - Tim'll post intermittently during the month.

An entire month with that same old poll?

Don't know about that...

I perfectly understand you and Lileks and Reynolds taking time off, but didn't Sullivan take in something like 80 thousand dollars during his couple of "fund drives"? If so, can he really then just say, "Oh, it's such a pain to post links that other people send me, and write some commentary"?

Congrats on having that much paying work to do. However, I'll miss you. Cheers!

Bummer

A month?

I don't think he'll last 2 days!

Gah my favourite blog, now I'll have to start
paying more attention to GNU Hunter and Wog in Australia and some of the other anti-idiotarians.
These capitalist-friendly sensible bloggers, they have to make money now and again! I'll miss you
Tim good luck and come back soon! Can't you write
6 columns a week like Andrew Bolt and post them on
your website so at least there's sone kind of
fix for us desperates? Helppppppp!

You are all poopy heads.

A month? A whole month? We'll all wither away and die!

Enjoy your vacation. :-p

What will you be working on for a month, Tim?
Sounds a bit short for an entire book, maybe you
will dish out some Quadrant articles (although you
did say *paying* work) or maybe a chapter in an
essays book like "Blaming Ourselves". Or maybe
you're working on a Quarterly Essay "Getting the
Word Out: Why Quarterly Essays are a sounding board for tired lefty writers"

Whatever you're doing your fans hope to see something worthy at the end of your months
sabbatical. Maybe you're taking that study trip
to the US that Mark Latham can no longer find
the time for.

Hey remember Margo's short break turned into
about 3 and a half months, make sure you don't
make the same mistake heehee.

A whole month?
The trolls will be starving for attention!

omg - a MONTH? How much money are you going to earn - we'll double it.

You should seriously consider an AS-style pledge drive, I'd happily contribute and I'm sure all the other lowlifes round here would too :)

What am I going to do without Tim Blair for a month? The last time I was forced to resort to independent thought (well, it looked independent at that age) I voted for Carter!

Hope Andrea sweeps up the troll droppings in the meantime...

Not to mention this might set an internet record for longest thread in blog history by that time...

Come back soon, Tim. You'll be missed!

Hope you hit the jackpot with your work.

Maybe he's just having a long LUNCH

You guessed it Johnny! With lots of expensive WINE! Enjoy the break Tim.

Will miss you much. Good luck.

Which blogger is going to take up the vacant position of Margo-watcher-in-chief?

You are *wrecking* my daily schedule. If D. Penny and Charles Johnson piss off, too, I'll have nothing to look forward to except... LUNCH.

We're all gonna be drinking lots of wine at LUNCH. CHEAP wine, 'cos you can drink more if you buy more.

And tonight Margo will curl up in her nest of shredded newspapers and breathe a deep sigh of relief.

Well, if you must.

*sigh*

Don't worry about us. We'll be fine. Really.

While you're away, see if you can organise some Collingwood wins.

NOOOOOO!!!

My hilarity check, GONE!

I shall be inconsolate for a month...

Come back Shane. Please come back. And bring Timmah back with you. I need to be entertained, DAMMIT.

I'm bored. Can anyone recommend a 12 step plan for people facing withdrawal issues?

You mean I will actually have to do some work at the office instead of getting my daily fix of Tim.

Damn...must have been a politician in a previous life to get this treatment.

Hope the work goes well Tim, look forward to your return.
cheers

OK, I guess we have to bit the bullet... we're just going to have to start reading Kingston, Fisk and Dowd ourselves and bringing the links here til he gets back...

This is terrible! I'm gonna have to up my blood pressure medication again. This site along with Uncle's excellent ABC Watch website, has done more to relieve my hypertension than medicine ever could. COME BACK SOON!

30 days without Tim? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Shit, now Acidman's going on vacation, too. What are we supposed to do? Ebay can't fill the whole working day.

By-the-way, great to see that your skills are in demand Tim!

Richard: You make me feel like one of these. Woof! Pilger. Woof! Margo. Woof!

Damned good idea.

Enjoy the siesta from blogging Tim. Adios muchacos.

Who's Tim?

He's not coming back in a month.

His name isn't really Tim Blair.

I got the full run down in this link below. Go read for yourself.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1105219.htm

IXLNXS — HA! Lying swine! Tim Blair would never eat a man rotisserie style.

We're conservatives. We grill.

And just to keep this thread rolling:

John Kerry just called for a freeze on the Abu Grhaib court-martials ("so we don't demorialize the troops")...

