Pity the Cos. Reduced to gags to get serious airtime. I almost miss the days of veiled language and speculation. I dread to think what the final puff of smoke will look like at this rate. On the upside, if it’s a push for commiting poetry and famous speeches to memory, at least he will make an amusing footnote.
44 Responses to “A Churlish Smirk”
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So, which version of “Aussie Values” and attitudes towards women does Cossie think we should enforce, and how?
His “interview” with the parrot this morning was excruciating. Especially the oh-so-earnest “Just say No!” bit about drugs at the end. Heaven help us all if this guy is to be our next PM!
Yeah, he’s losing it. The Mad Monk’s down; Cossie’s showing signs of acute desperation; Downer only gets more risable with age; and Nelson stuck for a PR gimmick now he cant spend all day bagging the subjects of his own portfolio.
Howard rolls on…..
Oh i thought Nelson was flying high in the PR gimmick stakes with his strategy of insisting that the three branches of our fighting forces utilise the cadet corps more fully. Whatever the hell that means - lowering the age of signup to 14? Well i suppose they would present smaller targets in field operations such as Iraq. & they do eat less. Their uniforms would cost less to manufacture too - maybe Nellie’s on to something here….
“they do eat less”
As the father of two teenagers, I strenuously dispute that!!
I was surprised to hear respected liberal commentator Jon Faine more or less sympathetic to what Costello was trying to say.
It was merely a pathetic attempt at dog-whistling, and not in the same class as the old master.
I love it when people talk about values but never define them.
Should Muslims approve or disapprove of abortion?
In Democracy anyone is entitled to run for parliament on a platform of sharia law. I think it is shia lunacy!
If there are terrorists in Australia and the are convicted then I want them to spend their life in prison here instead of being able to bribe their way out of prison elsewhere.
Pete ole buddy when a christian is confronted with conflict between what the State says and what God says a christian does what?
é uma piedade, meu amigo, que não é francês que é minha segunda lÃngua… mas tentativa agradável todos os mesmos
puta que parui, como a gente fala
hmmm, something about it being a pity that French is not your second language, but something aggravates you all the same?
Is it RH that aggravates you?
He is our chairman after all
OK, smartarse?
Ah Zoe, la lingua de Camoes … ? como pasa que hables aqui en este idioma, que me confundes totalmente, con los otros hablantes de Castellano….?
I don’t think it’s a great smartarse act to post your show off comments on The Wrong Thread, Chris.
And Lefty, it’s portuguese. It’s bloody hard to write a haiku in portuguese, btw.
Also bloody hard to spell portugese.
I think I’ll go and get a coffee and stop wasting all these poor pixels.
Yo se, Zoe. Camoes is Portugal’s Shakespeare; author of the Lusiads. Just wondering how you come to speak it….
Qu’est-ce que c’est que vous êtes rabbiting on about, amigos? Eh?? Je suis désolée: je ne comprends rien, rien du tout. [Evil nasal whine]: Expliquez-vous, s’il vous plaît?
I lived in Brazil as an exchange student about a hundred years ago - but *joy of the interwebs moment* got an email today at work from the host family I lived with, who I’ve been out of touch with for a long time.
Bugger the libs! This is more interessante. I ask, as Im having to learn it for professional reasons I wont bore you with. As a fairly competent Spanish speaker, Its a highly confusing exercise. I can sort of read it, but as soon as they start speaking Im lost. Its all “awnnnghh” and “zhhhhhh” and “ooozzhhh”. Deus me ajuda….
Oh, lucky you, Lefty. It is a particularly beautiful sounding language - although of course you lose a lot of the pure sound as your comprehension grows. I don’t know about the Portuguese, but the Brazilians also drop about half the syllables of each word and run them all together which doesn’t help much. I love the zjuzzing myself.
If you’re learning, get yourself some Legiao Urbana and sing along with the lyrics in front of you. Worked for me. That and watching children’s telly.
Thanks Zoe, will do. It is indeed a beautiful language for song.
Exchange student? Miss Zoe?
Golly no. I’d never exchange her!- not for ANY student!
ti volglio bene.
tutti!
Your Chairman!
Off Topic!
You are all suspended for ten minutes!
Your Chairman!
