Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Rude Jennifer Byrne berates "sexist" Christopher Hitchens

Like so many people right across the political spectrum I've always enjoyed watching Christopher Hitchens being interviewed or in debates. The bloke was amazingly articulate and insightful as well as having balls of steel.

So I made a point of catching an interview he did with Jennifer Byrne, which was broadcast again last night because of his death.

It was filmed last year. He didn't look too well then -- although I suppose he never really did on account of all the booze and durries. From what I can tell he got the cancer diagnosis in June 2010, and this was broadcast in July of that year. So he was probably fully aware of how sick he was at the time. If so, you'd never know from his demeanour. 

He's interesting as always, but Byrne comes across as a complete twit. She's giggling and mugging all the way through.

He clearly suspects she's a moron. And right near the end he's left in no doubt. They get onto the subject of whether women should work or not, and he says they should have the choice. Feminist bimbo Byrne takes this as an appallingly sexist insult against all of chickdom, and berates him for minutes -- right up until the end! He remains charming and unruffled by her rudeness, showing amazing restraint. 

As well as proving what a champ Hitchens was, the little episode gives a real insight into the retarded mindset of so many women (and men) working at their ABC. How can you possibly have a rational discussion with someone who thinks that saying women should have choices constitutes sexism? 

It's truly jaw-dropping stuff. Hearteningly, many other people who watched it were similarly dismayed, as this comment thread attests

The actual segment in question starts a bit over half way through this video if you want to have a look. 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wong and Allouache have a daughter, but where is the father?

Penny Wong and her significant other Sophie Allouache are now the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl. I use the term "parents" flexibly, of course, because only one of the pair truly is a parent -- that's Sophie Allouache, who bore the child. The other dinkum parent is nowhere to be seen.

He's obviously agreed to take a low profile. Pretty much invisible, actually.

The father of Alexandra is a man known to the couple.

Well, at least they've met the guy. So they didn't choose him solely for the quality of his DNA, as described on some creepy sperm bank database.

His identity is to be kept secret.

Obviously that means that the meeja probably won't be allowed to print his name, even though it's a lay down misere that every hack in Canberra already knows it. (You never know, he might even be one. Most of the press gallery would give blood for the "progressive" cause. So why not sperm as well? Hell, it'd probably be a nice little earner, too.)

This report says that he will be known to the baby. Well, that's good of them.

Still, the poor tot will be left wondering why he, her dad, is taking such a minor role in her life. As she grows up she will almost certainly end up feeling that he fathered her not out of love for her mother but merely for ideological (or perhaps financial) reasons. So what does he truly feel about her? That's a doubly whammy to the heart right there.

Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache may think they've got the situation all nicely, neatly sorted. But it could get very messy indeed. Just as so many children of the IVF process -- deeply hurt by their fathers' absence from their lives -- often seek them out in adulthood, the fathers themselves frequently become much more emotionally involved than they planned to be and and demand more contact. Poisonous enmity often results and the only people to benefit are lawyers.

Really, the idea that bringing children into the world in such a cynical way constitutes social "progress" is just too revolting for words. It's also deeply ironic considering how often the gay marriage lobby cite "love" as their primary motivation.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Flyers used to frighten "scabs" in Fremantle

I've long been amused by the disconnect between rhetoric and reality in left-leaning cultures. Take unionism, for example. Unionists love to see themselves as tough but fair, big-hearted "salt of the earth" types. But they often get their way through abuse, intimidation and sometimes even outright violence.

Here's an illustration of their tactics in action:

Fremantle wharf workers accused of refusing to strike have been publicly branded scabs and "treacherous low-lifes" in intimidating flyers posted in the port city.

Flyers that name the five workers and accuse them of turning on their colleagues were posted anonymously in Fremantle late last week after vessel traffic operators and pilot boat crew took protected industrial action over a new enterprise agreement.


Truly nasty stuff. And cowardly to boot.

Still, it must be said that whoever made up the flyers does have an appreciation for literature

The poster quotes social activist Jack London's 1915 definition of a scab as a two-legged animal with a "corkscrew soul" and "a tumour of rotten principles" instead of a heart.

Lefties were forever accusing John Howard of wanting to "take us back to the fifties". But these guys are clearly stuck in a mindset several decades before that

Quoting a diatribe widely attributed to socialist writer Jack London is also a tad unwise considering the guy was a known racist.

Still, they're probably pretty safe on that score. The view of most MEAA-card carrying Aussie meeja workers is that London was the duck's nuts -- if they've even heard of him, that is.

But just imagine the squitterati's outrage if an eeevil employer were to quote another writer associated with the same odious attitudes.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Richard Glover, Peter FitzSimons interview to be a taxing exercize

One thing that defines lefties is utter shamelessness when seeking attention. And because they so often lack originality, and are just mouthing meaningless and sanctimonious platitudes much of the time, they are quite fond of using gimmicks in pursuit of this goal.

One good example is the silly 24 hour climate change themed comedy show by Brit Mark Watson. A local, upcoming one is the planned quackathon between smug ABC presenter Richard Glover and child-brained lummox Peter FitzSimons. The pair are going to try and break the Guinness World Record for longest one-on-one interview

These two tossers could bore a Sjogren's Syndrome sufferer to tears in a couple of minutes flat. Hell, if Le Boring Festival were dinkum, and not part of a Goodies episode, a mere soundbite of Glover and FitzSimons would be a shoo in for "Gold Bore". So I don't even want to think about what kind of human wreckage they'll leave behind after a whole 24 hours.

Obviously, no one will listen to this epic jawfest for any length of time willingly, unless they are already deeply disturbed. But there are people working in the ABC studio itself who will be forced to endure much of it. I pity them.

But I pity the long-suffering Aussie taxpayer even more. Surely he will be footing the bill for all the long hours of therapy (not to mention heavy duty anti-depressants) these poor souls will require in order to restore some semblance of sanity --- just as he had to cough up for the grotesque uber-wank in the first place.