John Kerry, worrying about demorializing the troops.

To quote the Police Academy movies:

"Why is that man banging his head on the car?"

"There was demorializing the troops, sir, and he missed it..."

Tim you best hope that nothing sus goins in while you are gone. Conspiracy theories will fly.

It's a darn good thing I just went on vacation, or else I'd have to WORK at work. See you soon, Tim!

Heading north for summer again. You ozzies are strange.

So this is the kind of thing we can expect with Tim not around to defend himself. Note the repeated Margo-like 'Tony' typo.

It rains sometimes.

aaah. sweet peace, for a month at least. the bloghead must be doing some contracting in Iraq, or maybe another whistlestop tour of the mid-west, where the "real folks" are...

Ha! Have a good break Tim.

Hopefully Andrea won't ban everyone while you're gone.

aaah. sweet peace, for a month at least. the bloghead must be doing some contracting in Iraq, or maybe another whistlestop tour of the mid-west, where the "real folks" are...

Looks like Miranda's back...albeit under a different name...

Hey, Quentin, I think you're right! The e-mail address is shown as "bazza@blogmire.com".

Well, I hope you earn lots of money, Tim! Wouldn't want your blog to shut down permanently.

Enjoy your break. BLUDGER!!!!

Day by Day

No blogging for a full month. What discipline. Only a restraining order would stop me. Come on Tim, surely you can unearth a local story.

How about tracking down the joker who left large graffeti at Coogee Beach, backpacker heaven - IVAN MILAT 4 W/END RELEASE. A line of inquiry would be down Marouba way, daylight hours only...

A blogger's gotta do what a blogger's gotta do. In the interim, I guess we'll just have to Look for da Silva Whining. ;-).

Enjoy your long lunches with expensive wine!

Remember time is an illusion, luchtime doubly so.

hmmm, tim taking a month off to make some money...hmmmmm...some might claim mere coincidence

hmmm, tim taking a month off to make some money...hmmmmm...some might claim mere coincidence

Bad Bingley! Where's that rolled up NYT?

you used it to house train your sister, remember?

you used it to house train your sister, remember?

Yeah, and we all know what good it did for the tree hugger......

she's getting to that age where we may have to break out the sunday edition...

she's getting to that age where we may have to break out the sunday edition...

Prolly end up having to roll a WSJ in for good measure, though still not sure it would help at this point....

i've got a manhattan phone book lying around some place, i reckon'

Re: "Barry White" -- yeah, it's the same loser. The IP resolves to an Italian internet provider just like all of Miranda the Blog Parrot's others. Look it up yourselves on Ripe.net -- it's IP address 62.152.116.2 (maybe some of you people are better at tracking down than I am and can tell me whether this cretin is spoofing or not; anyway, Miranda/BarryWhite has been banned again).

The IP resolves to an Italian internet provider just like all of Miranda the Blog Parrot's others. Look it up yourselves on Ripe.net -- it's IP address 62.152.116.2

Registered by the United Nations World Food Programme?! Well, if that's not spoofed, it would certainly explain why ol' Miranda gets so outraged by all the common-sense opinions expressed by Tim and most commenters.

One day, 67 comments so far. Could someone who's a mathematician predict the diminishing graph line or bell curve or whatever it's called of the reducing rate of comments over the month - and predict how many by June 13?

If that makes sense.

I'm guessing 171.

For the left, two words: game over.

I knew it! "Miranda Divide" is really Kofi Annan!

So our resident hermaphrodite blogmire parrot is actually Kofi Annan? Wow!

Tell me, Kofi, did you select the non de plume (pardon my French) of a woman because you have no balls?

Let me just say Mr Real JeffS that the question of testicular presence is more nuanced and complex than it first appears. I prefer to avoid any language which tends to reinforce all of the old gonadal labels. Having said that, I think it's a step backwards to make the scrotally-challenged feel excluded from the discourses and modes of empowerment which might otherwise be avaliable to them.

In fact I have proposed an additional placitum be added to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights that would outlaw discrimination of the kind your statement evidences - namely, against putatively influential leadership figures whose entirely understandable effeteness on matters of principle has been grounds for marginalisation for too long.

As part of this initiative, I have asked legal draftsman to prepare a complete overhaul of concepts pertaining to extra-territoriality vis-a-vis the UN Headquarters here in New York. My aim is to have it, and the UN precincts of the world, officially declared 'Testosterone-Free Zones.'

