Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Hendo and Cater, as fresh as Irish bread, or a shipping container in Botany ...



(Above: Steve Bell on royal breeding. More Bell if here).


One thing is absolutely certain: there is no way the pond will start off the day by referencing, let alone celebrating, the breeding activities of the House of Windsor.

What's that you say? By mentioning the breeding activities, they have in fact been referenced?

Damn you reflexivity, you dirty reflexive ape, damn you to hell.

But at least the pond isn't as bad as RN, which has seen Fran Kelly cooing and clucking, and a gentleman in the studio celebrating the triumphs of the British ... the Olympics, the Test cricket, the Tour de France, and now a Royal bub. Yep, breeding as a kind of sporting contest.

Truly why old Flinty goes on about the ABC, when it's a nest of Royalists of the most dubious kind.

Another thing that's absolutely certain is that the pond won't reference the hypocrisy that's been doing the rounds in relation to boat people. Nausea's certain to follow ...

What's that you say?

Oh okay, after the utterly incredible and amazing Tony Abbott said a few days ago:

"I will never subcontract out to other countries the solution of problems in this country," he said... (here, may cost you a Fairfax hit and a forced video)

Because you know the Pacific solution didn't involve other countries because there aren't any countries in the Pacific ...

And because you know towing back the boats and telling Indonesia to fix it up by themselves isn't subcontracting, just a form of piracy ...

Yes, after Abbott showed once again an infinite capacity for lies and deceit - possibly involving lying to himself and self-deceit, such is his inability to hold a straight line on anything - the feral rabid Scott Morrison turned up in the lizard Oz with this:

Hello Nauru, goodbye responsibility.

No link, the pond would rather link to its favourite brand of rat poison (yes if you live in the inner west, you have rat problems, and they're not all political).

Meanwhile, prattling Polonius - yes it's Tuesday and we all know what that means - has gone all Catholic in 'Sorry' would give Rudd credibility (it'll cost you a Fairfix hit, but who's counting or caring):


Yes, this from a man who never apologises for anything, presumably on the basis that infallibility means you're never wrong:

Sometimes a confession of error works better than evasion or denial.

Uh huh, and how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers are involved?

Howard erred when, as opposition leader in August 1988, he called for a reduction in the Asian proponent of Australia's immigration intake in order "to ensure the maintenance of social harmony and cohesion". Howard soon distanced himself from this comment and came to express regret that he had ever spoken in these terms since his position was clearly wrong. The mea culpa worked and Howard went on to establish excellent relations with Asian communities in Australia. 
A Rudd mea culpa would diminish some of the opposition to the Prime Minister's current stance by those who resent his apparent denial. Also it would give greater authority to his new position.

Which is nonsense, gibberish, and yet amazingly the Fairfax troops routinely publish this sort of nonsense.

A mea culpa just out of an election? Why not just hand Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison baseball bats and urge Rudd to give them a free hit?

And never mind John Howard's fellow-travelling with Pauline Hanson:

“Of course I will be called a racist, but if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country,” she (Hanson) said. 
Five years later, after he had stopped the Tampa with its cargo of boatpeople from landing in Australia, Howard raised the rafters at his election campaign launch by declaring: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Coincidence? Perhaps. But it represented a certain meeting of minds. (here)

Now the pond long ago gave up on the notion of coherence without back-tracking, hypocritical double dealing, and other political chicanery - the pond isn't actually sure it's believed any politician saying anything, no matter how apparently heartfelt it was, because the average politician would ship their grandmother to Indonesia if there were enough votes in it ...

But surely it's right to expect a bit more subtlety and nuance than the routine follies of a Hendo?

Never mind, aficionados of twittering twits will today have an exceptional pleasure, thanks to the reptiles at the lizard Oz:


Beelzebub? WTF?

If you want a light-weight showing what it's like to match wits with a hot air balloon, look no further than Cater being Cateresque in Still waiting for the Left's condemnation (behind the paywall, because the lizard Oz thinks there are mug punters out there keen to do their dough cold, but tired of the nags and the pokies).

Is there anything more offensive than a git who not so long ago hopped on a plane and landed in country with a plum job poking a stick at hapless refugees?

Not in Cater's world. And yet this squawking goose sounds just like Hendo, wanting an apology:

Either way, the nation is unlikely to get the humble and forthright apology it so richly deserves. 
The rules of progressive politics mean mistakes can never be acknowledged, since it would destroy the illusion that constant social improvement is the one true path to civilisation. 
A mea culpa, even a small one, requires abandoning the moral high ground.

Uh huh. Much like the Howard government grovelled and apologised for all the pain, suffering and abuse of its policies.

But you know you're in the presence of a really offensive, pathetic, tawdry git when you cop this:

In the Rudd government's defence, it clearly had little choice but to repudiate the Howard administration's policies if it wanted to calm The Age's editorial writers and avoid a shellacking from the pontiff of progressivism, David Marr.

Bugger the pond dead, yet another tedious riff on The Age v the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

So tired, so lame, so wretched.

Now look, the pond generally has nothing against British refugees landing in Australia by air and taking up residence. But can it be made a rule of law that at Customs said refugees are stripped of their dictionaries and keyboards so we don't get this sort of simpering, pathetic prose?