UPDATE: FitzSimons is definitely a good sport. After finding this post he submitted a comment, which unfortunately didn't get through (which I think was because of default settings, since changed). When I replied to his query as to where it went he responded:

I posted a comment saying "Harsh but fair", even if it was ludicrously unfair.

Went through the whole process, and it was there on your site when I checked. But then it disappeared.

Best, 

Peter.

I think that bolded phrase perfectly captures the spirit of this blog. 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Occupy Melbourne tent fashionista gets dressing down

With apologies to Ted Nugent, here's an event that could be described as intensity in tent city. See, the cops have torn a tent dress from one of the Occupy Melbourne moonbats, and assorted quarterwits are all asquitter.

Milking the act for all its worth, the ranga drama queen said: "This is not consensual. Don’t take my clothes off.’’

That's some impressive victim-playing. She managed to weave in a false accusation of sexual harassment, as well as the standard "police brutality" line.

And that theme was adeptly picked up by fellow moonbat Tal Slome, who turned it into a wider critique of society:

Ms Slome described the incident as a "completely unnecessary form of brutality. Who decides what constitutes clothing in our society?"

I can see this incident being examined over and over in po-mo women's studies courses in coming years ... And maybe the gay rights crowd will take it up as well. After all, wearing a tent as a dress certainly qualifies as pretty camp.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Anna Bligh invokes Michael Kirby after civil union bill passed

Anna Bligh is clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box. But she knows how to demonize her opponents. After last night's vote to legalise civil unions for same sex couples, she said this:

ANNA BLIGH: So let me conclude again with the words of Michael Kirby when he said, "Fortunate is a human being, straight or gay, who has such a lifelong love. Evil are those who would deny such a love to a fellow human being."

In other words, if you disagree with the decision you'r eeevil. What a nasty tactic to use. And sooo typical of the bullying, hectoring PC thought police.

Simply disagreeing with this change in the law doesn't mean that you want to deny homosexual people their love. It just means that you don't want their relationships to have the same legal status as heterosexual ones. That is discriminatory, and in the final analysis, it might even be wrong. But it's certainly not evil.

Hell, Anders Behring Breivik is evil. A sense of proportion here, please.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Anders Behring Breivik is evil, not insane

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has been declared criminally insane. Not surprisingly, a lot of Norwegians are more than a tad pissed off with that finding, since it basically lets the scumbag off the hook.

Personally, I don't think the guy is nuts. A lunatic couldn't be so focused for so long on such a diabolical and destructive goal. I reckon he had all his marbles intact and in place. They were just very nasty marbles

It's kind of ironic that much of this tendency to absolve people of their responsibility for heinous acts -- instead blaming society, or genetics, or fast food, or whatever -- has come from the Left. Yet it was the Left that Breivik hated more than anything, and did most harm to.

The finding of insanity also puts a big hole in the argument that he was somehow goaded into his killing spree by conservative figures such as George Pell, John Howard, Keith Windschuttle and others. I mean, if he's howling at the moon mad, then anything could have set him off, surely.

Really, it makes a whole lot more sense to say the guy is sane and responsible for what he did. And he did it because he's one mean-as-shit sonofabitch. Evil, in short.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Is Walkley winner Julian Assange a true journalist?

There has long been disagreement over whether Julian Assange is a dinkum journo. The Walkley judges certainly think he qualifies, having just awarded him a bloody great gong. And Margaret Simmons of Crikey certainly reckons he is.

But I suspect this is mainly because Assange has stuck it to the Yanks big time. I doubt very much he would have qualified in their eyes were he not such an anti-American leftie.

Call me old fashioned, but I thought journalists actually had to write stuff themselves. The Wikileaks founder has done very little of that. But he's certainly published mountains of correspondence that others have written (and not for publication). So he's not really a journo; he's more of an online press baron, really. Yep, he's kind of a hip young leftie Rupert Murdoch who doesn't pay his, er, employees (just nicks their work outright, actually).

And it's interesting that all the leftie hacks are arcing up about Rupert's tolerance of phone hacking at one of his papers, making all these insinuations that it's going on throughout the rest of his empire as well. Being such noble defenders of the right to privacy, you'd think they might be a tad annoyed about Assange leaking all that secret information, particularly when doing so could easily have put innocent lives at risk.

But nup. All transgressions are forgiven as long as you hate what they hate. Hell, they'll even laud (and award) you for 'em!

Drunk Fremantle burglar calls cops out of guilt

The "dumb criminals" genre is popular across all media. There are plenty of amusing examples to satisfy its fans. And here's a local lawbreaker who fits into that category, but who also has an intriguingly strong moral conscience.

See, this young Fremantle bloke got drunk, then broke into a nearby house and stole a laptop. Stricken with guilt he then called the plods, told them what he had done and asked them to come and pick him up!

So not only did the plonk, or whatever he was skolling, bring out his true criminality, it also made him want to 'fess up; to tell the truth.

In vino veritas indeed.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Friends of Monash Bushland outraged over nothing

Sometimes greenies are so desperate to be offended it's just incredible. Take the Friends of Monash Bushland group. They've been arcing up about the clearing of trees for a temporary car park right next to Charles Gairdner Hospital. As The West Australian reports:

They say the bush provided and important ecological linkage between Kings Park and other bush belts in the area, as well as being home to the endangered black cockatoo.

The spokeswoman said the block was also had "important healing value" for patients of the hospital.

If you have a squizz at the area in question on Google Earth, you'll see it's a tiny block of bush that's already surrounded by massive hospital buildings. And the suburb of Nedlands is on the other side of Monash Avenue. The area is heavily built up for miles around. So this argument that it's a crucial part of some chain of vegetation going west is just silly.

That said, perhaps a hundred metres from the block in question is a huge expanse of bushland called Kings Park. Hell, it's not like there's a lack of trees in close proximity to the hospital. So if any black cockatoos have been living in the ones being cleared they don't have far to fly to find a whole lot more.