I look forward to receiving the backing of the Security Council for this important plan.

ilibcc,
Not enough data mate. Get two full 24 hour periods, then square root the difference (because of effort required to scroll to the bottom y'know ...)

Hope you make lots of money on whatever you are working on. Also hope it's interesting work and not stuff that's a real chore.

I will miss the updates and the humor. But, work is work and we all have to do that to pay our bills.

I can't understand how some people can work the 'system' so they can stay home, get the govt. to pay them, and live fairly decently. I admit, it's sometimes very tempting to try and figure out how to do this.

Between the job, kids, and elderly parents I barely have time to sleep. I'd love to get paid for staying home!!!

Note: I'm NOT talking about people who have legit. claims. I mean the able-bodied loafers.

I should move to France and become an actor. I'll join their strike for even MORE benefits!! I can't act, so I'll always be unemployed and collecting benefits.

Mr. Kofi, Ms. Divide, Mr. White, et al:

RE: 'Testosterone-Free Zones.'

Your plan sounds quite ambitious. However, I expect that New York City will object to that designation, as it would automatically prevent the Junior Senator of New York from ever visiting her constituents. That would likely conflict with the U.S. Constitution. I understand that doesn't worry you, but given all of the disagreements between the UN and America, it would be a noble gesture to avoid that little issue.

May I suggest a slightly different alternative?

Please, feel free to designate all of the 'Testosterone-Free Zones' you wish. But first, move the UN out of New York to Paris. Not only will the residents of that ancient welcome such a designation, they won't have much work to clear the area before your arrival.

Respectfully yours,

Ah, now we have the meme to top Bush = Hitler...

Kofi Annan = Miranda Divide

Classic.

ADVICE FOR OUR ALLIES:

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THIS SATURDAY

AS YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW, IT IS A SIN FOR A ISLAMIC MALE TO SEE ANY
WOMAN OTHER THAN HIS WIFE NAKED, AND THAT HE MUST COMMIT SUICIDE IF
HE DOES.

SO THIS SATURDAY AT 4 P.M. EASTERN TIME ALL AMERICAN WOMEN ARE
ASKED TO WALK OUT OF THEIR HOUSES COMPLETELY NAKED TO HELP WEED OUT
ANY NEIGHBORHOOD TERRORISTS. CIRCLING YOUR BLOCK FOR ONE HOUR IS
RECOMMENDED FOR THIS ANTI-TERRORIST EFFORT.

ALL MEN ARE TO POSITION THEMSELVES IN LAWN CHAIRS IN FRONT OF
THEIR HOUSE TO PROVE THEY ARE NOT TERRORISTS, AND TO DEMONSTRATE THAT
THEY THINK ITS OKAY TO SEE NUDE WOMEN OTHER THAN THEIR WIFE AND TO
SHOW SUPPORT FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN.

AND SINCE THE KORAN ALSO DOES NOT APPROVE OF ALCOHOL, A COLD 6-
PACK AT YOUR SIDE IS FURTHER PROOF OF YOUR ANTI-TERRORIST SENTIMENT.
FOR GOOD MEASURE, HAVE VARIOUS PORK PRODUCTS COOKING ON YOUR BBQ
GRILL.

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT APPRECIATES YOUR EFFORTS TO ROOT OUT
TERRORISTS AND APPLAUDS YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ANTI-TERRORIST
ACTIVITY.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PASS THIS ON

So, is anyone still reading at this point?

Um...

"I opened the box... it was empty."

"There's a war out there, old friend, a world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information."

"Every criminal I have put in prison, every cop that owes me a favor, every creep and scumbag that walks the streets for a living will know the name of Verbal Kint. Now you talk to me, or that precious immunity they seem so fit to grant you won't be worth the paper the contract put out on your life is printed on."

Quentin: LOL! Good meme, gotta remember that one!

Day by Day

They seek me here, they seek me there, those blogheads seek me everywhere... so waddya gonna do? send the blogmire around?

Boy, it must hard going through such a disgraceful period in your history, knowing your credibility as a moral beacon lays in tatters and your plans for the American century look a little ambitious now. Ban me all you like turds. I'm happy to provide some tiny solace to your world of shame.

What a lame, shameful blogmire! You guys need a good dose of the Geneva Convention. Maybe a few weeks in the brig at the International Criminal Court would do you good.

They seek me here, they seek me there, those blogheads seek me everywhere... so waddya gonna do?

