(Above: a photo to get things started on a Friday. What a great source of potassium, phosphorus, other minerals and vitamins, here. As for the rest of you, take care what you're holding and chewing when someone takes a snap of you).
The ability to call black white, and vice versa, and disseminate nonsense in the cause of supposed insight, is an important part of life in the Catholic church.
How else to explain spending a couple of million bucks to produce a report based on church supplied evidence, which pins the blame for the church's sexual woes on the liberated sixties. Sheesh, the sixties is a decade which just keeps on giving, and not just for ancients like Tim Blair and P. J. O'Rourke. (US Catholic Church study blames 1960s permissiveness for rise in sexual abuse).
Can we all use this as an excuse now? I couldn't help meself guv'nor, it was the sixties wot made me dunnit.
If it wasn't so risible, it would be pathetic. Shepherds guiding their flocks towards paradise, and a little weed and Haight Ashbury brings them undone, and they start putting flowers in their hair and feeling up children?
Meanwhile, the black/white syndrome is also handy in politics, what with Tony Abbott pretending that everything is hunky dory when it comes to him, climate change policy, and Malcolm Turnbull. And if you believe that, have I got a nice Statue of Liberty for sale just to you for a knockdown price, after I picked it up in a fire sale in New York quite recently ...
"I thought that he gave a very strong performance under a bit of goading and provocation," the Opposition Leader said. "Malcolm and I talk regularly about these subjects and he fully supports the Coalition's policy."
Give that man a wad of butter. Damn it, I'll bet a hundred bucks it won't melt in his Catholic mouth. Maybe it was the sixties what made Malcolm dunnit.
As for the baying hounds, those minions of Murdoch ever ready to stand by and plug leaks in the dike, the natural lead for the day was Malcolm Turnbull will never lead again: Liberal MPs. Oh yes, everything's hunky dory. Just feel the hate, hate, hate ...
Truth in politics? Is that like suds that clean extra white, in a Catholic way?
Meanwhile, it is the pond's grave duty to report that the mining industry is about to collapse, what with the most unseemly increase in royalties - oh heck let's just call it a tax - levied by the Western Australian Liberal government.
Liberal parties around the country are reeling with dismay and shock, and already conservative commentariat pundits around the country are lashing WA treasurer Christian Porter for turning into Wayne Swan. The industry will be ruined, creeping communism is at work - did we mention that Chifley wanted to nationalise the banks - and right at this moment we understand Gina Reinhardt is organising a street rally that will be lead by Andrew Bolt, to be broadcast on the Ten network.
Two billion buckeroos, not loose change even between chums, and what are the buggers going to do with it?
Non-profit groups have hailed a $600 million injection for the sector in the West Australian budget as overdue recognition of the cost of delivering welfare services to the most vulnerable. ($600m win for private welfare in WA budget)
Damn me, the lick spittle socialists have infiltrated the WA government and taken it over. Hang on, wait a second, time to read the fine print:
Mr Porter said the decision was part of a move away from the public sector, and the increased funding was a recognition the private sector could deliver these services better than "employees of a large bureaucracy will likely ever do".
Phew, sounds like a boondoggle for Christian charities, and their associated quangos and mangos. Yes, it's not really socialism, it's just the government redistributing wealth by way of taxation ...
Naturally the anon editorialist at the languid, lizard Australian is suddenly all in favour of the transformative power of increasing taxation on the mining industry, because you see it's being done by a Liberal government and they have a narrative. (WA budget with a narrative).
I used to think words like sycophantic, lick spittle, and hypocrite were a tad offensive in the public discourse, but hey anon edit, if they fit like a pair of pyjamas, why not slip into them and wear them with style?
And naturally the anon edit is out for blood when it comes to big Mal. Sure only the other day the rag was opining how big Mal was right about the opposition's climate change policy, and Abbott the odd man out, which naturally means that Abbott must get about the business of dealing with Turnbull's "contemptuous disloyalty". (Dealing with the weakest links).
You see big Mal is also failing to explain in a sufficiently satisfactory way how the NBN will destroy Rupert Murdoch's business model ...