Similarly, the loss of any supposed "healing effect" that the tiny area promotes would be counteracted by the presence of all those trees in Kings Park, surely. Even according to their own nutty, er, reasoning the outraged reaction of these activists seems way over the top.

Anyway, if applied consistently it would mean the very houses they're living in are a scourge upon the natural environment. So they should demolish them and sod off, shouldn't they?

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Comment trolls should be laughed at, not unmasked

Nasty anonymous commenters can be annoying (although usually they're just sad). And I think they lack cohones for not using their own names. But this push by Labor MP Andrew Waddell to demand that they publicly identify themselves strikes me as petty and pointless. It's also pretty authoritarian.

By writing their puerile and vindictive comments all they do is reveal their own sad emotional state. Sure, the fact that there are so many people like this out there is a bit of a worry. It's a phenomenon that needs to be studied, if anything. So we shouldn't outlaw the evidence.

And if people get upset by troll comments they should just learn to shrug them off. These people have nothing worthwhile to add, so why be bothered by their hatred? That old schoolyard saying about "sticks and stones" is certainly worth remembering here.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

CHOGM chuckles in Perth's Forrest Place

Living in Perth as I do, I just had to head down to CHOGM to check out the activist action on Friday. I have to say I was intrigued by the poster that had been up at various locations for quite a while.


The doe-eyed babe shown sassily speaking truth to power was undeniably striking. Would I see such a graceful and feisty creature prancing among the Occupy Perth, anti-CHOGM throng?

Sadly, no. It seems that at the typical leftist watering hole there are no gazelles, only, er, wildebeest.

Who gnu?

I had a wander through the crowd:


It was disappointingly small, particularly when you consider how much promotion had been done for the demo -- as well as all the media attention it had received.


Tellingly, the busker who showed up completely unannounced managed to pull a much bigger crowd -- and a more racially diverse one at that. (As is usually the case at such purportedly anti-racist gatherings, smug middle class whitey-tighties formed the overwhelming majority.)

Events such as the CHOGM protest have a reputation for producing some classic silly signs. And this one did not disappoint. To be honest I felt a little guilty taking photographs of them only because I thought they were so bloody stupid (and intended to say so on this blog). But those holding them seemed quite chuffed that I was doing so. Really, it was like taking candy from a baby -- and a sleeping one at that.

Anyway, for your amusement, here's an assortment:


And monarchi is slavery ... which is clearly why the Queen seems never to have been so popular in Australia as she is now.


I must admit that I was keen to join these brave cyberspace warriors and become a hero too!


But how could I do that if I didn't know who they were?

One guy was big on quoting lauded wordsmiths of yore:


Spot on. To which I'd like to add: And none are more hopelessly misguided than those who falsely believe they are changing the world .. by holding up signs.

I can't be sure, but I think this same guy produced a couple of others with a literary bent.


Eh?


Considering that the joint was chockas with people who were no doubt pleased as punch about the silencing of Andrew Bolt, and that placard was only metres away from a flag proudly displaying the hammer and sickle, it did seem more than a tad ironic and sinister ...


... Orwellian, even.

Still, I shouldn't be too hard on the signs. Some of them were quite sad, and did induce feelings of pity. Like these poor waifs who had been abandoned by their creators. They were all apologetic and huddling together for comfort:


Awww ... that's okay. You little cardboard cuties, you.

The banners were highly entertaining as well -- particularly when seen in context. Take the one below:


I mean, where were the women?

Hmm. Perhaps the five white blokes were all attitudinally reconstructed male feminists, and they were taking a brave stand sit?

Though somehow I think that's unlikely. A much better explanation: This was an invasion by obnoxious misogynous phallocrats determined to crush the rebellion. If so, then this must be the only photograph of the actual patriarchy ever taken!

Take a good look at their faces, sisters. Those are the five guys who've been oppressing you all these eons.


The WA police force did have some officers determined to infiltrate the demo by posing as activists. Clearly, the operation failed.


Considering the rather inactive condition of the, er, activist shown above, it would be reasonable to conclude that the sign had been placed there by another protestor as some sort of cruel attempt at humour.

Nah! Impossible. Leftists are compassionate, remember. Only a nasty conservative could have done such a hateful thing. 


Well, one can only wonder what this was meant to mean ...

If to be gay is to be good (which it is) then this is an exhortation to homphobia. And if homophobia is bad (which it is) then this is an insult to all gays.

Either way, clearly a hate crime has been committed. Justice Mordy Bromberg and Ron Merkel QC, your next high profile show trial awaits!

PS: Bloggers can use these shots but please include a link back to this post.

Leftist outrage over Qantas fleet grounding seems misplaced

Just re this Qantas crisis: The unions are of course outraged about the fleet grounding and there is much talk that Alan Joyce is "holding the nation to ransom". They seem most annoyed by the fact that he's done the ol' switcheroo on them. But by grounding the fleet he's effectively "downing tools", which is something that unionists do with monotonous regularity. They think going on strike is fine for employees, but they can't stand it when employers do it.

As well as union outrage, many on the green left are seething with contempt for Joyce and what he has done. But isn't this a great thing for the planet? Think of all those greenhouse gases that are now not being spewed into the atmosphere. If the grounding keeps going for weeks or even months, it will do more to prevent global warming than the carbon tax could ever do. The effect of taking all those planes out of the air must be akin to taking 45 million cars off the road, at least. Bloke's a climate change hero, surely.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Elderly avenger fights off burglars, sums up legal system

Every week in Perth there seems to be another violent home invasion. Not content to permanently traumatize the owners of the homes they've broken into, the thugs who carry out these acts often beat them as well. Sometimes the victims are elderly. It's truly depressing, and you wonder how anyone could be so lacking in humanity as to do such a thing.