(Old moses is anxious to rattle the donation tin again. Watch out. If donations ever stop Paddington will go broke)
Nice to see that they chose the race card to distract from the AWB. Something nice and divisive, well I guess not for their base. I think Costello pulled the race card cause he didn’t want someone pulling the tax card and making him look weak…
“Nice to see that they chose the race card”
Islam is a race?
Costello said that people who believe that we should have Sharia law should go elsewhere.
He’s absolutely right. And they should take with them everyone who believes that make-believe spirit persons like God, Jesus, Joseph Smith, L.Ron Hubbard’s “space people” , Buddha, Krishna, or any other bizarre figment of fervent religiosity, should hold sway over the legal mechanisms and established principles of a pluralist, liberal democratic society.
If people want to keep believing in this manifest bullshit, that’s their business. If they want to force me to live under their multitudinous interpretations of it’s precepts, I’m no thappy, as Margo Kingston once said.
If “moderate muslims” have a problem with Costello’s observations they might like to articulate
their public support for acceptance of the rights of gay and lesbian Australians, gender equality, the pre-eminence of the secular state and the right of women to control their own reproductive health.
Interestingly, no-one ever invites them to.
The first and in fact only question that needs to be answered Geoff is where are, or who presisely are the Australian Muslims advocating Sharia law?
If there are a few ratbags or more probably none, (so advocating), then what does that tell us about Costello’s rant?
Geoff - I’d just assume support for the pre-eminence of the secular state is perhaps THE basic australian value. The rest of your other list I’d hope was too.
I’m sure you said somewhere else you were a thappy. a happy thappy in leather thappies.
Na Kinder, habt ihr schon vergessen?
Errinert euch noch.
Costello’s just doing a puff job, hoping to grab a headline, look at me, etc. Geoff’s right in all things, except his cynicism needs turning up to 11.
No, but most Muslims in Australia happen not to have blue eyes and blonde hair. Draw the obvious conclusion. And then remember that according to Sydney talkback radio Muslim = “Leb”. Quod est demonstrandum.
Exhibit B: A little rag in liberal Denmark called Jyllands Posten:
“Giselle Blondet (left) and Barbara Bermudo pose on the red carpet at the Premio Lo Nuestro Latin music awards in Miami. But what are they saying to each other?”
“See Akhari the little sweetie. He always smiles so sweetly when we take our burkas off.”
*boom tish*
Mark, help me with your last comment, which I take to be ironic, or some such. Most Australians don’t have blond hair. Most Australians don’t have blue eyes.
What is the literal conclusion that I should draw from your comment? That my oldest brother who has black hair is Lebanese?
Or that the children of my second oldest brother, all of whom have brown eyes, are Lebanese?
Or my best friend, whom I have known for more than thirty years, who has black hair and brown eyes and who always told me that he was of Irish heritage, is Lebanese?
Or that, alternatively, I can discern between proper and decent behaviour and the behaviour of those who haven’t conformed to the standard for that behaviour and who have identified themselves by ethnicity and religion in making the choice not to do so? I mention here specifically the Bilal Skaf case and would be happy to provide links to the evidence given at his trial to demonstrate the point.
Mark, what Quod is demontstrated here?
I think that great majority of the people of Australia are grappling to come to an understanding of the current social issues related to certain immigrants of the Muslim faith. I trust them to make a sound judgement.I think that they are thinking and listening. I trust them not to draw bigotted conclusions.
I think that in fitting up Sydney talk-show racists and wanting to make a point about those who stereotype, you have done a bit of stereotyping yourself.
In pointing them out I think that you have stereotyped the rest of us.
I think that you owe it to us, out of a swimple respect for our decency, to do better than that.
Indeed, Greg, I’ve done a bit of stereotyping myself. Because the “Aussie” is a stereotype, is it not? But we all knew what people were talking about in the Cronulla riots when they described themselves as Aussies, didn’t we?
I’ve just been reminded by a new comment on an old thread that Costello said much the same thing back in August.
Tim Blair points out that the last time Costello said all this, it was widely commented on in the blogosphere, but there was little media reaction unlike this time. Any speculation as to why?
No that was my question in the thread above. How come everyone forgot Cossie’s comments last year which were also picked up by international blogs. This is old “news”.
I don’t have a problem advocating shari’a law in Australia, it’s already here. Every time a Muslim prays they are following shari’a.
Yes that was me - I actually mistook that *old* thread for this “new” debate, nothing new under the sun eh. Be interesting to see if that old quote coincided with any of Turnball’s moves.
