Mark Steyn discusses wartime strategy with Senator John Edwards:
I asked him what he would do about Iraq.
‘We need to get the UN in there,’ he said.
‘But they were in there. They pulled out because it was too dangerous.’
‘We need to get Nato in there,’ he said.
‘But 21 out of the 34 countries with troops on the ground are, in fact, Nato members.’
‘Hey, that’s what I love about these town hall meetings,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘You get to hear from the people.’
Then:
Tony Blair was plunged into the biggest crisis of his premiership last night after a leading Ministry of Defence adviser who became caught up in No 10's vitriolic battle with the BBC was found dead in woodland near his Oxfordshire home.
Now:
The BBC was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history today when its multi-millionaire chairman Gavyn Davies quit after the corporation was heavily criticised and the British Government cleared unequivocally by the Hutton report.
UPDATE:
BBC director general Greg Dyke today dramatically resigned as the corporation struggles to deal with the biggest crisis in its 82-year history.
John Kerry has one victory speech:
Those little crowd participation deals ("Bring! It! On!" … "When I'm president!" … "The only thing to fear is me itself!") are borderline tolerable the first time, pretty damned annoying in Round 2.
He has one physical gesture:
He thrusts his index finger at the audience in an overhead arc again and again, as though launching a projectile.
He has one joke:
Kerry grinds out this excruciating gag (he calls it a “story”) every chance he gets, drawing pitiful applause from people who can’t remember the same joke referring to Clinton, the first George Bush, Reagan, and Nixon. One oldtimer has the fossilised witticism pegged to Harry S.
And, if those Botox rumours are to be believed, he's got only one facial expression. Pity he’s got more than one policy about the war -- and on more than one war, as it happens.
And the winner for the Best Opening Line in a Nigerian Email Scam goes to ... “Nana Shaffer”!
Dear sir,
As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because I believe everyone will die someday.
Sickly doom-bound Shaffer will die rich, according to his message. He’s got $18,000,000,00, of which 20% has been set aside “for you and for your time”. Hit the PayPal, Nana!
"Are state schools politically correct?" asks Andrew Bolt, back on deck at the Herald Sun. "Unions and Leftie journalists say no. But have a look at what they preach and make up your own mind."
Professor Bunyip unearths yet more thinking matter on the same subject. My own state school teachers (Werribee Primary, PS 649) were among the last of the non-PC breed; years after leaving I'd sometimes drop in on them, to chat and help mark a few tests or whatever. Once a former teacher and I set a sixth-grade class this impossible, practically university-level combination maths/English/science quiz ("the results will be on your permanent record!") so we could go outside and talk about cricket for an hour.
Only a short while ago, Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi was the man who would deliver Dean to the White House via modem:
Trippi's Internet savvy and penchant for old-fashioned political trench warfare have proved an effective combination in Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Internet has been a fixture of sorts in two previous presidential campaigns. But admirers say it took Trippi to capitalize on its explosive potential to spread word of mouth at the speed of bytes.
Now he’s been fired.
Here’s a complete list (and here’s a translated list) of those accused by Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada of accepting Saddam’s oil bribes. (No Australians are included; as commenter murph suggested, an earlier Le Monde report seems to have confused Australia with Austria.)
George Galloway’s name appears often.
(Much thanks to Franco Alemán of HispaLibertas for locating and forwarding this.)
A Labor conference is taking place in Sydney this weekend, so I’m fleeing to Melbourne. Posts will be infrequent until Monday at least, so take this opportunity to scroll deeply through the recommended sites listed at left.
Or -- here’s an idea -- start your own blog! Many commenters at this site are too clever to remain forever in comment-land. Speak up, and join the oppression!
Someone at The Australian doesn’t like Imre Salusinszky. A week ago he was briefly bylined as Salusinsinszky -- and today he appears as Emre. Has Margo Kingston been moonlighting as an online News Ltd subeditor during her summer break? Soon Imre’s proud Hungarian name will be reduced to “Ernie Sigley”.
The Hutton inquiry is in, and it’s all bad news for the BBC:
A report by the BBC that the British government deliberately exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was "unfounded," investigating judge Brian Hutton said on Wednesday.
Some people predicted this outcome as far back as last July. Advantage: Jarvis. Also, advantage Chavetz.
UPDATE. Goodbye, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies.
The ABC’s coverage of the Hutton inquiry hasn’t turned out to be very accurate, has it? This exchange last September between the AM program’s David Hardaker and ABC London correspondent Fran Kelly was typical:
FRAN KELLY: That's the Hutton Inquiry that's going on, resumes again next week, into the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly and that's all to do with this BBC claim that the Government sexed up the dossier. There's been a lot of reporting coming out of that inquiry, a lot of embarrassing things being said there, embarrassing for the Government and people generally have judged it very negatively for Tony Blair ...
DAVID HARDAKER: There's more to come next week at the Hutton Inquiry. Does that hold any more problems do you think for Tony Blair?
FRAN KELLY: Absolutely, undoubtedly I would say.
UPDATE. The British Prime Minister politely requests:
The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie. And I simply ask that those that made it and those who have repeated it over all these months, now withdraw it, fully, openly and clearly.
Word is that columnist Luke Slattery is leaving for Paris, taking with him partner and The Australian's weekend magazine editor Helen Anderson. Replacing Anderson is former Age and Who Weekly editor Bruce Guthrie.
Maybe it really was all about oil:
Claims that dozens of politicians, including some from prominent anti-war countries such as France, had taken bribes to support Saddam Hussein are to be investigated by the Iraqi authorities. The US-backed Iraqi Governing Council decided to check after an independent Baghdad newspaper, al-Mada, published a list which it said was based on oil ministry documents.
Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua denies any involvement. Instapundit links to a translation of a Le Monde piece naming other accused (“George Gallaway, former Labour deputy with the Communes, appears in good place in the list”). And the UK Telegraph reports:
The 270 individuals and organisations alleged to be in [Saddam’s] pay included the sons of a serving Arab president, Arab ministers, a prominent Indonesian leader, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the party led by the Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and even the Russian Orthodox Church.
Abdul Sahib Qotob, an under-secretary in Iraq's oil ministry, said the documents "reveal how Saddam jeopardised the oil wealth of Iraq on personalities who had supported him and turned a blind eye on the mass graves and injustice he inflicted on the sons of the Iraqi people".
A senior official at the oil ministry said last night: "This is oil money that should be used for reconstructing Iraq. We will use all means to get it back."
Read the Le Monde translation to discover who that prominent Indonesian leader is alleged to be. Also in the Le Monde report:
Among the quoted countries appear inter alia: South Africa, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bahreïn, Bielorussia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Spain, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, the Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Yemen and Yugoslavia.
Australia? Very interesting. Earlier, AP ran this:
About 270 former Cabinet officials, legislators, political activists and journalists from 46 countries are on the list, suspected of profiting from Iraqi oil sales that Saddam had allegedly offered them in exchange for cultivating political and popular support in their countries.
Bring on the list! We wanna read the list!
With 60% of returns in, John Kerry is a winner:
Kerry 39%
Dean 25%
Clark 13%
Edwards 12%
Lieberman 9%
Special congratulations to Al Sharpton on his 187 votes.
They’ve fixed it now, but an earlier version of this report from the Guardian ran like so:
The Sun newspaper has tonight claimed to have a leak of the Hutton report. The paper says Tony Blair has been cleared of wrongdoing but that the BBC and the governors have been criticised for not investigating the voracity of the Andrew Gilligan report that sparked the row between the corporation and the government.
Gilligan’s voracity was never in doubt. Blair now seems to have survived both the Hutton inquiry and the university fees vote.
