Thursday, June 26, 2014

Elizabeth Farrelly reacts to Tim Blair's frightbat poll

One thing about lefties, greenies, victim feminists and sundry hand-wringing twits that I find particularly exasperating is how they always -- always -- use the same tactics when confronted with criticism. One of their all time faves is to attribute any and all of it to the critic's own feelings of inadequacy. They just never take his words on face value and offer a solid counterargument in their own defence.

Case in point: Elizabeth Farrelly in her snootily sneering response to news of her inclusion in Tim Blair's recent "frightbat" poll. It's classic (feminist) fluffy wuffy: "You're just mocking me 'cause you're actually secretly attracted to me and you feel threatened by the fact that I'm such a brilliant, courageous and insightful woman. You pathetic, inadequate white male, you!"

Sheesh. Liz couldn't be more way off if she tried. The mockery comes not because of the majestic intellect that lesser mortals -- males in particular -- find threatening. It's because she's so ridiculously self-deluded they almost can't believe it. And her ginormous sense of entitlement just makes 'em wanna puke.

She routinely comes up with such daffy, dippy, pompous columns that any rational person reading them is left shaking her head, mumbling, "WTF? Is this chick friggin' serious?" And her obvious narcissism is not remotely attractive. It's not even repellant. It's just so silly that it's surreal and ultimately, well, kinda sad.

If there is fear in the motivation of those who mock Queen Elizabeth and her ilk it's fear of the culture they represent. Alarmingly, it has enough power and influence to irreparably bugger-up many aspects of our society and economy -- which I think is ultimately their main aim anyway ... That's why conservatives mock them.

So if there are any sanctimonious fluffy wuffies reading this, some advice: This one size fits all tactic of saying "it's all to do with your stuff" is lazy and arrogant. It just makes you look like even bigger asshats than you do already. Please try to lift your game in future, children.

Your repeated recourse to this hackneyed deflection method means that you'll never look at your "stuff" or even begin to critically examine your own attitudes. If you did this you might eventually see things in a slightly less insane way -- or at the very least perhaps start to understand why people find you so worthy of mockery and derision.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Feisty feminist frightbats fight back against Tim Blair!

I'm sure you've learned about this latest twitstorm raging among the socialist squitterati. See, blogger Tim Blair posted a jokey poll asking for readers to nominate the nation's leading frightbat. The term has gained real momentum -- particularly on social media -- provoking a fascinating frenzy of reactions including white hot rage, high decibel cackling, fake nonchalance and intense, verbose analysis from post-modernist quackademics.

Personally, I think the term is remarkably apt. After all, the shrieking socialist sisters do closely resemble the eponymous winged mammals in that they habitually see the world upside down and clearly prefer darkness to light. (I could also say something about rabies but being the gentleman I am I just won't go there ...)

Some of the women listed in the poll seemed to concur with this assessment, even urging their pathetically obediant (and disturbingly numerous) acolytes to vote for them. One can only wonder at their motivation ... Perhaps they thought they were landing a blow against the patriarchy. By proudly self-defining as nocturnal flying creatures they felt they were finally "reclaiming the night"?

But not surprisingly most of the feminist trollective confirmed the humourless scold stereotype and were not amused. Take this terse reaction from Wendy Bacon (strangely absent from the distinguished list of nominees, BTW):

Antifeminist propaganda? Calm down Wendy. It was just a joke.

Well, as they keep saying, feminism is a broad church. So there was much impassioned debate -- at least as to the extent to which this one word coined by a humorous blogger constituted heartless oppression of all chickdom. Clearly, frightbat has divided the feminist trollective. It's this decade's The First Stone, no doubt about it!

Not only did feminists en masse fail to present a cogent position, but those who at first seemed to go along with the joke were ultimately confused in their reaction. See, after initially yucking it up, they did what they always do: turned the issue into a stupid bolshie t-shirt campaign:


This is leftie feminist incoherence at its finest, people.  These self-described frightbats are fighting back ... at, er, being called frightbats.

