Dirt, and a few thoughts about blogging.

Courteney Cox and Ian Hart star in this new drama from FX, and also acts as an executive producer. The series follows the exploits of Lucy Spiller, an executive editor at two tabloid magazines. Lucy possesses the power to manipulate the lives of celebrities through the articles she prints in the magazine. (photo and text from TV.com)

When I was growing up I used to read all of the magazines that My mother bought the Australian Women’s Weekly (when it was still weekly) New Idea  and Woman’s Day. Not because I was that interested but simply because I was a voracious reader and I read every thing that came into the house, ( but I will admit that my dad’s ” Wireless world” was not a favourite) anyway this rather catholic reading style of mine did lead me to believe that the doorway to understanding how people think can be opened by reading what they read or watching what they watch in film or on TV.  My catholic tastes have remained and these days when it comes to the DVD collection held by the public library is like my own  personal lucky dip because you just never know what will turn up. Which is a round about way to introduce “Dirt” which I selected without giving it a second thought and what a delight it turned out to be! However this post is not really intended to be any kind of TV review. What I am getting around to is the thought that I had about how some  blogging  seems to be just like the tabloid gossip magazines that are parodied by “Dirt” and like the gossip mags or even the girlie mags like Penthouse and Playboy these gossipy sites do have the occasional well written article that is  actually worth reading in its own right. But no one who frequents such sites would ever be able to pretend that they do so “for the articles” people inhabit these sites to compete  in the far from edifying game of sniping at those people that they have decided are for one reason or another worthy of scorn.

I know which shoes I’d rather be in right now

Day five

There is no doubt that everyone in the Bligh bunker will be very disappointed this morning and very keen to down play the results of this latest polling. I bet we hear the phrase “the only poll that counts is the one on March 21″ more than once today from both sides. The difference being that the government is desperately hoping that the polls are wrong and the LNP are not wanting to pop any champagne corks too soon.

UPDATE: ANNA Bligh is under intense pressure to lift her game after a new poll showed any more campaign bungling could cost her Labor team the election.

A Galaxy Poll, conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail, has revealed Labor and the Liberal National Party are neck-and-neck on a two-party preferred basis. Lawrence Springborg‘s team has pushed ahead on primary support with 43 per cent, compared with Labor’s 42, a 10-point freefall in 12 months.

The result puts Queensland’s election landscape at flashpoint with the final 23 days of the campaign set to decide who governs the state.

The Greens are of trying to use the position to strong arm the government to get their brand of religion and with our optional preferential voting system a “just vote 1″ call could really hurt the incumbents.
We now have a real race on our hands and for the first time in more than a decade the forces of darkness can not rely on conservative disunity to get them into office….
It certainly does look like this election is shaping up to be a rerun of Western Australia, Hmm I had better start looking for a really good dominoes picture fro PKD
Cheers Comrades

Just wondering…

How long will it be before certain latte sippers start to insist that this chap has been hard done by because he is a Muslim?

Lord Ahmed: Jailed for 12 weeks

Britain’s first Muslim peer was jailed for three months today after he admitted texting at the wheel just minutes before a fatal car accident.

Labour life peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham sent and received five text messages while driving at 60mph on the M1 on Christmas Day, 2007.

The last message was sent two minutes before the former magistrate’s gold X-Type Jaguar ran into an Audi, hitting and killing its driver.

Sentencing Ahmed, the judge Mr Justice Wilkie said he was guilty of dangerous driving because of his texting, but said the messaging had not caused the fatal accident.

I actually dislike cell  phones,  loathe text messaging and SMS speak,  almost to the extent that I think that in some circumstances texting should be a capital crime. Well at least in instances like this where the  result has been the death of an innocent motorist . By any measure twelve weeks jail is a very poor punishment for killing a man, Ah but what can we expect when the judiciary has more of an eye on the cost of punishing transgressions than the need to do so in the first place?

Big sigh on this one Comrades

The lump under the carpet

QUEENSLAND Health officers acted inappropriately and insensitively when notified of a nurse being sexually assaulted on Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait last year, a report has found. (click to enlarge)

Hands Up all of those who are suspicious that when a report that is critical of the way the government acted in response to a woman’s rape is swept under the carpet right at the beginning of the election campaign???
Come on don’t be shy, it does not matter which side of politics you barrack for, you have to admit that cancelling an afternoon press conference and then releasing the the details of the report on the government website at a time when the news cycle is at it’s lowest ebb is Sus, with a capital S…..