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Robyn Nevin, Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating, David Hookes, Rick Darling, John Howard, Stephen Kenny, Taliban Dundee, Mamdouh Habib, Bob Brown, Drew Hutton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Dr Ion Lascar, and Gareth Evans.
Also, please read Ian Chappell’s remembrance of David Hookes, and Gideon Haigh’s beautiful obituary.
An ominous event looms:
Margo will be back on deck at the end of January.
Who’ll take New Hampshire? Mark Steyn predicts:
1) Senator John Kerry 29 per cent
2) Governor Howard Dean 28 per cent
3) Senator John Edwards 19 per cent
4) Senator Joe Lieberman 12 per cent
5) General Wesley Clark 10 per cent
6) Everybody else 2 per cent
Andrew Sullivan anticipates a better result for Kerry, worse for Edwards:
It's Kerry 35, Dean 28, Edwards 17. Percent, that is. All three survive.
And Dave Barry, writing a few days earlier, may yet be proved correct:
Almost all the experts now predict that Kerry will win in New Hampshire, which probably means he won't.
UPDATE. Wesley Clark is strong in the hamlets. Must be that Moore endorsement kicking in.
UPDATE II. Dissenter crushed:
Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean.
Turns out the shouter was a Lyndon Larouche supporter. Who to back in this dispute? As Australian formula one driver Alan Jones said in 1981, when asked whether he preferred Nelson Piquet or Carlos Reutemann to win that year’s world championship: “It’s like choosing between cancer and leukemia.”
UPDATE III. Dave Barry adds:
I predict that, once again, I will finish within two percentage points of Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Play this exciting Mystery Phrase guessing game, brought to you by The Independent:
Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by (INSERT MYSTERY PHRASE HERE), new research suggests.
Is the correct answer:
a) Mad Cow disease?
b) Halliburton?
c) David Beckham?
d) Robert Fisk?
e) normal English weather?
f) the BBC?
g) a mythological climatic phenomenon, which apparently causes everything in some way or another?
Guess quickly, before your keyboard ices over!
David Frum writes:
Twelve months ago, the support for President Bush among conservatives was rock-solid: I mean, Reagan 1984 solid. Today, that support is still more solid than not – but just enough softer that if I were a Bush political adviser, I’d be concerned.
And with good reason. As admirable as Bush has been in fighting the war on terror, his federal spending record would embarrass a Kennedy:
Since President Bush took office, the federal government’s domestic civilian work force has increased by more than 79,000 jobs, nearly a 5 percent increase. And the number of government workers paid at least $130,000 annually has tripled.
Much of the increase came with the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two years ago. But the nation’s war on terrorism does not account for all of the rise. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has added 1,445 employees since President Clinton left office.
“We are seeing a general growth in the size of government. That is just a fact,” said Bob Moffit, former deputy assistant health secretary during the Reagan administration and now a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “And the increases did not all go to Homeland Security. The rise in federal discretionary spending, frankly, has been breathtaking.”
Andrew Sullivan gets angry mail every time he points out these elemental truths. I don’t know why; Bush, for all of his qualities -- he’s still a mile in front of every Democrat candidate, who’d spend even more -- is clearly no friend of Reagan-style governmental minimalism. Bush lied! Small government died!
UPDATE. Reason’s Jonathan Rauch has more.
Yet more evidence of progress in Iraq:
The nation's thousands of Saddams are queuing up to change their once illustrious moniker to something more in tune with the times.
More than 300 are in the process of changing their names, and each day several forlorn-looking Saddams visit Baghdad's directorate of citizenship, where deed polls are granted. Many more are too scared to own up in public and have quietly adopted a new identity.
"It's the most depressing thing in the world to be called Saddam Hussein," said Saddam Hussein Karim as he completed the final paperwork for his name change.
Yes. Well. You try being a journalist named Blair these days.
New York Metro reports:
Dude, where’s my French bottled water? It appears that man of the people Michael Moore has gone completely J.Lo on event organizers with pre-event demands. Before he’d agree to present an award for the best 30-second anti-Bush ad at a Manhattan MoveOn.org benefit earlier this month, Moore’s handlers insisted that he have a supply of Evian backstage. “Even Poland Spring wasn’t good enough,” says our inside source. “They called up to make sure he would have Evian.” If he starts demanding orange-blossom-scented candles next, we’re going to call for an intervention. (You’re a leftist, Michael. A leftist. Not a consumer.) Presenters without designer-water specifications included Julia Stiles, Moby, Janeane Garofalo, and Margaret Cho.
"Moore’s handlers". Brrrrrr. Add that to the list of the world’s worst jobs.
If there’s one thing Moore wants to make clear, it’s that he is normal. A regular guy. The sort who might be picked for that “Average Joe” television show.
(Via reader Lisa F.)
Let’s see Wesley Clark live this down:
A veteran journalist told me that, of the Democratic candidates, Howard Dean is by far the best pancake flipper. The worst is Gen. Wesley Clark. "He doesn't flip at all!" the journalist told me, genuinely outraged. "He just slides the pancakes around!"
He’s a pancake faker! And, according to this 1999 Robert Novak column, Clark may have prompted European anti-Americanism:
Who is responsible for an air offensive that is building anti-American anger across Europe without breaking the Serbian regime's will? The blame rests heavily on Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO supreme commander.
After 40 days, U.S.-dominated NATO air strikes no longer even pretend to aim solely at military targets. Pentagon sources admit that the attacks on the city center of Belgrade are intended to so demoralize ordinary citizens that they force President Slobodan Milosevic to yield. That has not yet happened, but diplomats believe the grave damage done to American prestige in Central and Eastern Europe will outlive this vicious little war.
UPDATE. Howard Dean alleges dirty Democrat tricks:
His spokesman, Jay Carson, said Dean supporters are getting phone calls criticizing Dean for, among other things, claiming to be a Christian when his wife and children are Jewish. Also, he said they are getting faxes and e-mails that are designed to look like they are from the Dean campaign, but distort his record.
For example, Carson said, an e-mail that proposes to be from campaign manager Joe Trippi asks for interns, but says because of tight sleeping headquarters, homosexuals are not accepted.
Carson said the Kerry campaign was making some of the negative calls in Iowa, but he was unsure who was behind them in New Hampshire.
Daren Berringer, director of Dean's Michigan campaign, said the Kerry campaign is distributing a flyer that "distorts and outright lies" about Dean's record on the environment, energy, gun control, the death penalty and higher education.
Gerard Henderson invites us to “examine the programs of the various taxpayer subsidised festivals, most recently, last year's Adelaide Festival of Ideas, Melbourne Writers' Festival and the Ideas at the Powerhouse in Brisbane”:
These occasions appear to have taken the format once prevalent at the ABC: that is, put on a forum where all members of the panel agree with everyone else and a highly self-indulgent ideological time is had by all.
In Adelaide a session on truth in public life featured Margo Kingston, Humphrey McQueen, Robert Manne, David Marr and Moira Rayner - with Phillip Adams presiding.
In Melbourne a so-called panel discussion of Robert Manne's edited collection Whitewash on Aboriginal history comprised Manne with Patrick Dodson and Malcolm Fraser.
It was much the same in Brisbane where the inaugural lecture on What happened to a tolerant Australia was delivered by Adams and the final one on War and Empire by Tariq Ali.
Who the hell goes to these things? Interesting to learn of the taxpayer subsidies involved, however; perhaps a Sydney Festival of Intolerance should be organised.
Short review of Ken Layne and the Corvids' debut CD, Fought Down: it’s like 1972 all over again, but this time with brains.