But it is heartening to know that the crims don't get to rob, bash, bully or terrify every oldster they encounter. Take the case of this burglary in Alexander Heights. It went horribly awry for the perpetrators when a senior citizen turned out to be more combative than most people half his age, and sent them scurrying by brandishing a baseball bat. Said the fit great-grandfather:

"They [the burglars] were in my garage and it's just a step up into the house, where I have a terrified wife in her 60s. I would use any means to protect my home. The judicial system is a joke."

I like his attitude. And his assessment is spot on.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Carbon tax will haunt Labor for years

The dreaded carbon tax has been passed by the Lower House. Gillard and company are arrogant enough to think that Aussies will eventually get used to it and Labor will rise again in the polls. But she just made a lot of people who were pissed off to begin with utterly ropeable. There's no way she'll ever get them back. Nor will any other Labor leader. We all know that Labor is toast, but it will be burnt to a crisp now for sure at the next election.

And if, as some pundits have said, there are lots of sneaky little conditions written into the legislation that make it really hard to dismantle, then this anger towards Labor will go on and on as long as any part of it lives.

Of course Many Labor MPs are now ruing the day that Gillard went back on her pledge not to introduce the carbon tax, even while pretending to support her. But I think they'll still be deeply regretting the breaking of her promise even years from now.

I don't know that Labor will actually die as a major force because of the carbon tax. But it could come scarily close.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Reaction to Carl O'Callaghan's comments nothing short of staggering

In the context of what's just happened to Andrew Bolt, it's not unreasonable to suspect that it won't be long before a prominent public official is charged under the Racial Discrimination Act. I'm no legal boffin, so maybe they're immune to this. Still, you've got to wonder about the possibility ...

I mean, have a look at the outraged reaction to recent, very reasonable comments by WA Police Commissioner Carl O'Callaghan. Because he characterized the level of offending by juvenile Aborigines (61% of the state's total for the age group) as "nothing short of staggering" the WA Aboriginal Legal Service chief Dennis Eggington was outraged:

 "All it will do is feed the fears of the general community about young indigenous men in the state.

"I'm flabbergasted the commissioner would come out and feed those fears and maybe even incite some racial hatred. It's unbelievable."


Considering what a small percentage of the state's population Aborigines constitute, that's an accurate way to describe the scale of the social problem. And how will you ever be able to fix it if you can't actually describe it?

I think it's disgraceful that Eggington is focusing on the perceived offensiveness of the comments, rather than trying to address the depressing reality they convey. Sadly, many Aboriginal activists immediately react in this way. This entrenched fear of straight talk is a disaster for their people, and the evidence abounds.

At least O'Callaghan is still free to make these comments. But considering the growing power of the thought police, you have to wonder how long it will be before such comments are legally silenced.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Julian Burnside's "paedos in speedos" Twitter smear

Hot on the heels of Geoff Clark's Orwellian claims that he hoped his legal censoring of Andrew Bolt would actually promote debate comes another little event that clearly illustrates the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of the PC left.

The foppish, latte slurping hand wringer Julian Burnside has beclowned himself quite splendidly with a nasty little tweet linking Tony Abbott to paedophilia.

To his credit he apologized for it immediately. But true to socialist form he combined this with some deft weaseling, denying that the tweet did actually refer to the Opposition Leader. 

Which begs the question: If it wasn't about Abbott, then why did he apologize to him?

Not surprisingly, Burnside is an assiduous of promoter of the "it's not about freedom of speech" line regarding Bolt, something that his fellow concerned aristotwat Derek Sapphire approves of immensely.

I find behaviour like this just so depressing. It really makes you wonder if these ridiculous people will man up and be honest about anything at all, ever? 

Sure, what Burnside did was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. And it did serve a useful purpose. The infantile nastiness of it is sooo typical of the circles he moves in, and constitutes yet more proof of what a petty and prejudiced level these people are on. 

But just imagine if a prominent conservative were to make a similar online "mistake" about paedophilia in Aboriginal communities, playing on the media image of a prominent Indigenous politician or activist ...

I rest my case, Your Honour.

Geoff Clark on his Bolt case motives

One thing that's always creeped me out about the advocates of political correctness is how easy they find it to say the complete opposite of what is clearly the truth. They say it unblushingly, with a straight face. It's sad, funny and scary all at once.

A perfect example of this is the line that the silencing of Andrew Bolt is "not about free speech". Of course it's about free speech! His enemies were appalled and angered by what he was saying (and how he was saying it) and so they all got together in a concerted effort to muzzle him. And they succeeded.

One of the complainants, Geoff Clark, had the spectacular gall to say not only that his action was not an attempt to curtail free speech in Australia, but this as well

"It creates debate, there's nothing wrong with that debate, provided it's not harmful or offensive."

Got that? Intimidating someone into silence (and making an example of him, which Clark admits was part of his motivation in this revealing interview with Neil Mitchell) creates debate. So, less is more, night is day, and two plus two equals five

That aside, when Clark is demanding that there be more civility in this debate that he so clearly and sincerely wants to encourage, a reasonable person might find it a little odd that he would characterize his victory in this way:

"The sword of justice has struck, and cut off the head of the serpent. Let's hope it doesn't grow two heads."

Firstly, I think that calling someone a serpent (or more specifically, a serpent's head) might be perceived as "offensive" by most people. 

And forgive me for my lack of cultural sensitivity, but it just doesn't seem to make any sense. Geoff, how can the serpent you so sincerely wish not to silence keep debating you when it has no head?

Really, mate. Just be honest about what you're trying to do. You might actually earn a little genuine respect then, instead of just achieving compliance through fear and intimidation.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Alexander Lebedev does a Ron Casey

Everyone in Australia knows of the infamous punch-up between Ron Casey and Normie Rowe that was broadcast live on the Midday Show back in 1991. I was actually one of the few people who saw it live and the event was seared into my brain.