This passage is most funny when the last part is read with a classic Hulk Hogan intonation in mind. Yeah, whatcha gonna do when Miranda-Mania runs wild on you!

I want to change of subject -

Now that I've decided to cheer for Essendon, what are their chances this year? I went home for lunch and watched 'This Week in Footy,' or whatever that show on Fox Sports is called. Essendon looked good in its victory, but I don't know diddly about the sport. Collingwood's performance was lackluster and didn't look like they came prepared to play against Carlton.

Which teams are going to be in the finals this year?

Shock Horror! Mirror Editor Sacked Over Fake Iraqi Torture Photos! according to the BBC

Miranda, you have ceased to be even slightly amusing now.

Now you're just sick.

Polly, glad you are going with Essendon who last night had a great victory over Adelaide. Check the photos in the Herald Sun story.

You can cheer Essendon with confidence they will be there this year. St Kilda is also a threat.

CurrencyLad:

Should I have used [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags?

Real JeffS:

Even BAT 21 had to call in an airstrike that endangered himself. Glad my parody enabled you to target Ms Divide and Mr White. As for me, it's just a graze. I'll be alright, sniff...

BAT 21 out.

[/obscure movie reference]

"I'm happy to provide some tiny solace to your world of shame."

I... I've made you happy, Miranda? You really mean that? We've made you happy???? Tears of joy are running down my face as I write this! I can now rest on my laurels -- no, guys and gals (I hope you don't mind me injecting a little folksy Americanism into my post), all of you can go to your beds happy human beings, because we've (oh god, can barely type, must get hold of myself... tissue... ah, there) made the blogtroll known as Miranda Divide happy!!!

Shehe really really likes us! I have opened the box of chocolates, and instead of getting the hollow one with the runny, unpleasant liqueur of indeterminate bitterness have instead bit into the sweet, firm, chewy goodness of caramel cream!

O frabjous day! I hereby declare May 14th (or 15th, as it is over there) a Holiday for All!

No rest for the wicked, Andrea-- somebody's got to keep the thread going.

Hey, CurrencyLad!

That was a great movie! If you are BAT 21, I must be Danny Glover. Only problem is, I can't fly!

Sorry about the friendly fire incident, but I couldn't resist multiple strikes against the left wing. But if Kofi read your piece, I'll bet his blood pressure went up!

Oh, and if Miranda is happy, my day is made. My life is complete. My soul is satisfied. My karma is complete. My joy is everlasting. My tears run my cheeks. I will pass gas no more forever. I dance joyously in bounding leaps through the pretty flowers. I drink cheap beer in salute to the gods. I rend my clothes and annoit my head with ashes. I raise my voice in song to the heavens. I sacrifice a goat on the alter. And so on, ad nauseum.

Yippee. Yahoo. Hooray. Really. No kidding. I'm serious. Excuse me, I have to write about this momentous event in my diary. Bye until later.

I hereby pronounce this "Miranda Divide is Happy" Day! Let the joy go forth, for today the War of Terror has been won!

In other news, the Coalition Provisional Authority is happy to announce that the Ministry of Housing and Development Celebrates Assumption of Full Sovereignty May 14th 2004. This is the eight Iraq Ministry to become autonomous.

Oh and Miranda Divine is happy.

If Miranda is happy, then Kofi must be happy also. If Kofi is happy, then the world's oil supply is once again saved from being miserable.

JOHN KERRY'S INTERNATIONAL LEGION... COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU!

From Donald Sensing:

# Since 1999, when UN peacekeepers entered Bosnia,
... the number of institutions where women and girls are being [sexually] exploited has mushroomed from 18 to 200 in 2003, according to the report. Girls as young as 11 have been lured under false pretenses from places like Moldova, the Ukraine and Bulgaria to work in the sex trade. [link]

# More sex troubles in Eritrea, where the government accuses the UN of "destabilizing the region" and a "string of offences ... including housing criminals, paedophilia, making pornography and even using the national currency as toilet paper." [link]

# In Sierra Leone, site of the largest mission in the world (16,000 troops under UN command), women are so frequently raped by UN "peacekeepers" that Human Rights Watch issued a special report.
"What is particularly shocking and appalling is that those people who ought to be there protecting the local population have actually become perpetrators," said Steve Crawshaw, the London director of Human Rights Watch. "It's also very disappointing that there seems to be a deep reluctance to investigate and prosecute these very serious crimes. To turn away from a problem like that is a terrible dereliction of duty."[link]
# What confidence would the Iraqi people have in a UN administration when the UN was a principal agent in keeping Saddam in power since 1991? Saddam bribed scores of people, not all of them UN officials, to keep UN-overwatched money coming to him in the "oil fotr food" program. Men he bribed included Benon Sevan, "the U.N. official directly responsible for the oil-for-food program."