Longer, track-by-track review:
1. Ain’t They Pretty
Mournful and sweet; lamentastic. It’s impressive how well Layne sings these slower tunes.
2. Fought Down
If you’re not sunk completely into this after the first two lines, you will be after “Well, I’m so far gone I can’t stand up” opens the chorus. A driving song for those who don’t mind an occasional vehicular homicide conviction.
Matt Welch is the world’s greatest living tambourinist*.
3. I Should Be That Guy
Inspired by the Paris Hilton video. Well, probably not. But it would make an excellent soundtrack, if Paris’s tastes run to rock so pure it actually cleans your Discman as it plays.
4. The Sun Don’t Shine
Nashville meets Nuremburg! Did you know that Corvids’ guitarist Axel Steuerwald had never played anything even remotely country-ish before recording this track? So he lies, anyway. I bet he’s got Ernest Tubbs tab sheets hidden away in a Bavarian bunker somewhere.
Drummer Steve Coulter should never be allowed to have as much fun as he is having here. I was forced to buy whisky, as a coping device.
5. Mama, Take Another Stand
The most Stones-like track here, except more evolved and less -- I don’t know -- pouty. Much is made of the similarity between Layne’s voice and Jagger’s, but it should be remembered that Jagger arrived at that sound, and Ken can’t help it. He’s from New Orleans. There ain’t no cure.
6. Lincoln Town Car
Plenty haunting. Not for the daylight hours. Much like an actual Lincoln Town Car, in fact.
7. Here’s To You
A genial failure’s anthem, performed in the country idiom. How else can you frame lyrics like:
When I get the black-ass feeling in my soul
When I’m holding down the loser’s club
At the bottom of the hole
When I just want to quit and go away
I drink to you, here’s to you
Hmmm. Maybe not that genial.
8. Worried
My elderly neighbour dropped by as I was reviewing this, so let’s get her impressions:
It’s very loud. Could you please turn it down? This is the third night in a row! Some people need their sleep, young man. Don’t make me call the police again.
Only kidding! She didn’t really say those things. She’s been dead for weeks now. This is my favourite 'Vids track, an earlier version of which is reviewed here.
9. Glitter On
I should mention Jeff Solomon’s bass work, except I really don’t know anything about the bass, or any other music machinery. This band does, however. You can kind of tell.
10. Like A Train
No; more like this, all V8 noise and momentum and heat. But “Like A Mustang” didn’t fit.
For the love of God, don’t just take my word for how great this CD is. Take the word of Howard Owens, Charles Hill, Jim Treacher, Glenn Reynolds, Tony Pierce, Kate Sullivan, Stephen Green, Shannon Okey, Paul Palubicki , Henry Copeland, Penalty Kicker, Scott Chaffin, Greg McIlvaine, George Wallace, Steve Smith and Cindy Chaffin. These are people who know things.
You may listen to some Fought Down mp3’s here, and get some t-shirts here, but why not just bypass these distractions and buy the album immediately?
*among tambourinists actually playing on this CD
The latest victims of ethnic stereotyping: red-headed New Zealanders.
George McGovern predicts:
I think a slight majority will vote to throw Bush out.
Slight majorities aren’t really McGovern’s area of expertise. He’s more your man for “total electoral annihilation” commentary. I’m still hoping for a Kucinich revival, especially now he’s got Homer Simpson campaigning for him:
It was hard to overlook Kucinich on this day, not only because he may have been the only person in the dining hall wearing a suit, but also because his lunchtime arrival was announced by a guy wearing a jester's cap and banging on a drum made from a 55-gallon white plastic barrel.
And in news sure to boost the President’s re-election campaign, they finally found that dictator’s hoard of chemical weapons.
(Many emails have arrived over the last few days demanding that I address this “no evidence of chemical stockpiles” issue. I already did, back in July. But I’ll have more to say in next week’s Bulletin column.)
Gary Sauer-Thompson (who emigrated here from New Zealand) denounces Australia Day:
I reckon it has to do with planting the British flag on the soil of the continent. An act that says 'this land belongs to us.' An act that signifies colonial conquest. An act that looks towards a bloody history of conflict to dispossess the indigenous people from their land.
Robert Corr (who emigrated here from Ireland) agrees:
Today marks the arrival of the second group of boat people to arrive in Australia. They stole land from the first, and now they lock up the newest boat people (who have no such heinous intent).
The various ethical issues raised by these remarks are too complex for me to deal with, so I contacted ethicist Dr. Festus Wolfenstein, head of the School of Ethics at the International Ethics University in Brussels. Here is his report:
Mr. Sauer-Thompson is plainly moved by the plight of Australia’s indigenous people, whom he sees as victims of conquest and dispossession. Australia is, he writes, ‘their land’. He also perceives that events subsequent to white settlement are part of a ‘history of conflict’. I imagine he refers here to the construction of cities and roads on Aboriginal land; which is, in his view, the whole of Australia.
Mr. Corr characterises Australia as ‘stolen’ from prior inhabitants, and sees present occupiers of Australia as the inheritors of this theft. He contrasts the thieving behaviour of the first white settlers (their crime shared, in Mr. Corr’s view, by subsequent generations) with the honest and decent motives of recent applicants for asylum.
But where, in this history of dispossession and theft, are we to place Mr. Corr and Mr. Sauer-Thompson? Both men evidently profit from the same theft that they condemn. One appreciates the moral torment both must endure as they daily tread on the rights of a disenfranchised, demoralised race. The only solution to their agony is to redress the wrongs committed by Australia’s invaders, beginning with themselves. If I may summarise:
If they don’t like it here, they should fuck off back to where they came from.
You’d hope that at least one of the BBC staffers present at meetings to discuss this might have thought: “You know, we could be doing something really, really stupid here.”
Iowahawk locates an earlier draft of Maureen Dowd's notorious poodles 'n' lackeys column:
Once Michael Dukakis got in trouble when he failed to get angry when asked how he would react if his wife were raped and murdered.
I once posed the same question to Michael Douglas, and that's when he filed that restraining order.
Complaints about Dowd’s characterisation of US allies as fluffy little dogs were earlier brushed aside by Arthur Bovino, a lackey for NYT Public Editor Daniel Okrent. Now Okrent himself responds:
The opinion columns are governed by different rules than the news pages. In fact, the guidelines are very, very broad -- the Times doesn't allow obscenity, nor does it countenance libelous material. But opinion writers are, in fact, allowed to express their opinions. Nonetheless, I do feel that the issue is a substantive one, and will look further into it as I get more comfortable in this difficult job.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Okrent
Public Editor
In other ombudsman news, the OmbudsGod covers a moral crisis at The Guardian:
The Guardian is torn. They recently carried an advertisement for a “2 for 1 offer on flights to US,” which encouraged people to pollute the earth by riding in airplanes. Should they forego revenue and refuse to carry such ads in the future? According to ombudsman Ian Mayes, “No one I have spoken to in the Guardian believes the curtailment of such offers, let alone airline advertising, is a serious option.”
This from a newspaper that wants the Kyoto Protocol ratified immediately.
Mark Latham thinks he’s Judge Judy:
A federal Labor government could ask courts to order parents to undergo parenting classes if they failed to adequately discipline their children, Opposition Leader Mark Latham said today.
In his Australia Day address to a citizenship ceremony in his electoral base of Campbelltown, Mr Latham said a federal Labor government would support the introduction of "parental responsibility" contracts and orders.
I wonder what the penalty will be for raising a child who beats up taxi drivers and calls women whores.
Nedra Pickler reports:
Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean said Sunday that the standard of living for Iraqis is a "whole lot worse" since Saddam Hussein's removal from power in last year's American-led invasion.