Speaking of that business model, when you turn to the opinion pages of the lizard Oz, what do you get? Well there's Christopher Hitchens rabbiting on about Bill Clinton and his wayward cock in his usual way, and the unfortunate Paul Wolfowitz, with the recent fuss about Strauss-Khan as the excuse, under the header Who's naive when it comes to sex, lies and power? The publication date is listed as 12:00 AM May 20, 2011.
Oh dear, the rag's been scooped again, as the Hitchens' piece was published in Slate at 11:37AM ET, on Wednesday May 18th, available free, and if connected to the NBN, fast, under the more seemly and engaging header Beaucoup B.S. The DSK case and the silly stereotypes about American and European morals.
B.S.? Merde.
No wonder the regional outposts of the Murdoch empire fear and loath the NBN. They're still hoping no one has noticed that the content they recycle is available a mere click away, free, and delivered in a timely manner, and often from sources uncontaminated by their ideological zealotry. And at Slate you also get Doonesbury, free, currently doing an end of the world schtick, so that even if the Trump gag was trumped by recent events, it still reads funny (click to enlarge, more Doonesbury here).
Speaking of the end of the world, it was inevitable that the pond would stray into the rankest parts of the Murdoch empire at some point, as for some obscure reason pundits still keep on punching away at The Punch, and thereby stumble across the end of the world reflections of one Tory Shepherd in ICB: Put on clean undies, the end of the world is nigh.
The hapless Tory, confronted by the loonish ways of Family Radio and Harold Camping, and the end of the world, now scheduled for tomorrow, comes to these unnerving conclusions:
... Camping is embracing and celebrating the idea that in just a couple of days, 98 per cent of the population is going to burn for eternal damnation.
Yes, perhaps he's read the bible, and taken it literally, often the case when it comes to people who suggest that the bible is literally true and infallible, especially when it comes to the business of being eternally dead and writhing in hellfire, or being eternally alive and living in paradise. It's the same routine as with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, with two per cent scoring the pressies and the coins and the Santa choccies that bring on the tooth fairy, and the rest sent to bed without supper.
Poor hapless Tory doesn't quite get this, and seeks to redeem the Xians:
So it’s either bullshit that Camping’s a Christian in the eyes of the rest of the Christian community, or it’s bullshit that Christians are good.
I’m pretty sure it’s the former. Camping’s an aberration who should be roundly condemned – specifically by those who are meant to be saved.
I’m pretty sure it’s the former. Camping’s an aberration who should be roundly condemned – specifically by those who are meant to be saved.
Oh for the dear absent lord's sake Tory read the bible, you utter goose. Specifically the Book of Revelation, and if you find it all too confusing, why not just read the wiki about the Book of Revelation, here.
Hellfire, locusts, lava, earthquakes, seals, horsemen, destruction and ruin, waste and chaos, despair and the end of the world, quite possibly starring Tom Hanks, and so on and so forth.
By definition anyone who takes all the fine print in the bible literally is as mad as a march hare, and the only sensible Christians are the ones who totally ignore the implications of the Christian fairy story.
There's not much point in being saved if everyone gets saved. Some need to be sent to bed without their supper, or pressies, or coins or choccies, especially the ones who indulged themselves in the permissive sixties and ruined the Catholic church.
And if you can swallow that, like a gnat or the eye of a needle, you deserve an eternity in hellfire.
101. Buddha's Zen
Buddha said: "I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons." (here for the previous 100 koans)
If nothing else it will help you deal with the Murdoch press, the relentless negativity of Tony "Dr No" Abbott, and give you the strength to read Paul Sheehan's regular Monday outing.
Consider their scribbles as dust motes, their finest observations as so many bricks and pebbles, their finest budgie smugglers and lycra clad bicycle splendour as tattered rags, and their view of the world the illusion of magicians. And when it comes to the science of global warming and its treatment by the Murdoch press, could anyone put it better than Buddha?
The serpentine dance of a wretched dragon, their beliefs but traces left in the acidified oceans ...
(Below: and now for a little more Doonesbury, since there's nothing like Christians believing in the bible as a source of some light-hearted humour. Click on to enlarge).
Speaking of being eternally damned and writhing in hell...well here's a great piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. The Jensenist nepotics deliver over and over again, but that was a beauty. Clearly he's very afraid of the dark ...
ReplyDelete