October 06, 2004

NEWS BRIEFLETS

• The best Maureen Dowd column you’ll ever read. Mainly because she didn’t write it.

• Our guys in the Middle East, having fun.

Positive reviews keep rolling in:

"Tim Blair's blog has been sadly rather boring and worn out of late. I guess that's the price you pay for being on the A-list. People expect you to deliver."

"I don't think it's a healthy situation that in this country Tim Blair is the most popular blogger."

Cool. I’m an illness!

• D. Paul Norton, of Queensland's Griffith University, thinks trees have won it for Mark Latham: "I believe that Labor's Tasmanian forests policy, and its superiority over the Coalition in other areas of environmental policy, will be the game-breaking move that wins the election for Labor."

• "Latham takes stage with no script and wows 600," gushes the SMH, devotedly sticking to its pro-Latham script.

• John O’Sullivan writes in the latest New Criterion: "In her 1996 reprise of Churchill’s Fulton Speech, Lady Thatcher argued that the combination of rogue states and weapons of mass destruction was sufficiently threatening to justify the military overthrow of regimes like Saddam Hussein’s. But since this was unlikely to happen in the prevailing climate of opinion, she argued, then we should adopt the second-best solution of missile defense. September 11 changed that intellectual climate. The set of foreign policy concepts that justified ousting Saddam was retrieved from the files." Long piece, worth reading.

• Alan Ramsey is depressed, as usual: "If the Herald's opinion poll published two days ago accurately reflects voter sentiment, the Howard Government will thrash Labor in Saturday's election. And I do mean thrash."

• Latham almost gets my vote for this: "Asked if the anger from Dick Adams and other Labor figures had been stage-managed for public consumption, he produced a retort for connoisseurs of 1970s Sunday afternoon television to savour. 'It's not like a wrestling match,' he told 3AW. 'I'm not Spiros Arion.'"

Posted by Tim Blair at October 6, 2004 03:56 AM
Comments

Man, the Aussie troops had a lot of fun! Good on them!

Posted by: The Real JeffS at October 6, 2004 at 04:09 AM

Little warning for you, fellas:

A Google search for images of Bessie Bardot is NOT WORK SAFE!

Or marriage safe.

Woof!

Posted by: R C Dean at October 6, 2004 at 04:21 AM

Tim, you're not ill, please come back ! It was only a rash...

Posted by: jafa at October 6, 2004 at 05:04 AM

I don't think I was aware of Mat Henderson-Hau (what name does he usually use when he posts here?), but I enjoyed that profile of him. He seems like a fine young man with a lot of insights to offer.

Posted by: Jim Treacher at October 6, 2004 at 05:35 AM

RC Dean...I noticed Briggette! Happily, on Tim's link, she is in uniform. Of sorts.......

Posted by: The Real JeffS at October 6, 2004 at 05:54 AM

Oops! I meant "Bessie"....tells you who I used to dream about, eh?

Posted by: The Real JeffS at October 6, 2004 at 05:55 AM

Bad journalists resent bloggers for the same reasons that hookers resent nymphomaniacs.

The amateurs are more enthusiastic, often better, and they give it away for free!

Posted by: Parker at October 6, 2004 at 06:08 AM

"I believe that Labor's Tasmanian forests policy, and its superiority over the Coalition in other areas of environmental policy, will be the game-breaking move that wins the election for Labor."

Are these deadheads out of touch or what. This ivory tower dickhead actually believes that the ALP's Tasmanian forests policy is going to win swing voters away from the Coalition?

The ALP didn't float the tassie forests thing to win swing voters; they did it to get greens/alp swing voters - latte sippers - toward the ALP so that they don't lose the seats to the Greens. Or in other words, the ALP is furiously defending its own turf having effectively ceded the election.

This was obvious anyway from the plain observation that a anti-logging stance would have been - and on Saturday will be - disastrous for tasmanian ALP seats.

Posted by: Anon at October 6, 2004 at 07:04 AM

Journalists who attack bloggers remind me of the dark ages clergy who decried the translation of the bible from the Latin vulgate into vernacular languages.

In both cases the need the "Truth" to be imparted by appropriately qualified persons, by which they mean, of course, people who support their agenda.

Posted by: 2dogs at October 6, 2004 at 07:39 AM

Tim - please tell me I don't have the same illness as John Kerry that causes me to bend over and put my head between my legs...I didn't realize I was that afflicted. (Cough, cough). WAIT! You're checking the wrong end!