"You can say that it's great that Saddam is gone and I'm sure that a lot of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone," said the former Vermont governor, an unflinching critic of the war against Iraq. "But a lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot worse now than it was before."
A lot more of them seem to be actually living, however. It’s difficult to measure the living standard of people in mass graves.
"Now I would never defend Saddam Hussein," Dean told the "Women for Dean" rally. "He's a horrible person. I'm delighted he's gone. Would there not have been a better way to get rid of him in cooperation with the United Nations?"
What part of the word no doesn’t Dean understand?
UPDATE. Living standards weren’t so hot in post-war Germany, either. If only there had been a better way ...
We already know, thanks to John Cameron, just how out of touch is the ABC. The SMH’s Phillip Derriman is almost as totally clueless:
Until a few weeks ago, nobody realised quite how popular Waugh was. Then came his retirement from the Australian team, and the public's response revealed the depth of affection and admiration for the man.
The question that cricket people have since been asking is why. How did this rather introverted, tradesman-like cricketer manage to strike such a chord with the mass of the game's followers?
Nobody realised how popular Steve Waugh was until a few weeks ago? Please. Has Derriman been filing from Antwerp? Next in his series of searing exposés: Australians Like To Swim!, and Is Home Ownership An Issue Amongst The Wider Community?
The Age’s Geoff Slattery also requires a clue, or several:
The way we have become as a nation, we would never hit five fours in a row, as Hookes did in that remarkable cameo in the Centenary Test. We are becoming defensive, inward-looking. As a country, we are more inclined to protect our wicket, to go for the draw, rather than seek the victory. We're not after the glorious outcome, we're content to rejoice in mediocrity. We don't think big any more.
That’s why we avoided any involvement in the liberation of Iraq. Not for us the seeking of victory when, like the French, Germans, New Zealanders and Russians, we could have settled for a tame UN-approved draw. Slattery’s theory makes no sense; Australia increasingly pursues free trade, a policy which tends to erase the mediocre. In fact, mediocrity seems only to be celebrated these days by The Age and the SMH.
(Further destroying Slattery’s stupid metaphor, we’re now far more adventurous at cricket, too. Has Slattery never heard of Adam Gilchrist, who, on debut in 1999 -- during our current era of terrible conservative torpor -- hit five fours off Mushtaq Ahmed in one over?)
ALP leader Mark Latham hasn’t bought into the ongoing Australian education debate. But he wouldn’t shut up about the topic in 2001, as Paul Sheehan reveals:
Latham put his ideas into What Did You Learn Today?, a book ignored in the past week's Festival of Fixed Ideas. Reading this book, it is easy to see why he largely stayed out of the fray. He has plenty to say about what is wrong with public education:
"Parents are looking for clearer choices, responsiveness and accountability in the school system. This is why government schools, with their homogeneity and inflexibility, are losing public support."
Latham also lashed out at Catholic schools and market-based education policies. Education is one of his pet subjects. If he isn’t going to speak up now, is it a further signal he’s planning a Beazley-like small-target strategy?
If so: wimp.
It’s always fun when millionaires lecture us about materialism. Take it away, Peter Garrett:
Australians are privileged to live peaceably in a timeless land of great beauty and promise. We are a nation with no immediate enemies.
No immediate enemies? Has Peter forgotten about those lunatics who want to kill us for helping East Timor?
The old ideal of a fair go, expressed through the arbitration system, for instance, when married with technological innovation and ever-growing trade, has seen a virtually classless society emerge where the means of a reasonable existence is available to most people, including the less well off.
Wa-hey! This marks something of a turning point for Garrett; he’s sounding almost like one of those horrible neo-cons. But soon the latent idiot Garrett re-emerges:
If we put to the back of our mind for a moment the tarred history of relations with the original Australians. If we ignore the jarring chasm between the wealthy, who own a lot of the country's assets, and the rest of us ...
Us? Us? Garrett, former lead singer of Midnight Oil, is extremely wealthy. He means "the rest of you". Within a few more sentences he cites Hugh Mackay as a rational source, so let’s abandon this examination of Peter’s Deep Thoughts right now.
The Middle East’s first Formula One Grand Prix will be held in Bahrain this April, and I’m tempted to make the trip, not just for Legitimate Journalistic Purposes but also on the chance that I might meet Mahmood Al-Yousif, king of Bahrain bloggers. Here’s his take on a member of Bahrain’s parliament who wants to ban his fellow citizens from entering the nation’s hotels:
Please join me in welcoming MP Abdulla Al-A'ali into the "Wheel is turning but the hamster is fucking dead society (tm)" for this gem of an idea again to "protect us from EVIL":
It’s difficult to disagree with Mahmood’s conclusion:
I think the guy's turban is most definitely wound too tight. Loosen it up Abdulla before it completely cuts off the blood to your brain. NO WAIT please wind it tighter! Pretty pretty please?
Former London Times correspondent Robin Shepherd on the Robert Kilroy-Silk affair:
The swiftness of Kilroy's demise points to something more than a simple scrap over political correctness. It's a symptom of a new European reality: surging growth among Muslim populations and establishment nervousness over how to deal with them -- a nervousness that threatens to stifle much-needed debate over events in the Middle East and Muslim integration at home ...
Small but significant sections of that growing Muslim community are either outright hostile to or at least ambivalent toward Western values. Skeptical? Consider the following: A survey conducted by the ICM polling agency and published in December 2002 showed that more than 10 percent of Britain's 1.5 million Muslims believed that further attacks by al Qaeda on the United States would be legitimate, and 8 percent supported such attacks against Britain. More than half of those polled refused to accept al Qaeda's guilt in the 9/11 attacks and more than two-thirds believed the war on terror to be a war on Islam.
You’d probably get similar results from a survey of BBC staff.
How will Howard Dean rebuild his campaign? "I can't give specifics yet," he told David Letterman, "but it involves Ted Danson."
Psych! Alerted to Dean’s plans, Wesley Clark quickly moved to secure that crucial Danson endorsement. The man most likely to be the next US president currently needs all the support he can get. In other important Democrat endorsement news, this is so sad it makes me want to cry:
Of the four main Democratic candidates, the one that has perhaps received the least celebrity support is North Carolina Senator John Edwards. His only noticeable star-support has come from the rock band Hootie and the Blowfish.
Poor John Edwards. And Dean should aim higher than old TV people for his endorsements; maybe he can get one from the President:
The time was 1998, when Republicans were on the verge of impeaching President Bill Clinton. Howard Dean, then governor of Vermont, was unhappy with Mr. Clinton and disgusted with the Republican leadership in Washington. But he did find a Republican to admire.
"George W. Bush did very well," Dr. Dean said of the Texas governor, who had just been elected to a second term. "Why? Because he is talking about his issues in a civil, thoughtful way in getting his point across."
When Dr. Dean was praising Mr. Bush in 1998, he added that the Texas governor and others he did not name were successful because "they govern from the center, they are respectful of their opponents."
Whatever happened to this sweet Dean of Reason? Meanwhile, Quebec’s Bruce Gottfred writes: "I know who I'm going to be reading in the future to get the real story of the race for the presidency." He’s talking about Dave Barry, who’s running hot in frozen New Hampshire:
Dean is trying desperately to soften his image by wearing suits, smiling, no longer ending speeches by breaking boards with his forehead, etc. But these measures may be too late, as almost all the experts now predict that Kerry will win in New Hampshire, which probably means he won't.