QH director-general Mick Reid, who received the report on Monday, said last night the department accepted the investigation had found serious faults in the way staff had responded to the incident.

The health service district CEO Cindy Morseu has been stood aside on pay over the investigation’s finding, effective immediately.

“It’s not an easy thing to step someone aside. It’s done with a lot of pain,” Mr Reid said. “But the allegations are so significant and the findings are so clear that it would have been inappropriate of me not to take action.”

Mr Reid said the Crime and Misconduct Commission had reviewed the report by the Ethical Standards Unit and was satisfied with the investigation.

The report’s findings were released on the Queensland Health website last night after a news conference planned for mid-afternoon was called off.

Ah well, what do you expect from a government that is running on its record when the record is far from being entirely peachy? But it is  sadly not a good look for a “progressive” female politician to be so indifferent to a rape victim who was put in harms way by her own government and then told (metaphorically) to “get over it”.
and that is day four Comrades

PS Leon Bertrand has a good summary of the day four election shenanigans here

Boeing 737-800 √√√√√

I know that I have an anti-flying reputation and I can assure you all that my attitude to air travel has not changed but this is the second air crash in recent weeks that has left me gob-smacked.

Emergency workers gather near the cockpit of the Turkish Airlines 737 in Amsterdam. Picture: Reuters

AMSTERDAM: Nearly all 134 people aboard a Turkish Airlines plane, which broke into three pieces when it crash landed in a Dutch field, have survived.

At least nine people died when the Boeing 737-800 crashed short of the runway while attempting to land at Amsterdam’s busy Schiphol Airport.

About 50 people were injured, 25 of them seriously, when the plane landed in the muddy field just metres from homes. Dutch NOS television said about 50 people escaped unharmed from the wreck.

No fire appeared to have been sparked on the plane, which left Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport at 8.22am (5.22pm AEDT) bound for Amsterdam. Schiphol Airport spokesman Rudd Wecer said the cause of the crash, which happened in normal weather conditions, was unknown.

Turkish Airlines chief executive officer Candan Karlitekin said in Ankara there were 127 passengers – including a baby – and seven crew aboard.

The reason that I am so pleasantly surprised is firstly there was no fire,  a blessing in any air crash and secondly the new generation aircraft has not disintegrated on impact and I suspect that that is down to the use of light weight composites in the machines construction. Both of these factors must have made a significant contribution to the survivability for those on board.

OK, none of this is enough to get me in the air but I will give very big tick to the engineers at Boeing on behalf of those who do fly in their planes.

Cheers Comrades

Anna’s Green thumb dreams turn out to be nightmares

Day Three

You have to laugh when it comes to such follies as ones that this news report highlights. In the first instance we have something that shows just how the Labor party seek to push the green buttons of Queensland’s electors whilst simultaneously making a buck from the project and in the second you have a gross  use of  taxpayers money to create a shrine to their own party.

TAKING shape ... The Tree of Knowledge monument at Barcaldine.

ONE is a multimillion-dollar flop to save a prehistoric pine. The other is a multimillion-dollar monument to commemorate a tree that couldn’t be saved.

Together, the controversial projects have cost taxpayers $17 million and undermined the Bligh Government’s economic credentials just days into the election campaign.

On the day Premier Anna Bligh bungled the costings of her first major campaign announcement, The Courier-Mail can reveal the Government lost almost $12 million trying to propagate the rare wollemi pine.

The much-vaunted scheme, which the Government had predicted would reap sales of up to $21 million annually, was quietly wound up last year after poor sales forced the cancellation of the world exclusive contract nine years early.

Meanwhile, controversy builds in Barcaldine, in central Queensland, over the size and shape of the state-backed memorial to the Tree of Knowledge.