Posted by: Kathleen A at October 6, 2004 at 08:09 AM

That sendup of Dowd was a fair attempt, but it really wasn't "dowd" enough - she's far more nacissistic.

Posted by: Joe at October 6, 2004 at 08:47 AM

*beep beep* wanker alert:

"I wrote an article for the Heckler [in the Herald] about my parents and Dad got really angry," he said."

hahaha he's 28 hahaha. Seriously, by the time you are almost 30, you really shouldnt be living at home and worrying about getting Dad angry anymore. Move out dude.

Posted by: attila at October 6, 2004 at 09:59 AM

Oi! How come you Ozzies get all the hot sojer chicks and we get stuck with that chinless degenerate Pvt. England?

Posted by: richard mcenroe at October 6, 2004 at 11:02 AM

Well, Tim, your's is still the best blog site, but with all the heavy stuff about John Kerry and Mark Latham, perhaps you could lighten up it a bit, dude. Let's see some more on Dr Ivan Milat/Molloy, the Manchurian candidate, for example.

PS: Who is Spiros Arion? Or perhaps he meant Gorgeous George?

Posted by: Freddyboy at October 6, 2004 at 12:11 PM

D. Paul Norton, obviously knows different Math to me if he (?) thinks that will win it for the ALP. Losing seats in Tasmania for fuck all gain on the mainland (ALP already is getting most of the Greens' Preferences) doesn't give the ALP enough seats to win.

Posted by: Razor at October 6, 2004 at 12:23 PM

"I don't think it's a healthy situation that in this country Tim Blair is the most popular blogger."

Here's an idea that Mr. Hau will just love. Let's get the government involved! It's absolutely unacceptable that Tim Blair is the most popular Aussie blogger (heck, it's unacceptable that there is a single one, most popular, blogger at all), so clearly the time has come for some regulations on Australian blogging. That'll be much more healthy a situation than letting the people decide who they want to read (after all, that seems to result in Tim Blair being more popular than others, which is just wrong).

Posted by: PW at October 6, 2004 at 12:58 PM

Spiros Arion he ain't!However a significant resemblance to Elektra is obvious,at least in the tit department,but then of course she's not cursed with the Latham boof head.

Posted by: Lew at October 6, 2004 at 01:14 PM

Too right he no Spiros Orion, more like Gorgeous George to be precise. Bet he always dreamed of being a wrestler in the Greco-Roman period. That way he could get into tight positions with others while in the buff!

Posted by: Lofty at October 6, 2004 at 01:42 PM

That's bad of you Lofty. Kick Darp when he can't defend himself. Remember he's banned. C'mon Andrea let the Darpster loose.

Tim, do you want your stocks to increase even further?

You suck Blair!!!!

Thank me later.

Attila, If I were you I'd always post a wanker alert before you post. Gives us fair warning;)

Posted by: Joe at October 6, 2004 at 04:02 PM

Joe,
your right, I should have thought of Darp's feelings. Would love to have him back posting and where's Scout and Albatross and all the others. Plenty of laughs when they're around....oh those were the days!

Posted by: Lofty at October 6, 2004 at 04:31 PM

Lofty, they've all been banned I think. But it's nice to see you have a sensative side.

As for me, I'd ban me. Never say anything inteligent, never contribute, can't spell.

Heck I should go into politics!!

Vote 1 Joe!!

Posted by: Joe at October 6, 2004 at 05:00 PM

I reckon Tim is all show. He is secretly a socialist but he uses reverse psychology by pretending to be a rampant conservative... he strengthens the Red Heart and turns left-leaning fence-sitting readers into Labor voters. By taking the conservative line he avoids detection by ASIO, since they are in the pocket of the government anyway.

So lefties, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Tim is in fact one of you.

Posted by: Red Star Rising at October 6, 2004 at 06:43 PM

I knew that already, Tim cuts a fine jib in his Red Army uniform.

Posted by: Joe at October 6, 2004 at 08:52 PM

"D. Paul Norton, of Queensland's Griffith University, thinks trees have won it for Mark Latham.."

God bless our dear 'academics' living in their sheltered parallel dimension.

And please God, save us from them!

Posted by: ken at October 6, 2004 at 09:04 PM