We must forever be on our guard, for Beelzebub and his agents - "Piers Akerman, young Andrew Bolt and the indestructible Alan Jones" - never sleep. "Old fears recycled work their magic over and over again." 
We tremble as we await Marr's denunciation of Rudd, now that the devil has taken hold of his tongue and his policies. Mighty will be the sword of righteousness that is about to smite this fallen cherub. Verily, they will withhold fellowship from he who walketh on a path abhorrent in the eyes of the righteous ones, seated around the table in a fair-trade bakery in Annandale.

Actually Marr did a fine job in Captain Rudd steers Australia into new depths of shame, but sssh, he works for The Guardian these days, and some people might be refugees from the rag. Double sssh, actually given the way both Fairfax and News Corp a going into a new round of downsizing.

As for the joke about a fair-trade bakery in Annandale? Oh that's so funny, so elegant, so intelligent, so witty and gay, but it just misses, since clearly Cater hasn't caught up with vegetarian butchers ...

But what's the bet this British refugee in fact doesn't drink shitty coffee, or quaff four buck De Bertoli, or eat at his local fast food joint as a special treat on a Friday nigh?

Even more offensive is Cater's assumption that refugee politics can be just played as another game, with the Ruddster denounced for hypocrisy by the right, and given a free pass by the left, and vice versa Abbott can be given a free pass by the right, and never mind his hypocrisy ...

You might think that if you're a privileged refugee from Britain, and never mind that country's recent success at sport and royal breeding, you can get away with rhetorical tripe of the half-baked biblical kind, but as cheap point scoring goes, Cater is about as cheap and as pathetic as it gets ...

Now hie yourself off to your local server of bulk white bread, pre-cooked in Ireland, and show you're at one with the gormless mob ...

(Below: read about Nick Cater's preferred form of baking in Kennett toasts Coles over 'fresh' bread. Well you wouldn't want your bread from a bakery in Annandale, would you?)









5 comments:

  1. Nick Cater also said that Rudd “has been re-incarnated as John Howard without the soft bits”. What soft bits? George Bush called him a “man of steel”

    And didn’t Howard have a mind like concrete, all mixed up and permanently set? The soft bits must be the inflamed veins at lower end of the alimentary canal.

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  2. Dorothy
    I have had increase the size of the print to read your articles of late but still able to appreciate your wit and how you bring these geese to heel.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now green queen Christine has gone with TA's 'women of that calibre' meme for a preferential babies scheme. Would Langer-style Senate voting to optionally preference an alternate environmental candidate (aec; for example: 1aec,2aec,3,3,4,5....n.) sort 'em out?

    And thankyou Dorothy for your Langer reminder the other day. http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Backgrounders/files/2010-eb-informal-voting.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh Anon, be brave and try glasses, and sadly Anon that "well heeled women need a well heeled scheme" is another reason by the pond is in a state of Langerism ...

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  5. Glasses? Yes, may be so. That, or a course in AEC and lib-lab shared legislative language designed to stitch up my exhausted vote in the best of democracies money can buy. However, the brave Wikipedia strongly suggests that Senate exhaustive preferential voting may be merely optional via those same "vote saving" provisions outlined in the AEC informal vote backgrounder. The Wikipedia /en language is clear, and presumably if it's in error the AEC would be advising such and be in there correcting. It would also need refer Wikipedia /en to the AFP for investigation for it is an offence to advocate a vote as formal that is in fact informal, but it is not an offence to advocate an informal vote. 'Informal' here either includes or excludes advocating a 'saved' vote strategy. Given that the Wiki article has advocated this since early 2007 the lack of action by the AEC, AFP, or CDPP is telling:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_vote

    Vote saving[edit]

    In order to "save" votes, a small number of errors are permitted on the larger Senate ballot papers.[4] Paragraph 21 notes that:

    An example would be a ballot paper with 18 candidates on which the voter numbers all of the squares but repeats the number 16 or leaves out the number 16. In this case, the ballot paper will not be informal (that is, it will not be rejected from the scrutiny entirely), but only the preferences from 1 to 15 can be used in the scrutiny.

    Provided that Section 270 of the act[5] is complied with, a voter can number all squares (or all squares but one), starting with 1, containing a minor error that will limit the allocation of preferences but not render the ballot informal. This allows a person to effect a Langer-style vote by numbering the ballot paper (say) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10... (5, 6, 7 replaced by 5, 5, 7). In this case, the voter's preferences up to position 4 would be distributed before the vote was exhausted.

    From the AEC backgrounder summary at pages 4:

    31. If any person attempts to mislead electors as to the
    validity of the markings of their ballot papers, they
    may be in contravention of the offence provision in s.
    329 of the Act. Where the Act appears to have been
    contravened, the AEC may refer the matter to the
    Australian federal Police for investigation, and a brief
    of evidence may be referred to the Commonwealth
    Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

    Interesting although not unsurprising, page 18 indicates the paid for pollies and their paid for servants may not have caught on to publishing on the interwebby:

    329 Misleading or deceptive publications etc...
    (6) In this section, publish includes publish by radio or
    television...

    So which is it for the Senate: voting preferences expressed before a Langer-style repeated numeral saved and counted formal, or informal and uncounted?

    Which is it for a Langer-style Senate vote advocacy: legal or illegal?

    ReplyDelete

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