# On April 17,
... two American women and an American man were slain in Kosovo, and eleven people were injured when they came under armed attack by a Palestinian from Jordan. The killer was a member of the same body in which they served: the United Nations police force in the territory. [link]The same site also reports that the media in Kosovo operate "under heavy UN censorship," which would doubtless thrill the Iraqis.

# Freed Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told the UN last December,
"The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."

He declared, "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again."[link]There is no compelling reason to believe that the UN's prospects in Iraq are any better than its dismal track record.

There are two key things to remember: (1) the United Nations has no troops of its own. Any UN peacekeeping operation (PKO) is manned by soldiers and logistics donated by member states. (2) The UN has no money of its own. It is funded by contributions paid by member states.

What this means in practice is that a fairly small number of countries provide almost all the money and almost all the decently-trained troops. Outside Europe and the Anglosphere, very few nations can field a force that is both numerically significant and suitably trained and equipped for PKO and stability operations. As the record sadly shows, a large number of such troops come from countries where the military is an oppressor class, not a protector.

"Blue helmet" soldiers answer to no authority but their own national command. The UN has no prosecutorial authority for troops it supposedly commands. When UN troops commit misconduct or crimes, all the UN command can do is request their national command send them home.

But should the UN be wholly cut out? Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta says no.
Now is the time for Washington to show leadership by ensuring that the U.N. plays the central role in building a new Iraq. As an East Timorese, I am well aware of the international body's limits, having seen first hand its impotence in the face of Indonesia's invasion of my country in 1975. The U.N. is the sum of our qualities and weaknesses, our selfish national interests and personal vanities. For all its shortcomings, it is the only international organization we all feel part of; it should be cherished rather than further weakened. While the U.S. will continue to play a critical role in ensuring security in Iraq, a U.N.-led peacekeeping force would enable many Arab and Muslim nations to join in and help isolate the extremists.I think this is seriously misguided because Mr. Ramos-Horta seems to think that "many Arab and Muslim nations" are committed to Iraq's development into a secular, democratic nation. That is exactly what they do not want. A UN operation consisting of substantial Arab forces would be Iraq's death knell.

As Desi Arnaz might say, "Kofi, you have some 'splainin' to do," starting with making a truly convincing case why the UN's performance will be different in Iraq than most of the rest of the world. Should we demand performance guarantees? Absolutely.

Update: Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) links to a Telegraph article about how the UN mission for Sudan relief is a disaster in itself.
"What is going on here is very dark," said one western aid worker at a non-UN agency.

Oh, and [I'm] happy [she's not here yet] Miranda day!

Richard, the next time you put in a bunch of long quotes from someone, could you use quotation marks or the blockquote tag (correctly) or italics or something like that? I really can't tell where the quotes end and your input begins.

And furthermore, please don't put someone else's entire essay in the comments. Put in an excerpt and then a linking url. (Put the url in plain if you don't know how to link.) For one thing, I don't need this site to be accused of copyright violations.

Richard Mac, that's not a Comment, that's a Post ! Given you have interesting views and make some good points, often, why don't you start a blog ?

Andrea — Everything after "Donald Sensing:" is Sensing's words. Just trying to keep the thread hopping vice Tim ("absent companions, raise your glass"). I could have just posted a link, I suppose, but I wanted to keep traffic up on the site. Overdid it, I guess. I will make a point of sticking to links in the future.

Like this: Day by Day

Jafa — I'm flattered. Couple reasons: 1) I'm working two jobs and trying to keep my own writing going. 2) Tim's an Aussie with that flavor to the site. There are subjects here I haven't posted on because I don't know enough to make even an informed jest. 3) I've been toying with the notion of starting an LA-centric blog (especially fisking the LA Times), but see 1).

Andrea — Correction: the Miranda joke is also mine.

I don't knead to weight for a pledge drive. I'll just hit the tip jar.

seems like tim has 'cut and run'

Nah, he's gone off to climb the "ladder of opportunity".

Read Professor Bunyip's piece on Alan Ramsay.

Then e-mail the Editor of the SMH about it.

What will happen within the Left-side of the media if George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard are re-elected?

