The pond only notes the latest outburst by the arm-breaking grub - an employee of News Corp - because it represents a trend towards hysteria, offence and insult in sundry Murdochian organs... along with a goodly dose of paranoia, as the reptiles of Oz have tried to stir up the Xians ...
Now the pond can't keep up with all the stories, but whenever it hears talk of "unAustralian" it reaches for its Glock ... or at least for an understanding of what's properly "Australian" ...
Here are the whining, moaning Xians at work in the lizard Oz ...
Ah, it's the complimentary woman man, the angry Sydney Anglicans are setting the pace to restore the world to the innocent days before Eve did the dirt on Adam ...
Now there's a good one ... that talk of being "other-person centred", and the moaning and the whining about coercion and bullying.
Speaking of corporate bullies, let's overlook the creepy arm-breaker, dragging kids into the fray, and instead look at a proponent of the art of being other-person centred, Murdochian media style ...
Yes, it's the homophobic gay bashing fundamentalist Devine, who when not bashing the Islamics, can be relied to hang a greenie from the nearest lamp post, or do over a passing gay ...
What's passing curious is where the Devine dragged that "most of us" from.
Is she suggesting that "most of us" are as bigoted and vile as she is?
Actually there were many reasons that meant that the onion muncher's contrived policy to delay, defer and hopefully even defeat marriage equality never saw light of day, not least because the obvious nature of his bigoted contrivance didn't relieve members of parliament from the obligation to prevent hate speech from consuming the nation.
Better keep it in the ghetto of Murdoch la la land, than pay people to spread the message of fear and loathing ... a job which the Devine, the Bolter and other bigots could do with one hand pounding a one-eyed keyboard ...
And so on to assorted and sundry Devine lies and misrepresentations, aided and abetted by new "research" conducted, the Devine claims, back in December, and landing amongst us in late March...
It is of course a set of findings fed to the Devine so that she, in her bilious, vile way, might construct as negative a case as she could manage ...
But there's something missing. The pond hasn't deployed some of the photos used to illustrate the piece, but surely there should be a shot of the ravening hounds shouting at the camera, glaring like zombies, carrying signs and placards, and possibly foaming at the mouth ...
Ah yes, there they are. Is there a lamp post handy?
And so to throwing everything, including the kitchen sink and Safe Schools, into the bullying debate:
Truth to tell, nothing will legitimise the result in the eyes of bigots, fundamentalist Xians and Islamics and Jews, and crazies like the Devine ....
Never mind the illiterate reference to "this polls", and the deviant attempt to extend the polling into further claim-grabbing territory by talk of "shy" no votes ... apparently there are no Xians with a conscious that might have a "shy" yes vote lurking in their supposedly compassionate soul.
Let's just cut to the main game.
This column presumably passes as what what the Xian leaders and the reptiles see as "Australian" behaviour and "Australian" speech ... which is to say, licensed bigotry, manipulation of data, innuendo, and frank, offensive, explicit insults ...
How did the pond realise that the Devine had once again hit her mark?
Well right there at the top of the comments section, there was a comment from one Jim lad ...
Well done Jim lad.
It takes a considerable feat to overlook the treatment of gay people by the Nazis, but you've managed it. What a splendid tribute to Devine thinking you are.
No doubt on rising each morning, you splash yourself with a scent that's pleasing to your bigoted nostrils ...
Oh, look, I know logic has no place here, but lets run the numbers, hmmm?
ReplyDelete"Professional large-scale polling by the Marriage Alliance...gives the lie to claims that almost 75% of Australians favour same-sex marriage..." says Madam Vitriole. And then goes on to say that the poll shows only 52% supported it in the poll. Except...that is 52% of 75% who expressed an opinion. And 52% out of 75% is 69.3% of all people expressing an opinion.
Polling typically involves some framing or sequencing which, intentionally or otherwise, prompt particular results (see Yes, Prime Minster). Now, I haven't read their questions, but London to a brick, an organisation calling itself "The Marriage Alliance", has a motivation to find people support "traditional definitions of marriage". So, despite the likely bias in the poll construction and the likely bias in sampling (likely that land-line owning older people are overrepresented, missing those peskily tolerant mobile-only younger people), this sample still found that nearly 70% of people support SSM. Within the confidence limits of a few percent either way for sample size, this is statistically trivially different to the "almost 75%" the Devine One imputes to her opponents "lie" (personally, I've not heard more than 70% support, but anyway...). The survey also finds that, unlike her readers, people are able to distinguish between the actually-uncontroversial issue of marriage equality and the somewhat more vexed one of sex education.
But in Miranda's topsy-turvy world, "giving the lie to" appears to mean "validating the earlier findings". Marvellous agility there, Miranda.
And again, I know logic has no place here, but I actually read this article in a free dead tree edition today, and have been catching scents of Eau de Vitriole ever since.
The pond was mortified to have accidentally deleted your post FrankD and now has attempted to revive it!
DeleteWe actually wanted to make a joke about not mentioning bias, and data interpretation and all the rest of it, and reptiles needing to be content on their hot rocks, but the Devine's topsy-turvey world leads to all sorts of follies ...
DeleteAs for your reading it in a dead tree edition, the pond will tiptoe past in silence. Who hasn't picked up a copy of the Terror on the train or at the car wash, and then left graffiti marks in it for the next reader?