And they wonder why people mock them.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Public health, drug companies, and how doctors often keep us sick

In light of all the furore about this seven buck co-payment proposed by the Government I've been thinking about the role of doctors in our society, and related issues. A few observations come to mind:

Firstly, I find it kind of odd that we talk about medical services as health care. I would say much of what falls under this rubric would be more accurately described as symptom maintenance.

Take general practitioners, for example. They are great if you've got some mechanical problem such as a busted toe or an open festering wound -- or if it's clear there's something deeply awry inside your body 'cause you're pissing blood or there's pus coming out of your ears.

Needless to say they're also great for general check-ups and screenings, etc, so you can be sure there isn't a giant tumour brewing in your arse or something ...

But quite frankly most of the time quacks are just doling out scrips to people! And those scrips are not meant to improve anyone's health (as in seriously address the cause of an issue, delivering a cure if possible). They're just meant to address symptoms.

I've had various ongoing, niggling issues that I've seen docs about over the years. And pretty much every visit I've had to a GP has been the same: The joint is always chockas. You get a coupla minutes with him max. He usually looks like shit warmed up himself, often stressed out and overweight. (That ol' quote "physician, heal thyself" comes to mind here.)

Seems to me that your average GP looks at you as if you're a non-sentient being; a lump of living flesh, basically. He just wants you to describe one or two key symptoms and check your vital signs so he knows you're not hurtling towards a meeting with the Grim Reaper.

If that's the case, of course he'll refer you to a specialist. But usually within a minute or two he'll whip out the prescription booklet -- if it's not open already -- and scrawl the name of some slick-sounding new drug his favourite pharmaceutical rep has just told him about. Then he'll hand it to you and wave you away so he can do the same thing for the next person.

Most of the time he won't even tell you anything about the powerful chemicals he's prescribing (aside from dosage instructions, etc). He just wants you to obey his orders and bugger off pronto. I guess he just figures that if you're still bothered by whatever symptoms you're experiencing you'll come back in a week or two so he can try something else ... and so on until you're satisfied.

This sausage factory approach is due to several factors, I believe. One of them is the immense power of the drug companies. Needless to say they are businesses first and foremost and their business model is usually all about treating symptoms, not curing people.

And it should be remembered that there are heaps of conditions, many of which manifest psychologically in major part, that can be hugely improved if not completely cured with the right approach. Countless people in this country are on several powerful symptom-masking drugs every day. But if they stopped eating crap, got off the cigs and booze, and did some bloody exercize, they could often throw most if not all of them away.

Now I know this anti-capitalist analysis makes me sound like a raging leftie. That's why I would I hasten to add that this business model has a lot in common with the worst aspects of nanny state socialism. As we all know there's a whole "industry" that depends on social dysfunction.

Basically, hordes of hand-wringing social worker types spend their every waking hour whining about the appalling, pervasive misery of various groups of people, then advocate exactly the policies that will exacerbate or perpetuate this dysfunction. It's a real misery go round, no doubt about it. And it creeps me out big time that so many pinko parasites want it to continue for their own selfish reasons.

Same with drug companies, and the countless quacks who are in their thrall.

What do you think? Is our medical system really about health care in the truest sense of the word?

If you enjoyed this piece then please consider supporting me via Ko-fi

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Dean, King, Krauss and Bernardi on Q and A

Last night's Q and A was one of the better ones. That was partly because it had a higher proportion of conservatives than usual -- though it must be said that Lucy Turnbull did let the side down a bit (not unlike her husband). There was some unbecoming snark, but mostly just spirited jousting which was fun to watch.

The dominant figure was Rowan Dean, who put his arguments succinctly and forcefully. He also came out with the zinger of the night:

ROWAN DEAN: Well, I think it's fascinating and I think - well, I'm sure we will hear a little bit about Malcolm in a moment. But from my point of view, Malcolm Turnbull is a very charismatic, very intelligent, very smart, very talented, a great mind at business. He should be the leader of the party, the Labor Party.

Gold.

At one point he also firmly admonished Labor's Catherine King, who interrupted the conservative panellists repeatedly and babbled away incessantly in agreement when her fellow travellers were speaking. She was kinda like a bolshie version of Magda Szubanski's character Pixie-Anne Wheatley. She was really getting on my nerves after a while so I can only imagine what it must have been like to be sitting near her.