When I heard about the wollomai pine I was as amazed as anybody that a tree previously known from the fossil record could have survived and I wanted one to plant in my own little bit of Queensland but then I found out the price more than $100 a tree. Heaven in a hand basket, how many gardeners will spend that on a single tree? Not this one that’s for sure. So it is no surprise that this scheme tanked.
Anyone who has any business sense would know that if you want to sell a motza of anything getting the price right is everything. But when it come to the Wollomai Pine the Queensland government just made the bloody things far to dear for the average punter so after the initial interest nobody would buy the things. Now we find that taxpayers have lost 12 million bucks on this little green cavort. Now if they had really wanted to propagate the tree for the sake of bio-diversity then they would have been selling them for say twenty bucks each which would have covered costs and been attractive to everyone with a garden…

When I was President of my local Apex club I went up to Barcaldine for our state conference and despite the heat , the dust, and the impossibility of having a cold shower. I liked the town it had a rather unpretentious charm in an outback sort of way, and like all visitors I went and checked out the “tree of knowledge” it was still well and truly alive then but it was nothing special as trees go but knowing that this was the birthplace of The Australian Labour* Party I can understand why it is important to followers of the socialist faith . Seeing the shape of the monument being built you have to wonder just what they were thinking about when the approved this monstrosity to commemorate it. The structure is way out of proportion to the existing streetscape, the style is pretentious and says nothing about the real working men it is supposed to celebrate and it is costing the tax payers how many millions of dollars? Inappropriate in every sense but that is hardly surprising from our Labor Government.

In the overall scheme of things both of these projects are fairly small potatoes but it does bring to mind the old adage ” take care of the cents and the dollars will look after themselves” and when even one of my pals from the left notice the ALP’s poor eye for  detail then there may just be hope that the electors of Queensland will as well.

Cheers Comrades

* I just hate that the Labor party dropped the “U” from “labour” it has always seemed rather patronising of their supporters to me.

Anna’s Pork barrel election

Day two

The op-ed piece from today’s OZ does a good job of summing up the starting positions of the respective parties in this election:

Ms Bligh reiterated the borrow-for-building program, which has seen Queensland lose its AAA credit rating for the first time, would not be abandoned as it secured 119,000 jobs, maintained economic growth, and would position the state well for the next boom.

“And, yes, you will hear our opponents criticise that decision; you will hear people scaremongering over the next 27 days as we go through an election campaign; you will hear this program called irresponsible,” Ms Bligh said.

“I think the alternative is unthinkable.”

But Mr Springborg said Labor had nothing to show for its 11 years in power, and had squandered the opportunities of a booming economy.

“It is a sad legacy of economic management and mismanagement of the Labor Government that after 11 years of the rivers of gold, our state is broke,” Mr Springborg said.

“It’s a little bit like lighting a fire and then running around and wanting credit for putting it out.”

Ms Bligh pre-empted her visit to Governor Penny Wensley yesterday – having already announced her intentions on her personal website – by writing to Kevin Rudd with a list of schools, public housing, highway and rail projects that were ready to be funded under the federal stimulus package.

So far, this is precisely what I  suggested would be the script for the election The Government running the steady hand on the tiller line, and the LNP pointing out how crap the Government is as economic managers. And the government adds showing the Premier here there and everywhere saying “jobs, jobs, jobs” is almost painful in the amount of false sincerity it contains. I have not yet seen any LNP advertising  But given they are bound to have a more modest budget than the government’  that is hardly surprising.

Also who is Anna Bligh’s fashion advisor? The blue dress she wears in the ads is so  wonderfully frumpish that just inspires  laughter from this commentator. and the thought that it reminds  me of another blue dress once  worn by a certain White house intern…

Cheers Comrades

Not “drovers dog” stuff but possible

The election has been announced

Well the election has been announced and I have the strongest impression that it could be a re-run of events in Western Australia.

I think that the people of Queensland can, like the sandgropers, tell when a government is desperate.  As I see it the Qld ALP government is very tired indeed, and Anna Bligh is no Peter Beattie in terms of charm or electability. She is dour and humourless, with a very contrived public image. I am no misogynist but the with an equally unattractive ( in the electoral sense) female police minister, a very inexperienced treasurer (who presides over a big budget deficit and a tumble in the states credit rating), the Patel trial too which does not show the government in a good light (his sins were all on Labor’s watch) add to that the “it’s time” factor, also  nine  sitting ALP members who have so far jumped ship (which does not say much for internal belief in a future ALP government) and a change of government is indeed very possible, Not “drovers dog” stuff but possible.
Cheers Comrades

PS.

predictions of the outcome are welcome in the comments 

Ink stained fingers

Since we came to a “ceasefire” of sorts  the Grods crew have seldom let a day go by with out some comment or reference that in some way disparages me. Of course I am rather indifferent to their crap these days but the post that I quote below, in its entirety, is a typical example of Scott Bridges rather elastic approach to keeping agreements. But it is also a distraction from the woes that are evident about the new incarnation of Boltwatch.