I was living in a grungy share house type situation in Northcote in Melbourne and had just turned on the TV. I didn't choose that show. It just happened right there in front of me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Recently, a similarly dramatic live TV stoush has occurred in which an older grey haired bloke landed a punch against a younger, more hirsute opponent. The man taking the Ron Casey role was Alexander Lebedev, Russian billionaire.



Note the similarities with the original, Australian event two decades ago. Spooky, eh?

Perhaps there is a grand design to human events after all. Hell (and heaven!), maybe there is even a God. And if so, what is he trying to tell us?

Er, be kind to senior citizens? God doesn't like beards? (No, that can't be right.)

Stuffed if I know. 

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Norm Sanders on The Bolt Report

Having had a lot of contact with lefties and greenies over the years I've got a pretty good idea about what makes them tick. They are driven primarily by emotions, and quite immature ones at that. Basically, they think that ultimately everything is all about them; that only they truly care; and that they can create a utopia by sheer act of will (which invariably involves shrieking a lot and bossing people around).

Of course this quality can make them extremely annoying. But it can also make them quite interesting, amusing, and even likeable. Hell, sometimes they can even be undeniably charismatic! It's that fire in the belly that people respond to, see. (This is one of the reasons you see a lot of lefties and greenies in the performing arts.)

Needless to say, when people are driven less by reason than emotion, they tend not to be very consistent. They can even be downright contradictory.

I saw a perfect example of this on today's episode of The Bolt Report. Veteran environmentalist Norm Sanders was chewing the fat with Bolta and John Hewson.

Now the first thing that you notice is how affable he is. He's technically a senior citizen but seems much younger than his years. He's very energetic and enthusiastic, and also good natured. If you ever met him in a social setting he'd be very hard to dislike. (That may not be the case if you tried to debate him at a demo, but!)

So he's very easy to warm to, but his arguments are just all over the shop. Have a look at the discussion, and take particular note at around the four and a half minute mark. Norm Sanders really hammers home a point about the Earth being in a state of catastrophic decline, repeatedly saying it's a "fact" that the joint is going to hell in a handbasket environmentally.

But a little later he says that there are no facts, just emotions. And he just carries on regardless! 

It's hilarious. And keep an eye out for Bolta's expression. It's a classic. He's clearly thinking something akin to "what the hell is this guy on?".

Well, he's not really on anything. He's just addicted to the endorphins created by his deep and virtuous desire to do his bit to "save the planet". He's hooked on a feeling (and he's high on believing) that nature appreciates his efforts. But the sad fact is that nature doesn't give a rat's about them -- nor does it care about itself, for that matter.

That's just something greenies will never accept. Hell, if they did it would mean that all their fine feelings are ultimately worthless in the grand scheme of things. They simply couldn't bear the thought of that. Consequently they just don't go there. 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Why Rudd won't win if reinstalled, despite strong polling

The recent poll results that foreshadow a Rudd victory if Labor reinstalls their knifed leader are getting a lot of media coverage. They must also figure prominently in the party's secret deliberations about whether to replace Gillard with the bloke she toppled.

But if Labor do actually go back to the, er, suture, could they stitch up a win? Frankly I don't think so.

I believe that what the polls reflect is not so much clear support for Rudd, but more the electorate's desire to be once again in control of their government. It's as if the people are saying: "We voted Rudd in back in 2007. And we were robbed of the chance to vote him in again, or throw him out, in 2010. We want Rudd back so that we, the people, can decide who leads the nation, not a bunch of ruthless, faceless power brokers."

Of course I have no real evidence to back up this claim. It's just a hunch, but I'm pretty sure it's on the right track.

I suspect that there's a strong chance Labor heavies will take the most optimistic interpretation that can be gleaned from these polls and reinstall Rudd soon, even though they utterly detest him. And while the Coalition's lead will take a big hit, they'll still ultimately win the next election comfortably. 

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Julia Gillard, feminism and scandals caused by dodgy blokes

Just a thought on this old scandal from Julia Gillard's days as a lawyer: As Bolta is at pains to point out, she didn't actually know she was being implicated in a scam by her then lover Bruce Wilson. But the fact that she was says a lot about how poor her judgement was.

And now, with Craig Thomson, she keeps stressing how much confidence she has in him. That message is clearly partly aimed at Thomson himself, so that he doesn't quit or decide to turn on Labor. But perhaps it's also got something to do with her really trusting the guy. Maybe she actually believes he did nothing wrong or is basically a good guy deep down who deserves her support.

Who knows? In any case she does seem oddly supportive of blokes whose morality clearly leaves a lot to be desired. And this is greatly at odds with her image as an empowered, independent, lefty feminist. These women love to see themselves as aware of and immune to the duplicity of dodgy blokes -- be that in relationships or professional life. Yet they seem to fall for these scumbags and their ruses repeatedly. It's actually really sad.

I've seen it happen to a lot of lefty feminists I've known over the years. Many of them get burned by tricksters who win their affections by striking the requisite politically correct poses. They kowtow to feminism and have all the right (or should I say, left) attitudes to gender relations in particular and politics in general. Yet more often than not they're just dirty dogs deep down.

I've actually come to the conclusion that the syndrome constitutes a kind of iron law. The more a woman spouts lefty feminist dogma about her virtue and good sense over pervasive male rottenness, the more likely it is she'll fall foul of exactly the kind of bloke she so condemns.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Richo nails it on Thomson, Gillard and Labor

Here's a good column by the legendary former Labor numbers man Graham Richardson. He's the guy famous for the line "whatever it takes". So if he's condemning the party's machinations, well, you know they've gone to a very smelly place indeed.

Speaking of which, Richo uses some powerful olfactory (and visual) imagery in his descriptions of Labor's predicament:

Then of course there is the Craig Thomson effect. This bloke is damaging the Labor brand every day he hangs around the parliament like a bad smell in a lift ...