This is true Yasmin. I could also say that a Christian praying is evidence of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God into the present but I don’t hear any politicians advocating Christians being stripped of their citizenship. Cossie is targetting that proportion of the community that - as you yourself have complained about - want to see a virulent politico-fundamentalist application of shar’ia imposed on everyone, not just Muslims e.g. a form of religious cleric oversight of government a la Iran or even in milder form a la Indonesia. Not. Gonna. Happen.
A little thing called context, perhaps?
“Cossie is targetting that proportion of the community”
And lumping all of us into the same undifferentiated category.
No Yasmin give us some credit. Yes there is a yobbo element in Australia but most of us can differentiate. And let’s also be fair. The minute anyone says “some”, then some self appointed Muslim leader or spokesperson (like Keysar Trad) comes out and says it’s “all”. I blame some of the press as well for being yobbos in that regard but even there I do believe Muslims themselves can differentiate.
I don’t know what it’s like where you live. I have Muslims living in my neighbourhood - none of them, not even the women - have had cause to change any of their habits or alter their routines, not even in recent weeks with all the J-P cartoon brouhaha etc. The women for example, in hijabs and all (i.e. visibly Muslim) are still walking their kids to school just like everyone else is, they are still picking up some groceries alone at the late night supermarket like we all do, my neighbour around the corner still takes her baby for an afternoon walk in its stroller, and waves hello at whoever is out in the front garden, just like any other new mum.
Saint re
The question is how many statements are there to be (like Costello’s) before they stop doing these things? Put yourself in their shoes for just one minute as a member of minority group being inherently castigated from the PM down, and try to imagine how that would feel.
Remember Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Panapoulous and the hijabs?
Dickhead Fred Nile and the bombs under the burquas?
WTF you don’t see a pattern there?
Mark, the problem for me is that the “Aussie” isn’t a stereotype.
It is my friends: George, whose parents migrated from Cyprus and who is a respected lawyer and a fanatical Collingwood fan. He would, I think, pass off as being of “middle eastern” appearance.
It is my friend Chris of Chinese-Scottish heritage who came to Australia when he was three years old, whose passion when he was a teenager was to play Australian Rules Football but who is a senior executive in an Australian company who makes so much money every year that it it equals your entire superannuation fund.
It is Hassan, an electrical engineer who is a Muslim of Lebanese ethnicity whom I helped when he had a shaky start in setting up his career.
Each of these, and many others, whom I would be glad to mention, are Australians and each of them, I know, are proud to be called an “Aussie”. They do not consider it a stereotype. They merely consider it an abbrieviation of who they are.
They wouldn’t at all be upset that you have stereotyped them for they are above that, but they’d think less of you for doing so.
What really worries me is that even if we are allowed to have yet another federal election (fully rigged or only partly rigged) that the Labor Party, its alter ego the Liberal Party, the Nationals-Australian Democrats and maybe even the Greens will be wiped out at the polls. I myself think that widespread cynicism and loathing of the major parties won’t be greatly influenced by advertising and other media forces.
So who will end up running the country? If we are lucky, we’ll get somebody like a Mussolini or a raving Bible-banging Fundamentalist who will bring in the death-penalty for abortionists, drinkers of liquor and those who scorn church-going; thats if we are l-u-c-k-y. If we are UNlucky, we might get someone far worse; somebody who would make Pol Pot seem like a kindly uncle and would solve any worries we have about overpopulation in Australia. So I think all this concern about Cossie or Nellie taking over is pointless.
for Umm Yasmin;
Take heart. Good Moslems who lead good lives and who follow the teaching of your Respected Prophet have nothing to fear in the long run, despite all the fuss going on at present. But the real Servants of Satan who pretend to be Moslems for their own greedy, selfish, evil purposes will be destroyed by God; that is inevitable.
for Bernice Balcony:
How can we have school cadets? Didn’t our great and ever-glorious negotiators of international agreements make that impossible? I thought they didn’t know the difference between army apprentices and school cadets on one hand and children enslaved by by warlords and criminal militia then forced to become boy-soldiers on the other, and so, not knowing the subtle difference, they signed us up for a well-intentioned, uneffective treaty banning the recruitment of youths for pre-military training even with the permission of their parents. I do hope I am wrong.
Greg, I think we’re at cross purposes. Of course, I agree with you. What I’m trying to point to is the stereotype that’s often embedded in political debate.