Green with jealousy

Posted by Scott on Sunday 22 February 2009, 3:05 pm Categories: Blogosphere Tags: Crikey, IainHall, PurePoison

Some things are so stunningly hilarious that they simply must be blogged, even if there is a kinda, sorta (and often broken) ban on talking about a certain person on GrodsCorp.

Some things are serious contenders for funniest thing on the internets evah!!1!

Here’s how it happened:

1. We launched Pure Poison, attracting criticism from all of the usual suspects, including one Iain Hall.
   

   I must say that I just cracked myself up when I discovered this blog, especially the title that you have given it.
   “Pure Poison” hey? Sounds like a good description of what the authors have been producing about the writings of Andrew and Tim for ages.

   The day I see you lot criticise say Phillip Adams with the same sort of eye that you cast upon Andrew Bolt will be that day that you gain a tiny bit of credibility. Until then it will be just more of the same one eyed commentary it is itself full of “malevolent intellectual dishonesty“

2. Because I can’t help myself, I made a smart-arse remark to push Mr Hall’s buttons.
   

   You’re just jealous, Iain. You’ve been emailing Crikey every week for the past year begging for a gig on their site.

3. Instead of treating the allegation with the disrespect it deserved, Iain got super-defensive.
   

   Rubbish Scott I have done no such thing, prove it or withdraw the claim.

4. A couple of days later Iain dropped into the Pure Poison-bashing thread at Helen 3D’s blog (thanks to Tobias for the awesome name for Helen Demidenko Darville Dale) and wondered aloud if we were paying Crikey for having our blog hosted there.
   

   But I wonder are they actually paying to have that blog hosted by Crikey? If they are that would be the most amusing part of the whole thing.

5. Jeremy, mindful of Iain’s complete ignorance about the way that paid employment is generally organised, shook his head gently at Iain’s suggestion.
   

   Oh, Iain, you are precious.

6. But Iain wouldn’t leave it alone, asking Jeremy directly if we’re paying Crikey.
   

   Precious or Not Jeremy are you lot paying for the pleasure of blogging there?

7. Jeremy, by now a little stunned at how ignorant Hall is, teased him slightly.
   

   Oh, Iain, that would be telling! See if you can figure it out…

8. But like a dog with a bone, Iain just couldn’t let it go.
   

   Why the childish secrecy Jeremy?
   Are you ashamed to tell the truth?

9. So Iain went over Jeremy’s head in an attempt to get an answer.
   

   Now as Jeremy is being very coy about this I have emailed Crikey to find out what the terms are for having a blog there.

10. And then… sorry, I’m having trouble writing this through the tears of laughter… Iain put the cherry on top of the cake.
    

    Anyway if the terms are reasonable I may move there myself

I might as well quit the internets now. I’m never going to laugh harder ever again.

(source link in quote title)

Of course this rather self serving swipe at me is something of a distraction from the less than enthusiastic response from the bloggosphere to the the latest incarnation of Boltwatch  called “  Pure Poison” I am sure that the authors  intended this to refer the targets of their ire but really it is an even more apt description of the ” Feeble four”. Now as much as I like three of them who seem to be reasonable  chaps the author of the piece above is rather less worthy of any respect for the very  cavalier attitude that he has shown to keeping his word.

Well may Bridges laugh at his own cleverness  in misquoting me* because those of us of a more conservative bent have been laughing very much harder at the  some of the responses to the arrival of their grand effort.