The candidates had their last debate here Thursday night at St. Anselm College. Outside, it was roughly 870 degrees below zero, but hundreds of campaign activists showed up to wave signs and shout at each other. This always strikes me as strange: I mean, what's the point of holding a Dean sign and shouting ''DEAN! DEAN! DEAN!'' for three straight hours in the bitter cold when the only person who can see or hear you is holding a Kerry sign and shouting ''KERRY! KERRY! KERRY!''? Does anybody's mind get changed? After a while, do these people become convinced by each other and swap signs?
What with the likes of Dean, Martian Rover Kucinich, General Confusion, Rev. Al ”Federal Reserve” Sharpton, and a rib-obsessed incumbent, this election year requires a whipsong humour writer like Barry to properly explain things. So-called serious pundits are out of their depth. For example, Maureen Dowd:
Howard Dean's bark was missing its bite. And his socks were missing their warp. Not to mention their woof.
As Jeff Jarvis asks:
Can any sane person tell me what the f this means?
UPDATE. Dave on Democrat hair:
From the front, the Rev. Sharpton looks as though he doesn't have much hair, but in fact he has enough for several people: He combs it all straight back to an area behind his head, where it forms this highly disciplined hair structure the size of a small dog. It's very impressive, although they never show it on TV. (No wonder the voters are apathetic!)
For the record, the other candidates with strong hair are John Kerry and John Edwards. They both have what I would describe as Ken hair, as in Barbie and Ken, although Kerry is more Lumberjack Ken, while Edwards is more Star Trek Ken.
The other contenders all have average hair, except Dennis Kucinich, who appears to be using some kind of tofu-based mousse.
Anybody who doubts the creepy politics of Australia's teachers'
unions should be reminded of this, from Martin Roth:
In February, The Australian newspaper printed a half-page anti-war advertisement from three teachers’ unions. In large type it read:
War on Iraq will kill tens of thousands of innocent children and their families. Many more Iraqis will suffer disease, hunger and homelessness.
Really did their homework, didn’t they? No retraction was ever published.
Farmer John "Bart" Stratford, 78, isn’t worried by the mere matter of a crushed pelvis:
A farmer has survived 51 hours lying hurt in a cow paddock after being run over by his tractor near Mt Gambier, South Australia.
Hospital staff were unable to say how long Mr Stratford will remain in hospital, but the spritely survivor already is looking forward to returning to the farm.
"If little things like this worried you, you'd never get anything done," he said.
I was once at my uncle’s farm while he repaired a windmill. He was working high above me when I, on the ground, felt what I first thought was rain. It was blood, and lots of it; some piece of machinery had cut deep into the meat of his palm. And he just kept working. When he was done, he climbed down and got me (14 years old) to drive him into town for repairs. Farmers are tough.
UPDATE. Don’t miss the story of Jebediah Hudsucker, toughest farmer of them all!
The Jerusalem Post marks Australia Day weekend with this fine column by Gerald M. Steinberg, of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University:
In an era of anti-American and anti-Israel political correctness Australia has become the leader of a counterrevolution based on morality and common sense.
Instead of double-talk and double standards from much of the self-declared "international community," Australian leaders consistently say what they mean, and mean what they say.
When the head of Sydney University's Peace Foundation emptied the concept of peace of any content by honoring Hanan Ashrawi, the PLO's star propagandist and leader in the demonization of Israel, officials noted the absurdity of the decision and stayed far away.
The policies adopted and implemented by Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer – who is in Israel for an official visit – are characterized by a combination of backbone, courage and principle, which have paid off well for the Australian people.
Canberra is now widely recognized as a leader in the response to terrorism and the restoration of international stability.
In sharp contrast to European politicians and diplomats whose policies on terrorism and the Middle East have been total failures, the Australians are increasingly welcomed as realistic and effective.
Like the Bush administration and, on occasion, Tony Blair's Britain, the Howard/Downer foreign policy recognizes the inherent immorality and transmission of weakness in evenhanded responses to terrorism and hatred.
Australia has consistently avoided being caught in the demonization of Israel, joining a handful of countries in opposing the General Assembly resolution which asked the International Court of Justice to investigate Israel's separation barriers.
In contrast, Canada and most of Europe took a carefully evenhanded and entirely unprincipled position by abstaining.
There's more. Via reader Joel G.
Joshua Micah Marshall reviews the Democrat debate:
Everybody basically did fine and no one made any bad mistakes.
Wesley Clark might disagree.
UPDATE. Reverse the cap and he’s Michael Moore.
In response to complaints about Maureen Dowd's poodles 'n' lackeys column, the NYT's Arthur Bovino is sending this form email:
Thank you for your message.
Unless there's evidence of ethical misbehavior of factual error, individual columnists can say what they want to say and individual readers can like the ones they like and dislike the ones they don't like.
Please email us with your concerns on any specific articles with which you take issue.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times
Which would be fair enough, except we know that individual columnists at the NYT can't "say what they want to say". This is Spectator editor Boris Johnson's account of events following his submission of a column (requested by the NYT) last year:
'Boris,' said [NY Times op-ed editor] Tobin, 'we love it! Everybody loves it. But we have, uh, a few issues of political correctness that I have to go through with you' ... he said that he had made a change to a sentence about donations of U.S. overseas aid to key members of the UN Security Council. I had said something to the effect that you don't make international law by giving new squash courts to the President of Guinea. This now read 'the President of Chile.' Come again? I said. Qué?
'Uh, Boris,' said Tobin, 'it's just easier in principle if we don't say anything deprecatory about a black African country, and since Guinea and Chile are both members of the UN Security Council, and since it doesn't affect your point, we would like to say Chile' ...
That was nothing, however, to the trouble I had with a sentence about the aftermath of the war.
I was trying to explain that so many people, in the commentariat and in the saloon bars, had invested so much emotional and intellectual capital in the anti-war cause that in a perverse way they would be hoping for disaster. To illustrate the point, I noted that the last Gulf war had been so amazingly free of casualties that Gulf war syndrome (a stochastically unexceptional ragbag of symptoms) had been invented to fill the void, and to satisfy the yearning of the anti-war brigade for catastrophe.
'We just cannot say this,' said Tobin.
So ... columnists at the NYT can say what they want to say about Australia and England and other US allies, but can’t say what they want to say they about black African countries and Gulf War syndrome. Perhaps Mr. Bovino would care to explain.
UPDATE. Judith Weiss has other examples of the NYT not allowing opinion writers to say what they want to say.
The Australian’s Stephen Romei has issues with Mark Steyn:
New Hampshire-based columnist-at-large Mark Steyn has dubbed John F. Kerry - who likes people to know he has the same initials as the last Massachusetts Democrat to win the White House - John F--- Kerry. It's a reference to Kerry's observation that he didn't think George W. Bush would "f--- things up so badly" in Iraq.
That's quite an amusing line from Steyn; one that helps explain why neo-cons love him so. He possesses something they'd dearly like to have but know in their dreary hearts they never will: a sense of humour. Too bad his political analysis is a joke.
Right wingers don’t have a sense of humour, eh? There’s an original idea. Actually, Romei does have a few original notions, among them that the crew currently stinking up New Hampshire is an “impressive Democratic pack” and that “the Democratic campaign, led by the uncompromising doctor from Vermont, may have started out as a Bush-hating contest, but it's now a Bush-beating one. The hot competition between Dean, Kerry, Clark and John Edwards is forging a nominee who will shake the Shrub come November 2.”
Ha! He called Bush “Shrub”! Those lefties and their crazy gags. By the way, Romei’s preferred political commentator is Hillary Clinton:
The insider's story of a White House fixed in its ways after the Reagan-Bush years is told with wit and grace ... Some see Living History as the opening shot in the Hillary 2008 campaign. For what it’s worth, I think they’re right and I hope she wins.