Can they go on with their constant barrage of anti-US, anti-Howard rhetoric? Will they distance themselves even further from the will of the people who made a choice at the ballot box? Maybe they'd rethink or moderate the tone of their wilder barracking, but maybe not.

And, if Bush, Blair and Howard lose? What then?

Hey--we'll miss you, but have a great vacation. If you need some new reading while away, check out my website www.allthingspolitical.org or my new Blog, www.allthingspolitical.blogspot.com.

Gnu Hunter:

IMHO, a trifecta of victories will send the forces that oppose these leaders into even more of a rage. There will be a ratcheting up of the conspiracy theories and the anti-war propaganda. The leftist nihilists will quite literally have nothing to lose. Look for revved up Abu Graihb-like 'crises' and impeachment fantasies.

And if they lose? One reading is that this will signal nothing less than that the Anglosphere no longer has the stomach or the fortitude to stand up for anything. The Palestinian suicide bombings will increase immediately; states like Syria will no longer be concerned about being destroyed for supporting terrorists; Iran will become a new and probably irrational nuclear player in the Middle East. (Which I'm sure the Israeli Air Force will prevent).

On the other hand, the Blair and Howard governments have held office for several years and domestic factors can be the ones that break through to many voters. Most people do not closely follow foreign affairs but get their information on, say, the Iraq situation from the TV networks and tabloids. Yes I know - uh-oh. The strong economic indices in Australia could actually lead people to think that we can afford to experiment with something and somebody new.

However, don't forget that a Blair loss in Britain would bring the Conservative Party to office. Its leader, Michael Howard, would take up Blair's foreign policy on the WOT lock, stock and many smoking barrels. According to Howard, "countries cannot insulate themselves from attack by opting out of the War on Terror." Howard's general worldview also augurs well for an integrated approach to security and related issues.

It's an interesting mix of sephological and personality factors in play. It's my hope that the spirit of George Bush will take him across the line. Let's hope he's part of a Howard/Blair or - and I hear leftists everywhere screaming Nooooooooo!! - a Howard/Howard trifecta.

The last-inserted link (scroll down a little) speaks for me of who Bush really is. The story's writer quotes J.C. Watts: "Character is doing the right thing when nobody is watching." That's what differentiates Bush from 'man of the moment' Kerry. It's also what I believe the majority of people will do when they cast their secret ballots.

The situation might be more sanguine than it appears Gnu. Touch wood.

Day by Day

'cuz preview is your friend...

OK, never let it be said I won't take a bullet for the blogverse.

I read Maureen Dowd today.

I feel so dirty.

Maureen thinks GW's purty as Brad Pitt. And she thinks the war in Iraq is just like the movie "Troy" . Guess which side she thinks we're on.

Would that be the side of enlightenment and freedom?

[/sarcasm]

I'm guessing it's not the side of really cute Manolo Blahnik pumps.

That's it, I read Margo Kingston .

I need to trade in these eyeballs now, they're done.

Did you know we deposed Saddam to prevent an uprising by the Saudi Arabian masses against their royal family? It's true! It's in the SMH!

When exactly did you guys legalize pot?

Omigod, it's only the 16th. How many more Margo columns are there until Tim gets back?

re: "Did you know we deposed Saddam to prevent an uprising by the Saudi Arabian masses against their royal family?"

And here I thought that Saddam was deposed because he owed tribute to the Illuminati. This just goes to show you what (cough cough) responsible reporting (cough cough cough) can do to keep the world free of tyrants.

For Tasmanian readers Greg Barns' column in today’s Mercury is about this very Web site.

No link unfortunately. He doesn’t quote Tim of course but a few of the commenters. Here's his conclusion.

That Blair hosts this bilious rubbish on his site says much about his attitude towards human rights and compassion. Of course, Mr Blair claims to hate extremist Islam, yet he allows the same absurd fanaticism to find voice each day of the week on his own site. Talk about hypocrisy with a capital H.

Talk about hypocrisy with a capital H.

This is the man who argued against Australia chairing the UN Human Rights Committee due to the Howard Government 'undermining human rights'.

And which country was the incumbent?

"That Blair hosts this bilious rubbish on his site says much about his attitude towards human rights and compassion."

Mr. Barns is most eloquent.....and completely off target. I looked for an on line version of this article, wanting to read it, but as Aledx noted, there's nothing on line.