The Most biting commentary has come from that long time kicker of lefty butt, J F Beck  : POISON PINHEADS , GUTLESS WONDERS ,POISONOUS PREVARICATION and finally (at the time of writing) we have Jeremy threatening to sue as reported in   HISTORY REWRITE

Helen Dale has seen this new blog as a reincarnation of  the blog wars that have so vexed me but more significantly she points out how lacking in good humour all of the posts have so far been rather dull. But she does see that there are laughs to be had, at the expense of the feeble four:

They’ve now got a rather pathetic post up calling for help with point-scoring off lefties, but since they agree with many of the base suppositions that righties ‘call’ lefties on, I can’t see this working. Maybe they could attack likes of Robert Manne, David Marr and Phillip Adams from the left — a strategy the ABC employed against the Hawkeating government — but those kind of attacks tend to be earnest, not funny. Tim Blair — with some legitimacy — thinks he’s found a comedy gold mine, chiefly on the basis of marginal competence:

Helen then links to a post at Larvatus Prodeo  by Kim and the observation by Mark Banish (in the comments) is most pertinent:

I agree with those who think Bolt’s climate change stuff has to be countered. But it would be far better to do so within the context of a discussion of climate change generally – from a political point of view. That’s my opinion, FWIW. Another blogger I spoke to today said “Crikey has damaged their brand”. I think there’s a fair amount of opinion out there that it’s traffic driven above all. That doesn’t mean that the authors of the blog aren’t – in their own minds – in good faith. I just think it’s politically rather misguided and very boring.

Feb 20th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

Of course my friend and fellow conservative Leon Bertrand is as unimpressed as I am in his post Pure Poison failing to shine on bigger stage and he comes to a similar view to Mark from LP (which would be a first)

Sadly, it appears that Crikey has damaged its standing by including these C-grade bloggers on their website. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that the folks at Grodscorp, whose talents for the most part extend to childish digs and petty cyber-bulling, have been given a chance at the bigger time, but have simply failed the grade.

Even one of the Grods regular commentators and sometime Boltwatch writer  Bruce Everett manages to damn this new venture with rather feint praise  in his usual dense and stodgy style. read it if you dare .

Also lefty David Bath is less than impressed by the Pure Poison experience.

Mercurious at Larvatus Prodeo thinks that it is all about bitchiness

Basically  no one has much of a good word at all for this  effort , not even the lefties at LP and I think that the sheer lack of good humour will be the thing that will condemn this new blog to continuing obscurity.  The blog itself is far too effused with the same sensibility that makes Grods so juvenile. The authors all think that they are so clever and witty because they can think up smart arse names for the targets of their derision (the aside about Helen Dale’s name in the piece I quote above is a typical example).  If calling people names really won arguments they would be  quite rightfully crowing . Because name-calling is never much cop they are instead fighting a rear guard action to be considered credible on the bigger stage that is implicit in the Crikey hosting .

The choice is simple, be funny about what they are doing or be serious, sadly at present they are neither.

Cheers Comrades

* in particular he fails to include my “    ” at the end of his last quote which I had  included to indicate that I was not in fact serious about moving any of my blogging to Crikey .

Ink stained fingers

Since we came to a “ceasefire” of sorts the Grods crew have seldom let a day go by with out some comment or reference that in some way disparages me. Of course I am rather indifferent to their crap these days but the post that I quote below, in its entirety, is a typical example of Scott Bridges rather elastic approach to keeping agreements. But it is also a distraction from the woes that are evident about the new incarnation of Boltwatch.

Green with jealousy

Posted by Scott on Sunday 22 February 2009, 3:05 pm Categories: Blogosphere Tags: Crikey, IainHall, PurePoison

Some things are so stunningly hilarious that they simply must be blogged, even if there is a kinda, sorta (and often broken) ban on talking about a certain person on GrodsCorp.

Some things are serious contenders for funniest thing on the internets evah!!1!

Here’s how it happened:

1. We launched Pure Poison, attracting criticism from all of the usual suspects, including one Iain Hall.
   

   I must say that I just cracked myself up when I discovered this blog, especially the title that you have given it.
   “Pure Poison” hey? Sounds like a good description of what the authors have been producing about the writings of Andrew and Tim for ages.

   The day I see you lot criticise say Phillip Adams with the same sort of eye that you cast upon Andrew Bolt will be that day that you gain a tiny bit of credibility. Until then it will be just more of the same one eyed commentary it is itself full of “malevolent intellectual dishonesty“

2. Because I can’t help myself, I made a smart-arse remark to push Mr Hall’s buttons.
   

   You’re just jealous, Iain. You’ve been emailing Crikey every week for the past year begging for a gig on their site.