Funny guy.
It doesn’t take much to incite the John Howard haters. Here, again, are the PM’s extremely mild, utterly defensible comments on government schools:
People are looking increasingly to send their kids to independent schools for a combination of reasons. For some of them, it's to do with the values-driven thing; they feel that government schools have become too politically correct and too values-neutral.
The initial reaction to this, notably from Christopher Sheil and Tim Dunlop, was not against the content of Howard’s remarks, but that they were made at all. Wedge politics! Dog whistling! Please stop talking about this terrible, divisive subject! Not that Sheil is himself opposed to division:
The enemy must exclusively remain the rich and privileged schools, into which His Darkness is busy funnelling workers' taxes ... [Howard] is a disgrace who should be sent home to hell at the first opportunity.
The enemy? I bet Sheil went to a private school (update: he did). Howard’s opponents continue to harp on this “wedge” idea; here’s the Daily Telegraph’s Mark Day:
His attack on public schools has driven a wedge into the very things schools are supposed to teach – tolerance and togetherness in a world of diversity.
And, if they’ve got 15 minutes or so to spare at the end of the day, maybe some maths and spelling. The Age’s Suzy Freeman-Greene was inspired to rail against other “wedge” terms:
What is the label "illegals" if not an attempt to reshape perceptions of asylum seekers who have broken no Australian law? And what is talk of "elites", if not a ploy to disparage educated people who may have an alternative point of view?
What is the label "asylum seekers" if not an attempt to reshape perceptions of illegal immigrants who have no legitimate claim to asylum? And what is talk of "educated people", if not a ploy to establish their point of view as superior? Richard Butler -- you remember him; he’s the clown who said that the attack last August on the UN’s Baghdad headquarters “killed the wrong people. They killed the good people” -- says that Howard’s criticism threatens “the very concept of Australian decency."
And Mike Carlton in the SMH outdoes them all, writing today that Howard’s remarks contained “not a shred of evidence to demonstrate such wickedness” and condemning other conservative criticism as a “broad brush smear”. Carlton then delivers his own broad brush smear, supported by not a shred of evidence:
My daughter went to a North Shore ladies' college. Too late, we found that the "values" there were narrow, elitist and smug, with a whiff of racism from not a few of the parents. You could almost hear the WASP-ish hiss of disdain in the school assembly hall as the Chinese girls trooped up to scoop the prizes on speech day.
An inaudible sound is Carlton’s evidence of racism. The fact that Chinese girls won all the awards is, I would have thought, more substantial evidence to the contrary. Kevin Donnelly in The Australian addresses an issue largely avoided by Howard’s critics: the influence of teachers’ unions on education. Read the whole thing.
It's a quagmire, with no exit strategy in sight! The bloody Google wars continue:
The first victim was President George Bush, who found last year that his official White House website biography came top of Google's results whenever someone typed in the phrase "miserable failure". Now a battle between Mr Bush's opponents and supporters has catapulted the White House profile of Jimmy Carter, and the home page of writer and filmmaker Michael Moore, to second and third spot in the "miserable failure" stakes.
No longer. Click here for today’s “miserable failure”.
Pause now and consider your exact circumstances so that you'll one day be able to tell your grandchildren exactly where you were when you heard this.
Processing all the polling data he can gather, the Blogging Caesar comes up with a nifty map showing the current state of play in the US. Constantly updated, so check back often.
(Via Florida Cracker)
Mark Latham two days ago:
Opposition leader Mark Latham said today he was not really politically correct.
Mark Latham today:
Mark Latham will next week announce a ban on accepting political donations from tobacco companies.
Mark Steyn on Squeaky Dean:
Then he made a monster-type noise — ‘EEEAAARRGHRRR!!!!!!!’ — such as the Hulk makes when he picks up a tank, rips off its turret, and tosses what’s left over a distant mountain range. But the berserker howl was pitched somewhere in Charlotte Church’s upper register and it was hard not to notice that he hadn’t exploded into a big green monster. If anything, he seemed to be shrinking.
Read the whole, hilarious piece. Dean is now attempting damage control:
"The context was 3,500 kids waving American flags who'd worked their hearts out for us for three weeks, and I really felt I owed them an uplifting speech, so, I don't know what it looked like on television," he said in the interviews. "But I understand the audience wasn't shown, which is really too bad because it was really a terrific rallying cry."
Yes. For the Republicans. Speaking of whom, George W. Bush turned up yesterday in Roswell, New Mexico, to order ribs at the Nuthin’ Fancy restaurant and mock reporters:
You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?
Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:
Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?
Reader Matt F. writes: “I didn't know that poodles were eligible for service in the Australian SAS. Please clarify.” That line confused me, too, Matt. As far as I was aware, the only role for poodles in our SAS was as occasional target practice (they're cheap and speedy). Let’s see if US Army Officer Jason Van Steenwyk, currently in Iraq, can help:
I wonder how many of these soldiers she's had the privilege of looking in the eye? I've met and worked with soldiers from the UK, Australia, New Zealand (Hey, Maureen, how come you don't bother mentioning these in your list? Can it be you're stacking the deck?), Poland, the Ukraine, Romania, Azerbaijan, and Denmark.
I've also met Fijians. Those guys ride around in swivel chairs with machine gun mounts on the backs of pickup trucks guarding Iraqi Currency Exchange convoys. Their role is absolutely vital, their job dangerous as hell, and they are as tough as two-dollar steaks.
Further, Maureen, believe me -- the ANZACS are not poodles, nor lackeys. Nor do they represent a government who is.
The rest of Dowd’s column is such a mess I doubt whether the SMH or The Age, which sometimes run her pieces, will pick it up. Pity. Australian readers might then ask of Maureen and her craven NYT friends: “Why do they hate us?”
(In fact, that’s a question you can ask Daniel Okrent, recently appointed as the NYT’s reader advocate. Email him here.)
The Prime Minister recently said that some people were shifting their children away from government schools because such places were too politically correct and too values-neutral.
Which is true. I know parents who’ve taken their kids out of government schools for precisely these reasons. But according to The Age’s Farrah Tomazin and Orietta Guerrera, government schools are stacked to the windowsills with wonderful, wonderful values:
A study commissioned by the Federal Government last year found that state schools were doing a good job teaching "values" - contradicting Prime Minister John Howard's claims that they are "too values-neutral".
The study found that schools in all sectors, including state and private, had good systems to promote and foster values such as tolerance and understanding, social justice and respect.
”Tolerance and understanding, social justice and respect” sound like exactly the sort of vague, valueless PC values the Prime Minister is complaining about. This report doesn’t contradict him; it supports him. But why listen to me? I don’t know nothin’. Listen to Greens candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane Drew Hutton, a former “teacher educator” at the Queensland University of Technology:
Now retired from many years’ teaching from QUT, I am proud to say I used my position as a teacher educator to influence the content of social science curricula and to champion peace and environmental education in schools as well as more democratic school environments and teaching practices.
To hell with you, Drew. Anyway, according to this AP piece, the Prime Minister’s comments are “a rare political stumble”; Professor Bunyip eloquently disagrees.
Tim Dunlop and Christopher Sheil would disagree with the Professor, but I haven’t noticed yet if either have declared themselves to be the products of government schools, or if they send their children to these enforced tolerance gulags. Updates will no doubt follow in comments.
UPDATE. Wendy James has assembled an essay from comments posted on this issue by teacher S. Whiplash. Very worth reading ... although Chris Sheil warns that Whiplash “has an established record of blogging trenchantly in favour of Howard” and is therefore “best disregarded”.