Too bad. I wanted to see just how much Mr. Barns quoted out of context. Or perhaps he selected the extreme comments. I recall several threads where people were to fast on the POST button, sometimes regretting what they said (including me). And sometimes not regretting it.

The interesting thing about this is that a number of bloggers are being attacked, in one way or another. Andrea Harris points to another left-of-center blogger who takes aims at so-called "war bloggers", with a number of fascinating responses from right-of-center.

Alex -- would you see this article as being an ad hominem attack, or tu quoque?

The comments related to the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners

They were mostly from this thread.

http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/006633.ph

Those cited were:

Papertiger
Nick
Doc
Amos
Roscoe
Chileau

Here is the cause of Barnes's attack, which attack was delivered while Tim was having a break, naturally. Barnes is the oh-so brave fellow who knifed his own side of politics in its metaphorical back to become a carping Green. Having failed at the Constitutional convention, he's become revenge-driven and, I fear, contagious.

You see Barnes has a fatal case of what is known in Australian medicine as Malcom Fraseritis - a disease that causes conservatives to fear for their acceptability at dinner parties. Pathology is chiefly characterised by the sudden expression of limp-wristed and wet ideas, often in public. May persist for many years until finally the subject is loathed by his new comrades almost as much as his old ones.

Famous sufferers included Brutus, Benedict Arnold, Billy Hughes and Cheryl Kernot. In severe instances, can lead to an antipodean variant known as Robert Manne Syndrome where the patient becomes transfixed by the contemplation of his own nobility and makes mystical allusions to the problem of evil in the universe being always connected to John Winston Howard.

Treatment: Malcom Fraseritis can only be managed, not cured. Clinical practice focuses on removing subject from proximate causes of commentary - namely, from parliament, newspapers, political conventions, international forums and even hotel lobbies. The same is recommended for the more virulent form of the illness, albeit that the sufferer will persist with phantom erudition and pseudo-profound utterances on evil and John Howard. Always fatal.

There there Greg...of course you can write another 'column' in your jim-jams. Of course those big bad wight wingers are beastly... Eat your Milk Arrowroots - there ya go...

Alex:

I thought that might have been the thread! I remember it -- a lot of people were angry, and there was a couple of smart asses in the bunch. I remember it because I was angry with people demanding summary execution....of the US soldiers! But I could't any comments made by "Nick" or "Doc". Was there another thread referenced?

Is there any way you can scan or transcribe this column, and e-mail it to me? I've looked for a link -- Mr. Barns seems not to have posted this column on line. My address on the link below is good.

I ask because I suspect Mr. Barn picked extreme cases from this thread. A number of people were outraged by the prisoner abuse (me among them). Others felt the media was playing favorites (again). But it's certain that not all of the comments were "bilious rubbish".

Yes, some were nasty comments, but I've seen far worse at the Democratic Underground, not to mention IndyMedia. Or on MSNBC, before Ted Rall got pulled from there.

Thanks!

I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind.

You can get the article here if you're a subcriber to Newstext.

Maybe someone can cut and paste it. I'm too cheap to subscribe.

Hey, why wasn't I cited? Blooody 'ell!

Anyway, while Tim's on break, I've been trying to get inside the lefty mindset, and have been formulating a few conspiracy theories to see how close I am...

...here's one I'm working on:

Both Denmark and Australia have troops in Iraq. An Australian just married the Danish Crown Prince. Could this be a nefarious CIA/Neo-Con/Zionist/Illuminati plot to bind together a wavering Coalition?

Waddya think? Indymedia worthy or what?

Thanks, Alex!

I'll check it out, after I check my budget....

Quentin,

you forgot to include that this marriage was personally arranged by evil Bushitler, but other than that, it's certainly Indymedia-worthy.

I'm insulted I didn't get cited by Barnsie; what's a fascist got to do to get under his cheesy foreskin?

I dunno, Habib, but perhaps you and Quentin can figure something out. ;-)

Europe comprehends America

"Americanism is certainly not a spiritual movement, nor is it a worldview that it is possible to oppose at the intellectual level. Its political beneficiaries have tried in recent years to give it, if not a face, at least a program or a goal: "the American Century." It is a collection of empty promises of the type democratic orators have always made — but this time on a world scale. There is nothing in them to excite a reasonable man. But that is exactly the point of Americanism! The key is not what it promises, but what it cannot promise. The key is not what it demands of men, but what gives them. [...]