3. Instead of treating the allegation with the disrespect it deserved, Iain got super-defensive.
   

   Rubbish Scott I have done no such thing, prove it or withdraw the claim.

4. A couple of days later Iain dropped into the Pure Poison-bashing thread at Helen 3D’s blog (thanks to Tobias for the awesome name for Helen Demidenko Darville Dale) and wondered aloud if we were paying Crikey for having our blog hosted there.
   

   But I wonder are they actually paying to have that blog hosted by Crikey? If they are that would be the most amusing part of the whole thing.

5. Jeremy, mindful of Iain’s complete ignorance about the way that paid employment is generally organised, shook his head gently at Iain’s suggestion.
   

   Oh, Iain, you are precious.

6. But Iain wouldn’t leave it alone, asking Jeremy directly if we’re paying Crikey.
   

   Precious or Not Jeremy are you lot paying for the pleasure of blogging there?

7. Jeremy, by now a little stunned at how ignorant Hall is, teased him slightly.
   

   Oh, Iain, that would be telling! See if you can figure it out…

8. But like a dog with a bone, Iain just couldn’t let it go.
   

   Why the childish secrecy Jeremy?
   Are you ashamed to tell the truth?

9. So Iain went over Jeremy’s head in an attempt to get an answer.
   

   Now as Jeremy is being very coy about this I have emailed Crikey to find out what the terms are for having a blog there.

10. And then… sorry, I’m having trouble writing this through the tears of laughter… Iain put the cherry on top of the cake.
    

    Anyway if the terms are reasonable I may move there myself

I might as well quit the internets now. I’m never going to laugh harder ever again.

(source link in quote title)

Of course this rather self serving swipe at me is something of a distraction from the less than enthusiastic response from the bloggosphere to the the latest incarnation of Boltwatch called ” Pure Poison” I am sure that the authors intended this to refer the targets of their ire but really it is an even more apt description of the ” Feeble four”. Now as much as I like three of them who seem to be reasonable chaps the author of the piece above is rather less worthy of any respect for the very cavalier attitude that he has shown to keeping his word.

Well may Bridges laugh at his own cleverness in misquoting me* because those of us of a more conservative bent have been laughing very much harder at the some of the responses to the arrival of their grand effort.

The Most biting commentary has come from that long time kicker of lefty butt, J F Beck : POISON PINHEADS , GUTLESS WONDERS ,POISONOUS PREVARICATION and finally (at the time of writing) we have Jeremy threatening to sue as reported in HISTORY REWRITE

Helen Dale has seen this new blog as a reincarnation of the blog wars that have so vexed me but more significantly she points out how lacking in good humour all of the posts have so far been rather dull. But she does see that there are laughs to be had, at the expense of the feeble four:

They’ve now got a rather pathetic post up calling for help with point-scoring off lefties, but since they agree with many of the base suppositions that righties ‘call’ lefties on, I can’t see this working. Maybe they could attack likes of Robert Manne, David Marr and Phillip Adams from the left — a strategy the ABC employed against the Hawkeating government — but those kind of attacks tend to be earnest, not funny. Tim Blair — with some legitimacy — thinks he’s found a comedy gold mine, chiefly on the basis of marginal competence:

Helen then links to a post at Larvatus Prodeo by Kim and the observation by Mark Banish (in the comments) is most pertinent:

I agree with those who think Bolt’s climate change stuff has to be countered. But it would be far better to do so within the context of a discussion of climate change generally – from a political point of view. That’s my opinion, FWIW. Another blogger I spoke to today said “Crikey has damaged their brand”. I think there’s a fair amount of opinion out there that it’s traffic driven above all. That doesn’t mean that the authors of the blog aren’t – in their own minds – in good faith. I just think it’s politically rather misguided and very boring.

Feb 20th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

Of course my friend and fellow conservative Leon Bertrand is as unimpressed as I am in his post Pure Poison failing to shine on bigger stage and he comes to a similar view to Mark from LP (which would be a first)

Sadly, it appears that Crikey has damaged its standing by including these C-grade bloggers on their website. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that the folks at Grodscorp, whose talents for the most part extend to childish digs and petty cyber-bulling, have been given a chance at the bigger time, but have simply failed the grade.