Luck is important in politics. When John Howard faced defeat, the Tampa sailed to the rescue. I always believed that Hawke would put his hand down a sewer and pull out a $20 bill. I'm afraid Gillard would pull out something else entirely.


Hell, she wouldn't even have to leave her office to test the hypothesis. Labor has turned Parliament House itself into a sewer; a sewer now chockas with the stinking objects Richo alludes to.

The issue is beyond doubt. Labor is utterly unpolishable.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Ian Rintoul on The Bolt Report

Just watched The Bolt Report. There was a short interview with Ian Rintoul, a full on leftie who wants a very soft approach to the whole asylum seeker issue. Bolta only asked him a few questions but his responses were revealing.

When Bolt ran the line that the people smugglers were clearly testing the Government's resolve regarding their Malaysian solution by including little kids in their human cargo, Rintoul sidestepped the issue. He was clearly reluctant to judge the people smugglers. In the leftie "mind" there's no such thing as criminality. It's all just social and economic forces, you see.

When asked how he felt about the fact that so many people had died at sea as a result of border control policies that were soft, but not as soft as he would like, he weaseled out again, and did some pretty expansive contextualizing. In a probably unconscious acknowledgement that the Government's approach had cost lives he said that he didn't think "the welfare of asylum seekers was on the Government's mind". Nor on Rintoul's it seems.

Basically, what Rintoul's advocating will result in even more deaths at sea. Yet that doesn't seem to bother him. Ironic considering he and his ilk keep quacking on about how "compassionate" they are.

Have a squizz at the interview and see if you can come to a different conclusion.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Sir Crispin Tickell on China, climate change and democracy

I often listen to the BBC World Service in the wee hours. One of the regular shows is called One Planet. It's hugely biased, but still quite interesting. One recent interview really caught my ear.

The presenter Mike Williams was taking to British diplomat and environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell about China and its approach to climate change. Tickell's observations were revealing because he invoked several of the most beloved cliches and misrepresentations of the deep green Left. (You can listen to it here. Tickell starts about a minute and a half in.)

Of Australia he said that we are the biggest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide. The nation is "doing a great deal of harm, thereby".

This is just completely irrational. So what if each person here has a comparatively large carbon footprint? We are a small nation and the cumulative impact is negligible.

Tickell then said of our addiction to fossil fuels that "Australians are increasingly aware that they are dependant on what doesn't work".

Clearly, the opposite is true. We are increasingly aware that these methods (coal in particular) are "oldies but goodies". One of the reasons we're so resistant to the carbon tax is that the much hyped renewables are neither reliable nor affordable enough to replace what's been working very well for a very long time. And we've still got mountains of the stuff, so why not keep using it?

Like so many warmists, he also repeated this massive lie about China being an environmental exemplar -- "pioneers of clean, green growth" as he puts it. Williams didn't pick him up on this point, but accepted it, adding that having such a policy is easy if you're an authoritarian regime.

They then got onto the subject of democracy in general, with Tickell saying the Chinese really "aren't that bad" in this regard. Rather than accept that China is itself very undemocratic, which is clearly the case, he shifted the goal posts on what democracy actually means. 

And there's a classic interchange in which a clearly shocked Williams says: "You're surely not suggesting China is a democracy." To which Tickell replies: "I don't know what you mean by democracy." It's truly jaw dropping stuff. When you can stun even a BBC journalist into incredulity with such a take on tyranny, well you really must be "out where the buses don't go".

Tickell's whole attitude in this interview is a distillation of the classic warmist position. It's inaccurate, irrational, and well on the way to being totalitarian.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Labor's poisonous culture reminiscent of the movie The Firm

As Labor presses on with its disastrous plans to inflict a spectacularly pointless carbon tax upon the good people of Australia, secretly skeptical party heavies are going insane with frustration in their climate closets. There are quite a few in the party who must desperately want to do something (knife Ju-liar, get her to dump the tax, or preferably both) to make the problem go away. But there's a truly flightening level of bloody-minded groupthink in Labor that is keeping them pinned down and silent, at least for the time being.

Niki Savva writes about one wretched soul whose life has been made utterly miserable by the carbon tax policy:

As despair sinks into depression, one cabinet minister recently revealed his desolation in a conversation with an acquaintance when he confessed political life had become near intolerable.

He acknowledged the carbon tax is destroying the government, yet they could not walk away from it. He could not see - or he was not prepared to admit it that openly yet - a way out and this only fed his frustration.

This prominent member of a government, which recites like a Gregorian chant the mantra that climate change is real, then admitted his grave doubts about the science. He didn't use the word crock, but that was pretty much what this secret deniers' camp follower was saying.


In an interview with Bolta she expanded on why the poor bastard couldn't break ranks and do the right thing. Doing so would ultimately bring down the Government, and he would become Labor's "king rat for all time". Knowing how much the party hates its "rats" (remember their loathing of Mal Colston, whom Robert Ray memorably derided as the "quisling Quasimodo from Queensland") you can understand why he's currently choosing silence.

While Labor isn't quite in the Mafia's league when it comes to reprisals for betrayal, it certainly does have some rather effective compliance methods in operation. I can't help thinking that this poor pollie's predicament is more than a little like that of the protagonist in the movie The Firm, based on John Grisham's book:

Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) is a young man with a promising future in law. About to graduate from Harvard Law School, he is approached by Bendini, Lambert & Locke, 'The Firm', and made an offer he cannot refuse. He and his wife, Abigail "Abby" (Jeanne Tripplehorn), move to Memphis, where The Firm is located. Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) becomes his mentor at The Firm.

Seduced by the money and gifts showered on him, including a house and car, he is at first totally oblivious to the more sinister side of his company. Then, two associates are murdered. The FBI contact him, asking him for information and informing him that not only is The Firm mob connected but every associate that has ever tried to leave The Firm ends up murdered. His life as he knows it is forever changed. He has a choice: work with the FBI and risk being discovered by The Firm, or stay with The Firm knowing that at sometime he will get involved with laundering mob money and in the end go to jail when the FBI cracks The Firm. Either way he will lose his life as he knows it.


