(Above: it's been awhile since we promoted the beneficial effects of the cilice, and the drawing of blood. A full tasteful range of devices - some allegedly made by Italian nuns - can be found available for purchase here, but please remember to read the safety warning at the bottom of the page. It seems the damn things might inflict harm on body as well as mind).
There's never a dull moment on the pond.
On the way to reading Paul Sheehan's weekly rant, I stopped by Mark Davis's The tricky political topography of same-sex marriage, which is all about the politics of the issue, and nothing to do with whether it might be appropriate and right.
Amongst the comments came a bit of bible bashing nonsense with this capper:
Put simply YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY THE PIPPER WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS.
I think it was a typo, and Nick of Oz of Bankstown was actually referring to paying the Gipper when the college footie game reaches a climatic point and everybody yells "here's one for the gipper" (though these days the urban dictionary has discovered many new meanings, way beyond Ronald Reagan, for gipper). Meanwhile, inspired by the Ivanhoe school fuss, Leon Gettler in Same-sex face-off asks if homophobia is still around in Australia.
I think it was a typo, and Nick of Oz of Bankstown was actually referring to paying the Gipper when the college footie game reaches a climatic point and everybody yells "here's one for the gipper" (though these days the urban dictionary has discovered many new meanings, way beyond Ronald Reagan, for gipper). Meanwhile, inspired by the Ivanhoe school fuss, Leon Gettler in Same-sex face-off asks if homophobia is still around in Australia.
Just read the comments published on a daily basis in the Herald Leon. Read the comments ...
But finally there was no way around it, the siren song of the grumpiest man in Australia was calling out to me. I got in the mood by humming a favourite tune
Call Mr. Grump,
That's my name,That name again
Is Mr. Grump.
Boom-chi-cha-boom-chi-cha-boom-chi-boom
I'm Mr. Grump, and I'm here to say,
I'm the Grumpiest guy in Oztraya.
I got a big grump and I'll move a lot of things,
Like your cow if you have one...
Apologies to Home and The Simpsons - we luvs ya Mr Plough - but's just as well I had the rap running through my head, because what a bummer Paul Sheehan's Faceless Libs should step aside turned out to be.
Oh it's incredibly grumpy, but it's also incredibly parochial, a bit like seeing the way the Victorian Labor party has discovered it's green to the gills. So green indeed that the Liberal party prefers to keep them in power by preferencing them, for fear that the other greens might get a leg up. Must keep that cosy duopoly going guys ...
What's more amazing is that Sheehan can manage to scribble an entire column about faceless state Liberals, berating three 'largely faceless' men who in reality have their large faces freely available on the intertubes - namely Nick Campbell, Alex Hawke and Michael Photios - and yet in the most extraordinary and singular manner fail to mention that legendary in fighter and right wing Opus Dei ratbag David Clarke.
Not once does Clarke get a guernsey or an honourable mention as a factional warlord, which means Sheehan either doesn't have a clue, or does have a clue, and doesn't want to acknowledge which side of the laugh he's on.
Naturally, since reading about Liberal party in-fighting, given an astonishing skew by Sheehan, is as dull as dishwater, or billiards played on an uneven table, I turned to the comments, and the second cab off the rank also noted Sheehan's amazing capacity for bias while refusing to reveal what actually might be going down:
Messrs Campbell, Hawke and Photios have been outed as Faceless Men but Paul omitted to tell us what faction they belong to. Are they from the Moderates or the Religious Right? In New South Wales we appear certain to vote in Barry O'Farrell as our next Premier whose party is heavily influenced by the Extreme Right. The Liberal Party in fighting over a decade or more has been between the Moderates and the Extreme Right. Nowhere in the article does Paul mention the Rights Leader David Clark so I assume those outed are Moderates.
Indeed. It turns out that David Clarke, that faceless factional warrior, has his own wiki here, wherein you can read of his Opus Dei inclinations (waiter, hand me that cilice, I think a little blood will improve the appetite) and his factional warrior ways. The wiki will also lead you to coverage of Clarke's war with Alex Hawke (Factional war over as top Liberals declare a truce):
Last week, Mr Hawke said his values had always been ''consistent'' but conceded becoming an MP had made him more moderate.
There was also the jolly fun of the Adolf Hitler affair, covered by the ABC here.
How lucky for NSW that David Clarke doesn't seem to have felt the need to moderate his views. Well who knows. If you rely on Sheehan you wouldn't have a clue ...
As for Nick Campbell, you might want to catch up on his moves by reading Crikey's Nick Campbell resigns, leaving unfinished business behind:
Campbell, a key ally of Federal MP Alex Hawke, has been engaged in an extended battle with forces aligned with Liberal powerbroker David Clarke over the last two years. In February, Clarke defeated an attempt by Campbell and Hawke to unseat him in NSW Upper House preselections.