Even one of the Grods regular commentators and sometime Boltwatch writer Bruce Everett manages to damn this new venture with rather feint praise in his usual dense and stodgy style. read it if you dare .

Also lefty David Bath is less than impressed by the Pure Poison experience.

Mercurious at Larvatus Prodeo thinks that it is all about bitchiness

Basically no one has much of a good word at all for this effort , not even the lefties at LP and I think that the sheer lack of good humour will be the thing that will condemn this new blog to continuing obscurity. The blog itself is far too effused with the same sensibility that makes Grods so juvenile. The authors all think that they are so clever and witty because they can think up smart arse names for the targets of their derision (the aside about Helen Dale’s name in the piece I quote above is a typical example). If calling people names really won arguments they would be quite rightfully crowing . Because name-calling is never much cop they are instead fighting a rear guard action to be considered credible on the bigger stage that is implicit in the Crikey hosting .

The choice is simple, be funny about what they are doing or be serious, sadly at present they are neither.

Cheers Comrades

* in particular he fails to include my ” ” at the end of his last quote which I had included to indicate that I was not in fact serious about moving any of my blogging to Crikey .

The troublesome priest

I have been following the controversy about the congregation at Saint Mary’s church with more than a little interest, not because of my own faith position , but because I am fascinated by the politics of the issue.

MARCHING orders ... Rebel Brisbane Catholic priest Peter Kennedy has been sacked by Archbishop John Bathersby.

SACKED priest Father Peter Kennedy said he never wanted to push St Mary’s style of worship on others. His followers vowed to protest on Sunday.

Fr Kennedy predicted 1000 people would turn out for Sunday morning mass in a show of support for him and the St Mary’s community.

At a packed press conference held in the historic church in the afternoon, Fr Kennedy claimed that in the 28 years he’d been at St Mary’s, no-one had tried to impose the St Mary’s style of celebrating the Catholic faith on others.

The different incarnations of the Christianity are really rather like fast food franchises  each one has a certain public image and menu and there are no franchises that have a longer history than Catholicism. Thus it is no surprise to me that when one branch office begins to offer deep fried chicken (with all those herbs and spices) rather than the more normal confession burgers ( with a side order of contrition and absolution) that the head office should want to step in and replace the store manger with one who will return the store menu to just what people expect. The essence of any franchise is keeping true to the template. Clearly Peter Kennedy is not doing this.

That is not to say that he has not been doing a good job in his community; in a secular age to have such a supportive and vibrant congregation is something to be admired.  The question for  comes down to is what he is doing anything like Catholicism any more?

The church teaches that homosexual sex is sinful, and Peter Kennedy ignores this in his desire to be inclusive of his homosexual parishioners.

The church believes that the gender roles within the liturgy should preclude women from the pulpit. This is ignored under Peter Kennedy.

The church believes that only its own iconography should be evident on the grounds of its ecclesiastic real estate, yet under Peter Kennedy’s watch there is statuary that is at least ambiguous enough that it could be seen as a representation of the Buddha.

Now to get back to my fast food analogy if Peter Kennedy were running an independent outfit that he had started from scratch none of the points  above would matter but in fact he did not start from scratch and the owners of the brand are right to sack a manger who won’t sell the right sort of food from their store and replace him with one who will.

While some of commentators, from shall we say the far left want to sell this conflict as an example of the will of the people being subverted by the “evil church  hierarchy”  it is the parishioners  who are used by a mob of the usual Socialist Alliance types to ferment trouble within a faith community that they otherwise despise.

Now personally I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone needs any kind of interlocutor between themselves and the deity (of whatever brand they choose) but clearly for many people there is comfort to be found in the shape and the form of a familiar ritual that can be seen in the mass anywhere in the world. It is the same sort of uniformity that makes certain fast food so attractive to hungry  travellers the world over.

Peter Kennedy has certainly been pushing the envelope as far as he can the trouble is that the paper has finally torn and as a result any good works that he has presided over are facing  uncertainty, not that his socialist pals care about that.