Of course the murderous criminality is not present in Canberra, but this miserable minister is clearly in a similar bind. He must either turn against his own party in the interests of the nation or obediently toe its line -- a line based on a mountain of lies. Either way he will lose his life as he knows it.

Spooky, isn't it. I can see a great political thriller being made about this bloke a few years hence. Can Tom Cruise do an Aussie accent?

Brendan O'Neill spikes Q and A mediocrities; enrages Twitter lefties

Saw Brendan O'Neill of Spiked on Q and A last night. He just slaughtered the leftie panellists! The look on Tanya Plibersek's face whenever he was speaking, particularly early on, was just priceless.

Plibersek makes my skin crawl walk. She really is the most vacuous, sanctimonious hypocrite in Labor. Considering how chockas that joint is with 'em, that's saying something. At her most smug she makes even Gillard herself look principled and substantial.

Of course Plibersek, Christine Nixon and even Stephen Mayne (who bizarrely endorsed the Government's creepily totalitarian line on the meeja) wheeled out the usual febrile anti-Murdoch cant. And O'Neill just sliced it to ribbons. They were clearly upset, and started supporting each other for comfort.

You often see this with lefties. Being the primitive, cowardly collectivists they are, they feel deeply threatened by just one person with his own mind. They then resort to nasty smears and insinuations that are always emotive.

A case in point was when Plibersek complained that O'Neill was verballing her, an act of verballing in itself. The transcript is not yet up and I don't have time to watch it all again, but there's a bit near the end where she says something along the lines of "you're saying it's okay to hack into phones", when he'd actually just made an explicit point of deploring the practice.

Not surprisingly lefties were all asquitter on Twitter. Too thick, slow and malicious to actually refute what he said with anything like a counter-argument, they just got nasty as they always do, often about his appearance. This little gem was retweeted by Leslie Cannold, one of our leading "intellectuals".

Of course there were several Nazi-themed smears. Mike Stuchbery lamely compared him to Oswald Mosely. Nothing O'Neill said was remotely fascist. On the contrary, he consistently endorsed more democracy, openness and freedom. The fact that his reasonable arguments made leftie tweeps squeal like stuck pigs and fire off such delusional analogies reveals the scary extent of their own sinister groupthink.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Murdoch shaving cream attack conspiracy theory takes off!

In the wee hours, after watching the Murdoch testimony on the teev, I was listening to BBC World Service on the wireless. During the postmortem, they interviewed some independent blogger with a keen interest in the subject. I didn't catch his name unfortunately but he was clearly a Murdoch-hater from way back. Among other things he suggested that "he wouldn't be surprised" if the shaving cream attack on Rupert was staged to gain sympathy for the elderly mogul. To this the interviewer almost indignantly retorted: "Oh, surely not!"

Good to know that while the organization is obviously reveling in the troubles the Dark Lord Murdoch is experiencing, they still retain some common sense.

Meanwhile, across the internet this "I wouldn't be surprised if the foam attack was staged to gain sympathy" line is gaining popularity. Frankly, I'm not surprised.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Monckton may not be a lord but Gillard is certainly no prime minister

Interesting that so much of the meeja coverage of Christopher Monckton's debate today with Richard Denniss focuses on the question of whether he is a dinkum member of the House of Lords. Even the climate change denying, phone hacking, News Ltd hate media is taking this angle.

But this is yet more playing the man, not the ball. For anyone who saw the debate, the story should be how thoroughly he trounced Denniss and made fools of the climate change "bed wetters" in the National Press Club audience. 

If journos must focus on the official titles of prominent players in this carbon tax stoush, why not ask whether Julia Gillard deserves to be called "Prime Minister"? She was twice selected, never elected, after all. If Monckton is twisting the truth a tad, then the sin is nothing compared to the ginormous porkie that got Joolya into the Lodge.

Even if you think she does deserve the title it's looking increasingly like she won't be hanging onto it for very much longer. And if she does get the chop (along with her stupid carbon tax) in coming weeks there's no doubt that many in Labor will be just as relieved as most of the country. The woman is a complete embarrassment on so many levels and they should just get rid of her now!

Hell, they didn't waste any time offing Kevin Rudd, and that was when he was still ahead in the polls. They did it mainly because they hated his guts. Now most of the nation feels that level of hatred towards Gillard, yet they continue to support her! Eh?

What a strange, sad state that party is in ...

NOTW phone hacking scandal not unlike Princess Diana's death

Bloody hell! The News of the World seems to be the only news in the world at the moment. The phone hacking scandal is devouring all before it like some kind of meeja black hole. So far it's claimed the jobs of Rebekah Brooks and two top cops, and (seemingly) the life of some poor journo. Many are saying it could result in the toppling of Murdoch himself and possibly even the destruction of his empire. Then there's the pressure on Cameron and his government. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually makes the Houses of Parliament just crumble into the Thames ...

All seems to be getting way out of hand to me. Sure, my views are biased. I read The Australian, which is part of Murdoch's hate media, and of course anything associated with him is inherently eeevil. But while what NOTW did was truly disgraceful, it's comparatively minor in the grand scheme of things. There are far worse scandals that sections of the meeja have been complicit in -- for example the concerted attempts to demonize global warming skeptics. That's not nearly as ghoulish, but it's hugely more significant, surely.

And all this disgust from the public seems kind of hypocritical. They happily lapped up all the news that these dodgy practices uncovered for years, after all.

I can't help thinking it's all a bit like what happened to Princess Diana. The paparazzi hounded her to her death, and half the world went into collective shock and mourning. But those photographers were just "feeding the monster" too. Diana may well be alive today had the very people who were most in love with her not had such a voracious appetite for photos of her.