Oh dear, and what do you know, Nick Campbell upped and resigned from the presidency of the Liberal party in June. I can feel that cilice growing a little tighter around the lean thigh of NSW - or is that the neck?
Oh dear, and what do you know, Nick Campbell upped and resigned from the presidency of the Liberal party in June. I can feel that cilice growing a little tighter around the lean thigh of NSW - or is that the neck?
As for Michael Photios, he distinguished himself by turning up in the Daily Terror, under the header Photos show love rat's 'fantastic' life. Yep, Photios is also on the left of the Liberal party, and a bit of a good time boy. The damned love rat. By golly I know where we should strap a cilice on him ...
All of this festers away in a subterranean stew, below the surface of Sheehan's most deceptive and disingenuous column, where he purports that it's just a choice between Abbott, O'Farrell and Sinodinos, or Campell, Hawke and Photious ... with never a mention of Clarke, and his power broking ways.
Sorry, but we have to borrow a nautical term. Sheehan, as always, is a complete futtock ...
Meanwhile, it being a jolly Monday, we thought we'd check back into The Australian, to see how its opinion pages were showing its proudly independent ways.
At the top of the page? Blueprint exposes flaws in NBN plan by Michael Stutchbury. Yep, these days the scribes at the Oz treat scribbling about the NBN like a tag team wrestling match ... today it's Stutchbury's turn ... I wonder if he imagines himself as Gorgeous George or Mario Milano (now there's a joke Nick Xenophon would appreciate).
Don't make me read it, throw me in the briar patch instead. Because you see over at the Daily Terror, why there's Piers Akerman, the always unreadable ranting Akker Dakker, scribbling furiously Headed for big tumble in high wire act, about the Not Bloody Needed broadband scheme. Yep, the bees all live in the one hive, and have the same collective bee mind, but they're proudly independent about it all ...
You can imagine my astonishment when I picked up a hard copy of the Saturday Terror (for free, always for free) and discovered in the business section a feel good story about how the NBN was helping the productivity and turnover of a Tasmanian business ... because of the speed and the capacity to send large photographic files. How on earth did that rogue bee escape the hive?
Well I guess there's just time to catch up on the latest on the Greens from David Burchell. Ah the young David feels the force of the bee hive, and is at one with others in their fear of these fiendish fiends, the Greens, though he dresses up Political pragmatism would put Greens in shade with an incredibly splendid feather show of academic verbiage, starting this way:
Those prudent, chastened political thinkers of the latter 18th century first invented our modern conception of representative democracy.
We have forever been trying to un-invent it ever since.
We have forever been trying to un-invent it ever since.
Yes, a vote for the greens is a dangerous attempt to un-invent democracy. Thank the lord that those pesky Greeks had nothing to do with it ...
What's always astonishing - as Burchell becomes increasingly impenetrable in his prose - is the sight of an academic assailing academics:
It's a peculiarity of Western polities since mass democracy that those in possession of high levels of formal education are prone to imagining themselves the unacknowledged legislators of society, and to asserting the same kind of moral leadership through advocacy and influence that their pre-democratic ancestors may have exercised by more direct means.
Actually Mr Buchell, the peculiarity is that they become the pompous preening purveyors of pretentious drivel for the lizard Oz, filled with an inordinate lather of blather. What on earth could any reasonable human being make of this kind of nonsense?
Good government still requires respecting the moderate intuitions of the great bulk of Australians, while drawing upon the electorate's lighter rather than darker humours.
In order to achieve some part of your fondly held goals, it is still necessary to respect both the desire for personal independence, and the instinct towards mutual help, which together have animated Australian political culture since federation.
In order to achieve some part of your fondly held goals, it is still necessary to respect both the desire for personal independence, and the instinct towards mutual help, which together have animated Australian political culture since federation.
Stick to reading Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, good sir, and may the humours be with you ...
Surely now there's just a moment to learn about the latest in climate change. Oh no, it's the wretched Bjorn Lomborg, offering up A rational take on warming, and himself as the supreme rationalist, caught between alarmists and deniers, and ... oh I see he has a book to sell, and a film to promote, and thank the lord The Australian, as always, is there to help ...
Is there any wonder on some days the pond turns Sheehan, and calls for a personal cilice, one that might draw the blood?
Oh and if you're wondering about gay marriage under a NSW Liberal government, give Opus Dei a call, and see what they're thinking ... tell them Paul Sheehan sent you, and that David Burchell seems to think a party in favour of gay marriage is one of the darker humours ...
(Below: oh for a laugh about the fundies. But hang on the fundies are in charge of the opinion pages of the national media ... Sorry, not much of a laugh, is it).
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