Whatever you say, Senator McCathy! Chris apparently believes we can only rely on Whippy’s testimony if it “cut(s) across his political preferences”. Does Sheil apply the same caveat to his own writing?
UPDATE II. As suspected, public school defender Tim Dunlop is a private school boy ... but at one stage he wanted to go to a public school and "had a big argument with my parents about it". No word yet from Sheil.
UPDATE III. Of course, Sheil is another private school kid.
You drive an SUV? Well, you’re financing terrorism, according to these folks. Here’s a script from one of their ads:
This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV.
Bad George. But times have changed; the new terror-funding consumable is no longer oil:
The al Qaeda terror group has embraced heroin trafficking to such an extent that its leader, Osama bin Laden, is now a "narco-terrorist," says a U.S. congressman just back from a fact-finding mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"It seems clear to me heroin is the No. 1 financial asset of Osama bin Laden," Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican, told The Washington Times. "There is a need to update our view of how terrorism is financed."
There’s also a need to update those anti-SUV ads:
This is Ben the filthy junkie. This is the heroin that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. This is the dealer that sold the heroin that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. These are the criminal gangs from whom the dealer bought the heroin, that was cut with battery acid to make the junk that Ben bought with money earned selling stolen household goods. And these are the terrorists who get money from those criminal gangs every time Ben fills up his collapsed, scab-coated veins.
Fight terrorism. Kill Ben!
SBS economics correspondent Peter Martin (previously mentioned here) reveals his stunning economic theory:
The bulk of exports from the US are only worth something if the rest of the world agrees to pay something.
Hey, it might sound crazy, but give it some thought. Peter might really be on to something. He continues:
The rest of the world could pay less, or less than the US wants. Against Australia's financial interest we agreed to extend the patent life on drugs a few years back. The US would like us, and the rest of the world, to extend the term on copyright.
We could refuse. And the more the US throws its weight around worldwide the more likely it is that that someone will.
Except that they won’t. From London’s Financial Times:
Consumers around the world put aside any ill-feeling aboutUS foreign policy when they choose their fast food, soft drinks and sports shoes, a Harvard Business School study has found.
The survey of 1,800 consumers in 12 countries including Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia found that, despite expectations of a consumer backlash against US brands, most people still choose brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's.
The Australian’s Martin Chulov reports:
Hambali, Southeast Asia's most dangerous terrorist, wanted to attack Australia but had failed to establish a local network capable of staging bombings, US interrogators have learned.
The CIA, acting as interrogator for the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, asked Hambali in late November more than 200 questions about terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah's intentions in Australia.
The answers reveal Hambali had almost no success in establishing a local Anglo-Saxon network ...
Poor Hamball! His attempt at assembling a multilateral idiot coalition was brought down by whitey’s lack of co-operation. This will probably earn us another negative citation from the UN.
Tex, who knows his motorbikes, wrote a year ago (can't find the link) about the disgusting styling of the 2003 Ducatis. They looked as though each square millimetre had been designed by a separate committee of people whose only point of commonality was an allergy to compound curves.
But if Ducati put these delicious prototypes into production -- check the 70s Ducati script! -- well, I believe Tex would join Greenpeace if that could somehow clear his way to owning one of them. They’re beautiful. Jeebus, I’d join the Taliban for a shot at one of these.
In other speedy news, Wallace of Big Gold Dog writes:
Thought you might like to see this. We are building a new wing at our Petroleum Museum to house all the Chaparral road racing and Indy Cars. Grand opening April 15th. Come on over ... a big time.
There exists on this earth a place called the Petroleum Museum. Life is great.
Remember this line from Howard Dean?
I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.
Hmmm. Dean’s method of attracting the pickup truck/Confederate flag demographic is a little unusual:
Late yesterday afternoon, while speaking to a rally crowd in Concord, Dean happened to notice a man mockingly -- but quietly -- holding a Confederate flag. Whereupon the governor stopped himself mid-sentence, announced his view that the flagholder ought by rights to be removed from the scene, and then stood there glowering, while the TV cameras whirred, as security guards literally dragged the poor guy away.
UPDATE. Desperate to revive his stalled campaign, the former frontrunner invokes the magical turkey of falseness:
Later, Dean is speaking about Bush’s Thanksgiving Day visit to the troops and recalls a photograph of Bush holding a roasted turkey that didn’t end up getting served to soldiers.
“This is not the only fake turkey in this administration,’’ Dean chortled, wagging the fingers of his left hand over his head.
He’s still got that sleeve-rolling act going on, too. It might work if Dean was from a labouring or farming background, but Dean is a doctor.
And when doctors roll up their sleeves, usually the next thing they do is put on rubber gloves ...
UPDATE II. A couple of hours ago NPR (relayed to Australia via ABC News Radio) broadcast the James Lileks Screamin’ Deanie remix. You know what? You know something? (as Dean would say); Howard really is the first Presidential candidate to run his campaign via the internet. Oops, typo -- I meant ruin. Or maybe Dean lost in Iowa because he was imprisoned in an energy-beam cage that dampened his Zenn-Do attack capabilities, leaving him unable to battle the other Democrat Superheroes.
No; that’s crazy talk. Luckily genius Dean campaign manager Trippy Joe is here to tell us the real story:
On Monday night Howard Dean walked in to the ballroom in Des Moines and there were 3500 people there. And the energy was higher than most victory parties I’ve been to.
Joe worked on the Presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, and Dick Gephardt. Has he ever been to a victory party?
The Governor looked out at the room and saw 3500 people who had come from all across the country because they believed in changing their country and he wanted them to know how proud he was of them and their efforts. And he wanted them to know that we’re going on no matter what.
We know. To California and Texas and New York, and to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan ...
He wasn’t thinking about the cameras. It was the people right in front of him who had done so much because they believe in a better America that he was speaking to.
He wasn’t thinking about the cameras? As David Letterman said: “Why can’t this man be President?”
That the press would report on his speech for one day is understandable. But what’s remarkable is that they could run it over and over for 48 hours and still call it journalism.
Hey, it’s not just the press. It’s that pesky internet. According to this USA Today piece, you’re an internet cybermaster:
The Internet has been a fixture of sorts in two previous presidential campaigns. But admirers say it took Trippi to capitalize on its explosive potential to spread word of mouth at the speed of bytes.
It can spread screech of lunatic at the same speed.
UPDATE III. We’re going to New Hampshire:
Democrat John Kerry, riding a wave of momentum from his Iowa caucus victory, grabbed a three-point lead over Howard Dean in New Hampshire five days before the state's presidential primary, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released on Thursday.
(Trippi link via contributor J. F. Beck, presently capitalizing on his explosive potential)
I’ll be talking conspiracies on 2GB at 7.30 tonight and on Perth’s ABC at 10.30 tomorrow morning. So tune in, otherwise Prince Phillip will kill you.
Good news, so far as anything associated with this case can be good:
Zdravco Micevic has been charged with manslaughter over the death of former Australian Test cricketer and Victorian coach David Hookes.
Micevic is still out on bail. The amount? Just $2000.
Robert Corr is having basic comprehension problems again. Could someone who is patient and works well with children please help him out? Thank you.
Women ... you can't live with 'em, and you can't live with 'em. Ain't that the truth, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh?
Saudi Arabia's most senior Islamic cleric has condemned women who mingled unveiled among men at a business conference this week, saying their actions could cause "evil and catastrophe".
Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of the desert kingdom, made his comments after the country's top businesswoman called for reform and pictures of her supporters - without headscarves - appeared on newspaper front pages.
"Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe," he said. "It is highly punishable. Mixing of men and women is a reason for greater decadence and adultery.
"This is prohibited for all. I severely condemn this matter and warn of grave consequences."