King is another vivid illustration of the dire situation Labor finds itself in. The culture is clearly toxic and only the most sanctimonious, unprincipled and shameless progress in it. Nowhere near a meritocracy any more ...

Not surprisingly King clung to that line about Labor guiding us through the GFC. She also shamelessly touted her party as great economic managers, which was just hilarious. And when Cory Bernardi made a perfectly reasonable point about her inhabiting a virtual world she responded with the accusation that he was attacking her personally.

Just plain daft. But even if true, wouldn't it have been acceptable? She's a leftie feminist, after all, and aren't they always saying the personal is political?

But of course what that really means is we can get personal, you can't. So typical of Labor, leftie feminists in particular. They are always trying to falsely portray their opponents as bullies, misogynists, racists and generally mean types who don't fight fair, etc. At the same time they're making the most viciously personal attacks on them in other ways. Witness the scurrilous sliming of Abbott, his wife and daughters that's been going on lately.

There was an interesting dynamic going on between the religious Cory Bernardi and boffin Lawrence Krauss. While disagreeing strongly I think they quite liked each other. Late in the show, in the corner of the screen, you'll catch an intriguing moment where they share a quiet joke together. Good to see.

The way each conducted himself was interesting given their respective backgrounds. Allegedly Bible thumping Bernardi was probably the calmest presence of the night. He even patiently gave the audience and some in the discussion a mini-tutorial in the Westminster system, explaining that he, as a backbencher, was technically not part of the Government. Revealingly, this detail seemed to be news to Catherine King. (But hey, she's in Labor. You don't have to know anything to rise in that joint. You just have to strike the pose, and regurgitate the spin doctors' talking points, right?)

Just as Catholics are supposed to be all fire n' brimstoney, scientists are supposed to be cool, rational, and detached right? Lawrence Krauss certainly wasn't any of those things. Actually he was the most emotional panellist of the whole night. He was het up from the start and highly critical of anything religious, such as the Government's policy on school chaplains:

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: But aren’t they told - I was reading about this and it seemed that they're not supposed to - they’re not supposed to proselytise. So as someone was saying, it’s like paying a quarter of a billion dollars to invite clowns into the schools and tell them not to be funny.

Well, if clowns are expected to be funny, then surely scientists should not be partisan, right? As well as being emotional he was also highly political, proselytising like crazy about the threat of human-caused climate change. (Also, I think the clown analogy was unfortunate, since he appeared to be dressed as one.)

But just on his obsession with climate change: In a revealing series of statements he showed just how arse-about the "scientific" community is on this subject:

CORY BERNARDI: Well, I do think, in the end, the debate was entirely hijacked by those who were seeking to foster rent seeking, that were seeking to centralise decision-making in unelected bodies.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: I mean this is - look, these people who work and spend their whole lives trying to figure out how the climate works and do models, they're just trying to figure out how things work and to say that the scientific community has somehow hijacked or somehow hiding things is this misunderstanding. Because, in fact, if they're wrong, the way you become famous, as a scientist, is to prove your colleagues wrong. That’s what you want to do. And if this data, if the models don't work, then other people become more famous by showing that. These people spend their entire life and, literally, thousands of hours and the people who - and you're one of them - who have these deniers, I would like to ask what do your models predict?

Gawd. What incoherent, irrational and mean-spirited nonsense.

Because of the poisonously censorious atmosphere created by highly politicized warmists such as Krauss himself the skeptical scientists who continue to question and disprove the AGW "consensus" don't become famous at all. If anything they become infamous, often lose their gigs and suffer derision and ridicule on a grand scale. One of the labels they are tarred with is "denier", which Krauss subsequently went on to use (on Dean, by the way, not Bernardi).

He should also know that to debunk a theory you don't have to offer your own prediction. You just have to show the theory's predictions are wrong. And any rational person can see that the so-called deniers have done that time and time again over the last several years.

Lawrence Krauss. What a clown.