Not unlike the aftermath of that tragedy, the phone hacking scandal will result in a squillion pledges to clean up the tabloids. But they'll all be back to their old ways a decade or so hence. Just you wait and see.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Dennis Glover on The Bolt Report

Just watched The Bolt Report. One of Bolta's guests was the Labor speechwriter Dennis Glover. He's obviously an intelligent and articulate bloke but he kept making the classic Labor mistake: When confronted by working people's genuine frustration with the Government, Laborites never take it for what it is, but claim that it's only because the shock jokes have been winding 'em up. This is a condescending attitude that is deeply held in the party, and one of the main reasons they are in such deep, deep doo-doo. The more they express this contemptuous view of working class people, the worse their situation gets.

Really, they have to stop treating the electorate as utter nongs who can be "ginned up" by the Alan Joneses of the world and accept that Aussies can think for themselves and are bloody angry about they way they've been treated. Once Labor shows these people some respect and accepts responsibility for their own dire situation they may actually start to recover in the polls.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Murdoch-hater Stephen Mayne on ABC News Radio

I just heard Stephen Mayne being interviewed on ABC news Radio about the crisis engulfing News Corp (no link available). He was introduced as a shareholder activist and founder of Crikey. Not surprisingly, he got stuck into the embattled media baron big time!

I thought it was pretty ironic to ask his opinion, considering that Mayne's Crikey was never known as an examplar of media ethics. And that reputation continues. You would think that the interviewer might raise this issue at some stage -- you know, in the interests of the "balance" the ABC claims to uphold -- but of course he didn't.

Sure, the phone hacking scandal is a biggie, but some of the things Mayne said were laughably extreme. He said Murdoch resembled an ageing dictator like Mubarak and compared him to "Comical Ali", the Iraqi Information Minister.

He also got stuck into The Australian's push for "regime change", as if it was some kind of scary thing for democracy. But as everyone living in Oz knows only too well, the paper is merely articulating what most Australians feel. This government is probably the most dishonest and inept one we've ever had, led by the most embarrassingly vacuous numpty ever to disgrace The Lodge.

Mayne clearly hates Rupert's guts. And the interview with him was typical of the kind of meeja bias that is far more of a threat to democracy than Murdoch represents.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Kristina Keneally on what ails Labor

Kristina Keneally reveals one of the attitudes that is afflicting today's Labor in her opinion of how best to fix the party. She says that it needs a "rebranding".

Ms Keneally said the Labor Party needed to develop a new brand, claiming most people did not know what it stood for.

She thinks it's all a marketing problem! No, most people know what Labor "stands" for: monumental incompetence, dysfunction, petty internal hatreds and utter disdain for the electorate, among other things.

The problem is that Labor politicians themselves don't believe in anything much. Mostly they just see the party as a way to further their own personal ambitions -- you know, have a great income with a load of perks, get to boss people around, hobnob with celebs ... that sort of thing.

She's kind of right when she says this:

"We speak very well to the unionised workforce and we speak very well to the educated progressive class, but we don't have a brand or a method of speaking to middle Australia."

Yeah, that's because they wrote off middle Australia a long time ago. And middle Australia has finally run out of patience with them.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Nuclear power and atomic bombs are not the same thing!

Anti-nuclear activists have been amazingly successful in their attempts to conflate nuclear power with nuclear explosions. But of course the two are not mutually inclusive. You just have to take a deep breath and think about it for a moment. Sure, a nuclear meltdown is a terrifying prospect but it's nothing compared to a bloody mushroom cloud!

But thinking calmly is the last thing the activists want people to do. Journalists cooperate with them in achieving this aim because many of them are greenies themselves. Also, constantly beating up the threat of a catastrophic outpouring of radioactive material sells a helluva lot more papers.

That's why there's been such a weird fixation on the potential nuclear threat over the actual quake disaster in Japan. It's also why you see articles like this one, the title of which is very revealing: "Why Japan embraced nuclear power after suffering the atomic bomb".

Short answer: Because they're not the same thing. And doing so made economic sense.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Fear of nuclear catastrophe in Japan is like fear of climate change

If you're a half-way rational person, I'll bet you're struck by the strange priorities of most media outlets in their reporting of the quake and tsunami disaster in Japan. The fixation on the nuclear angle is weird as.

Sure, it's scary, with all these explosions occurring as a result of the quake. But as many have pointed out, it's nowhere near as serious as what has already occurred in that nation. Many thousands of people have died horribly in a natural disaster, yet there's a greater media focus on what might happen as a consequence of the nuclear reactors exploding.

This is sooo like climate change. People are more worried about imaginary problems in the future than they are about very real ones now.

I think this just says something about human nature generally. That is, that fear is often deeply irrational. (Well, it's likely it would be -- it's an emotion, after all! Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that it often results from irrational perceptions.)

The other element in this weird mix is the crazy idea that nature is always good, and mankind is inevitably bad. This is very clearly demonstrated in this nuke fear, as well as climate change hysteria. In the latter condition carbon dioxide is all fine and dandy if it comes from natural processes, and baaad if it's produced by humans. Hell, it's even given a different, more eeevil-sounding name if that happens: carbon.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Living on a busy, noisy road can lift your risk of stroke

I have just learned that living on a busy, noisy road can increase your risk of stroke, particularly if you are an older person. The theory is that the constant noise stresses you and keeps your blood pressure up.

I can definitely relate to this effect. For the last six months I was living in Sydney I was on quite a busy road in Leichhardt. The cars just constantly going past really put me on edge.

The place was also half-way down a hill, part of a little basin. I think a lot of carbon monoxide just kind of settled there. Some days, I actually felt woozy as a result.

It was weird, because I'd lived for years in Newtown, which was just down the road, and had none of these problems. But that was on a quiet street, and the land was elevated somewhat.

The main stressor there was planes flying over head regularly (which I had in Leichhardt also). But I'd become pretty used to that.

One thing's for sure, you certainly get heaps more sensitive to these environmental factors with age.