In accordance with Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh’s wishes, Shani is presented here not mixing with men. Interestingly, this BBC report takes a considerably softer line on the Grand Super Ultra Mega Mufti; his threat is reduced to a mere "stern rebuke".
UPDATE. Er, it’s about the name ...
Prince Naif said women are more honored in Arab and Islamic societies than in the West. “In our society, we take care of them and provide them with all services,” he said. “At the Manpower Council, we deal with problems related to women with equality and justice,” he added.
You’d expect nothing less from the Manpower Council. Certain minor inequalities remain, however:
He said the ban on women driving was a social decision. “The evidence is that at the time of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, some women tried to drive and this created a big social uproar. Many people opposed their action and there would have been a catastrophe if the government had not intervened.”
Imagine. They tried to drive.
Congratulations to Kofi Annan, winner of the German Media Award for 2003. Kofi won the award for helpfully saying exactly the same thing about every single issue, thereby allowing journalists to re-use previous Annan press releases with only a minimum of changes.
Damn that evil John Howard and his bigoted pro-railway views:
The arts had fallen off the national agenda, Robyn Nevin said last night. The Prime Minister, John Howard, would attend the opening of a major new railway, but not the opening of a major new theatre.
Tragic, isn’t it? Try to hold back the tears.
Ms Nevin said: "We thrived under Gough Whitlam. We might have under Paul Keating and his untried creative nation. We benefited from Harold Holt's Australia Council, John Gorton's film school and Malcolm Fraser's film industry funding. Don Dunstan, Neville Wran and Bob Carr have been bold in their vision for the arts in their states."
Artists may have thrived. Art didn’t. Nor did the taxpayers whom Nevin demands must finance her friends and their hobbies.
"Artists have a role to play in the unfolding of our national narrative ... "
So let ‘em play it. Just keep your artistic hands out of our pockets, you thieving pack of mimes.
The Age received several emails praising yesterday’s column by Caroline Overington. But the letters editor chose to run only this negative comment from Carlton’s Matthew O’Keefe:
Caroline Overington states that any student of history knows America saved the Western world from communism, and also saved Australia and France. Astonishingly, she suggests that America's motivation was a desire to stand up for freedom. Any student of history also knows this is absurd. America has always been motivated by its own, usually financial, interests. It didn't join World Wars I and II until directly attacked. It would not have saved Australia if it wasn't in its interests to do so.
If America was motivated by freedom, it would have invaded many countries with oppressive regimes before Iraq. In fact, it created many of these oppressive regimes during their fight against communism by installing or supporting despots in Iraq, Iran, Cambodia, Indonesia, Congo and much of Central and South America. America's puppets are collectively responsible for the murder of millions. These innocents have paid for our freedom.
What a strange, sad place must be The Age. It prefers to trash the US even at the expense of its own writers. Remarkably, The Age’s letters gatekeeper decided not to run the following, which was sent by the opinion page editor of rival broadsheet The Australian:
Congratulations to your New York correspondent Caroline Overington for an excellent piece on how Americans regard George W. Bush. She takes Americans and the national social psychology seriously and, unlike most Australian newspaper correspondents in the US, she doesn't treat mainstream Americans or their President as unsophisticated and ignorant bigots. More power to her and your opinion page editor for publishing it.
Best regards,
Tom Switzer
Sydney, NSW
Praise from The Age’s hated Murdoch rival! What a coup! And they ignored it!
UPDATE. Bernie Slattery writes:
The Age ran five notes of praise for the article in its And Another Thing section. They don't run these on the web site.
Well, good. Consider the above criticism withdrawn. The Age might consider some revisions to its online strategy, however; reader feedback is kind of important. Don’t restrict it to the print edition.
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Paul Keating, Don Watson, John Howard, Steve Waugh, Denis Compton, Thomas Lord, Mark Latham, George Lucas, Molly Ivins, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clive James, Clive Barnes, Howard Dean, Al Gore, Paul Krugman, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Chris Textor, George W. Bush, Harold Shipman, David Blunkett, Frances Crook, and Harry Fletcher.
Plus there’s this:
So many of Australia's National Living Treasures have ceased living since they were elected in 1997 that the National Trust is running a new election to find some replacements. Most already on the list are completely unacceptable – Peter Garrett, Judy Davis, Bob Brown, Cheryl Kernot, Michael Leunig, Phillip Adams – and new treasures will likely include pointless anti-war types such as Andrew Wilkie and Richard Neville. This column therefore demands you vote for Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, the woman who put paedophile Robert "Dolly" Dunn away for 30 years and secured a record 55-year sentence for Sydney rape-gang leader Bilal Skaf. Send your vote here.
Also: conspiracy theories.
Here’s a fair and balanced account of George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech, currently running as The Age’s main online story. Maybe it was written by Rickie Lee Jones and Joan Baez, both of whom have recently featured at Peter Briffa’s must-read site. Take it away, Rickie:
He's smug, he's arrogant, he's really dumb, and he's incredibly wealthy. This pisses me off, because I think that if he has that much money, at least he could be smart, y'know? He's corrupt, and he's dumb, and he'll destroy us all because he's corrupt and dumb, not because he's corrupt and smart.
He’ll destroy us all! A Kucinich supporter in this brilliant Evan Coyne Maloney video takes things even further, warning that Bush is “destroying the future of all generations.” Why would he do such a thing? Joan Baez explains:
Because I think he's a sociopath. He doesn't care. He has no empathy. Nothing registers with him. He doesn't understand the world's disapproval - he just unplugs the TV. Now I understand, for the first time in my life, what the answer is when people ask, 'Why didn't people stop Hitler?'. It's a reign of fear. People are afraid of being called 'unpatriotic'.
Joan’s obviously been employing Jennifer Bishop Fulwiler’s Bush Conspiracy Theory Generator. So has SBS economist and SMH pundit Peter Martin (mentioned earlier here) who believes that Bush’s tax policies are destroying marriage:
As US male incomes have become more unequal over the past 20 years, females have become commensurately less likely to commit ... Bush has acted to increase that inequality further. In economic terms he has probably been anti-marriage.
Martin’s solution (not to mention his theory) is, well, interesting:
A pro-marriage president or prime minister would use economic and taxation policy to make already successful men less financially attractive, rather than more so.
Yeah, Peter. Sure.
(Via reader Karl O.)
Yet more Howard Dean audio fun, from James Lileks and Jim Treacher. Dean’s genitals-in-a-blender howl is the YEEEAAARGH!! that launched a thousand mp3s! An earlier Screamy Deany dance hit can be found here.
Incidentally, the Washington Post goes with Yaaaaaaaaaah! National Review Online prefers YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!.
According to David Hogberg, “One of Howard Dean's selling points is that his campaign attracts a lot of people who do not participate in politics.” They sure don’t:
Kelly Chambers, a precinct captain for Dean on the south side of Des Moines, speculated that the near zero temperatures had kept many elderly people away from the caucuses and that hurt Dean.
Damn that global warming! Err ... cooling. James Morrow looks forward to a hard-fought election:
In the wake of Iowa, Dean's candidacy looks far less assured. For American voters, that suggests Bush may have a tougher time than anyone has previously thought. Which means the 2004 presidential election, rather than being a foregone conclusion, will be a great illustration of that cherished conservative virtue, competition, in action.
But don’t count Dean out just yet, writes Janet Daley:
As everybody keeps saying, the New Hampshire primary is next and that state is full of what CNN approvingly described yesterday as "highly educated professionals who are likely to support Dean". In other words, once we get free of all these yokels from the sticks, our guy will really come into his own. What we need is an audience game for anti-wa