One should not underestimate the danger of Americanism, or its seductive power. It offers devotion to a culture of nothingness, independence, lack of restraint, a freedom from all obligation, from all honor, from all consideration."

— And who can argue with the source?

Day by Day

Day by Day

Sorry bout dat.

WMDs found in Iraq, the hard way.

I miss Tim's commentary here!

Egads, Richard! That is interesting, especially in how doctrine gets recycled between generations.....and how some people don't care to look at who or what their model is.

If American promises of democracy are empty, what of Europe's?

Nothing of value here, just increasing the comment count.

dum de dum de dum.....

So, how about Collingwood sitting dead motherless last in the AFL? What a great start to the season, Eddie the Head must be one unhappy little fat-boy.

Then there is the rumour that Tarrant is giving it to Buckley's missus. Why that should bother anyone given how long McEverywhere has been Buckley's bitch is beyond me but it doesn't seem to be helping the team so all's good.

Oh Joy

I am ''A'' number one truly offensive.
After all this time I find out the left really loaths me!!!

I am so proud.

Barnes is an authority on Bilious.

It was he who threw a screaming temper tantrum when the Liberal Party disendorsed him just because he repeatedly attacked the Prime Minister in the mioddle of an election campaign.

Quentin — click on the link and you'll get the answer to that question.

So, have the intelligentsia downunder weighed in on the *oops* WMD's that really do exist after all?

Who's the slimy little communist shit twinkle toed cock sucker down here, who just signed his own death warrant?!

Invading Iraq for one shell of outdated Sarin Gas equates to the local police kicking in your door and shooting your family because your supposedly have a huge weapons cache, and they end up finding a pistol.

Lets wait and see what else develops of this before the "Mission Accomplished" banner unveils shall we.

IXLNXS — That's right, son, Saddam only had the one and it's just the gosh-darndest coincidence these Islamic "freedom fighters" just happened to stumble across it out of all the cached and abandoned weapons in Iraq. And of course there's really no telling where the VX captured in Jordan came from, or the VX and Scuds the Sudan insist the Syrians stop hiding there, even though every intelligence agency in the world says Syria had no VX...

It's another leftist meme that has no legs.

There are WMD.
The connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda are documented in the Iraqis' own records.
The Shi'ites didn't answer Sadr's call for an uprising.
The Iraqis are assuming more and more of their own governance daily.
The UN will never deploy forces in Iraq.
Nothing you believe in works.

Y'know, IXLNXS, this "Mission Accomplished" retort from the left is only one notch about plastic turkeys.

In the military, there are missions within missions. I know, I know, this is confusing, but it is true. For example, the invasion of Iraq was a mission for Central Command (CENTCOM). CENTCOM, in turn, assigned missions to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. They, in turn, assigned missions to their subordinate units. And so on, ad infinitum.

In that regards (not nuance), the sign on the aircraft carrier did not mean "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" for the global war on terror. It meant "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" for the USS Abraham Lincoln. This CNN article from 29 October 2003 discusses that.

(It's amazing what Google can dig up).

I really don't expect you to accept this. I'm just covering the one minor mistake of yours that Richard missed.

Son, all I've ever asked of my Marines is for them to obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside of every gook there is an American trying to get out.

It's a hardball world, son. We've got to try to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.

You know, if IXLSNSNXNSXNS's ramblings are the best the trolls can come up with now, I can sleep easy at night.

IXLNS: Your analogy should run like this:

Three of that family's neighbours had been shot at by the householder concerned. The Kurdish neighbours down the street had been poisoned to death. The police issued operational commands for the household to be lawfully raded by SWAT unless the madman came out peacefully. Affadavits had been signed by most of the local citizens attesting to the relevant crimes.

The miscreant householder didn't come out with his hands up. A few of the neighbours were being bribed to look the other way, as were a few police officers. Fearful for their well being, some of the neighbours facilitated the rading of the house by a coalition of security firms. The madman was removed.

Doesn't even really matter whether or not they found weapons in the manhole or the basement. As it happens, they found a few. Kurdish neighbours will not be slaughtered again, others will not be burgled again. Madman's children will not be abused again.

Mission goddam accomplished.

Further on Fred and Mary:

I must admit, seeing self-confessed republican Richard Butler scrape and bow to the Crown Princess was particularly satisfying.

My way has not been easy
A warrior born some 2,000 seasons yon
My way has led me in all directions
To all fronts in space and time
My way is infinite and elusive
Now if you'll excuse me
I must be on my way...

Bye! Ya big bore.