Eat well Comrades

PS while we are on the topic of religion can I ask any readers who have not already done  so to take half a minute to do my religion and politics polls in the side bar .

The Devine Miranda

Got a busy day today so not much by way of posting here, but please check out the piece I quote below by Miranda Divine she very nicely points out that the newly found support by Greenies for hazard reduction burning is actually far from being backed up by their action and advocacy in the past.

Miranda Divine

On the other side of the country, one Peter Robertson, the West Australian co-ordinator of the Wilderness Society, was singing from a different song sheet.

His letter last week to The West Australian stated: “Experience and risk analysis show that repeatedly burning tens of thousands of hectares of remote bushland and forest will do little to address the threat of bushfires to human communities … It would be a huge mistake if the community was led to believe that a massive, expensive and environmentally destructive prescribed burning program was going to protect them when it could make matters worse.” Robertson is no lone ranger among greens in opposition to prescribed burning.

The WA Forest Alliance, for instance, lodged a submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the 2001-02 bushfires, claiming: “Frequent fires have a disastrous effect on many species of flora and fauna and their habitat structure.”

WWF Australia’s submission claimed: “Inappropriate fire hazard regimes can damage biodiversity leading to the loss of native species, communities and ecosystems.”

The NSW Greens state on their website as part of their bushfire risk management policy: “There is an urgent need to correct the common misconception that responsible fire management always involves burning or clearing to reduce moderate and high fuel loads…”

With respect Comrades

8)

Drink up, Damian

Saw this here and immediately thought how cute it is and how we often ignore some everyday items that can make a very good building materials

Glass houses: There are 20 buildings made of bottles in the complex

from here
Cheers Comrades

Guantanamo Bay release overturned

In my previous post on Gitmo the scenario that is outlined in the BBC report below was exactly what I expected to be the stumbling block to an early closure of the facility. So I am sadly not surprised to hear this at all

The 17 have been in Guantanamo Bay for nearly eight years

A US federal appeals court has rejected the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees onto US soil, reports say.

A US judge ruled last year that the 17 Uighurs – Chinese Muslims – were no longer enemy combatants and should be released into the United States.

China has requested their return, but the US will not send them home for fear they will be persecuted.

No other country has agreed to take the men, who have been detained since they were picked up in Afghanistan in 2001.

Now if my latte sipping friends have an answer to this dilemma then I am sure that President Obama would be more than happy to have them sent to him on the back of a postcard.( visualises many heads being desperately scratched in coffee shops in the inner-city precincts across Australia ).
Give up?
As I said before it is not as easy as the stroke of a pen symbolism to actually make Gitmo go away.
Cheers Comrades

8)

‘I am keen to deport this dangerous individual as soon as I can.’

You just have to wonder if the inmates have taken over the asylum if a country can not deport non citizens to their country of origin , even though the persons in question a preachers of “Jihad” and acts of terror. This is the darkside of the well intentioned “human rights” above all else advocacy of my Latte sipping friends. Fortunately there are some wiser heads on the Law Lords bench who have finally show some backbone and brought down a judgement in favour of deporting a very undesirable non-citizen.

Deportation threat: Abu Qatada does a bit of shopping

The judgment is a victory for the Home Office in its long-running campaign to remove Qatada from Britain, but was criticised by human rights groups.

The Law Lords also ruled in favour of the Government over its attempts to deport two other men to Algeria.

However, Qatada is likely to remain in Britain for some time as all three men are expected to now take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

This process could take as long as two years to resolve.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith immediately signed the deportation order. She said: ‘I’m delighted with the Lords’ decision today in the cases of Abu Qatada and the two Algerians ‘RB’ and ‘U’.

‘It highlights the threat these individuals pose to our nation’s security and vindicates our efforts to remove them.

‘My top priority is to protect public safety and ensure national security and I have signed Abu Qatada’s deportation order which will be served on him today.

‘I am keen to deport this dangerous individual as soon as I can.’.

Personally I think that if you enter a country illegally, advocate acts of violence and terror, then it is straight to the nearest border and very stern “Bugger off matey!” and not years of keeping lawyers in their limos as they explore and exploit every possible loophole to keep a rather nasty person in a country that they despise.
Cheers Comrades