No idea what to make of this – what is it, big swinging d**k day in the blogosphere?
The nancies over at Ladyboy Pantywaist have taken a good hard look at this whole Islamic terrorism thing and decided that they really don’t like John Laws.
Jason Soon on the policy towards GMB/Comrade Bird/Panelbeater Bird in a comments thread at Catallaxy [comment excerpted, follow the link for the full comment and scroll up and down for context and reactions]:
Now normally I wouldn’t dump on other blogs but Nick Gruen has many many times presumed to drop in and lecture me on how I should run the blog so I’ll say this much – GMB does have a point. Club Troppo nowadays has such a prissy and precious atmosphere that it might as well be a meeting of the Wahroonga Young Liberals with the cucumber sandwiches, guys named Percival dressed in polo shirts and yachting shoes and people riding ponies in the background.
Ken Parish responds to Jason at Troppo, and calls for civility in the finest Troppo tradition [first bit of the post, note the irony, and follow the link for the rest]:
Just another day at Club Faggot
By Ken Parish on Blogging – general
We girly-men here at Club Faggot are nothing if not broad-shouldered. It’s probably all that working out down at the gayboyz gym.
JC, referring to Fyodor, on another thread at Catallaxy which descended into meta-blogging: [as usual, follow the link for the full comment, and scroll down for reactions]:
The detestable miscreant had the audacity to suggest EP get thrown off the stage over at sissyworld for those very reasons
And people wonder why some blogs have more female commenters than others, or new commenters? And why some comments threads are good humoured interchanges and others descend into exchange of abuse and what Andrew Norton rightly calls “dreary left-right disputes”?
Ps: If there’s a bit of covert competition going on among the boy blogosphere, Jason gets my vote for funniest comment, and JC an honourable mention for a nicely Keating-esque turn of phrase in “detestable miscreant”.
Update: Further investigation suggests Birdy started it. What a surprise.
Ladyboy Pantytwist – I’m so using that from now on.
I think all LPers should ask themselves the (very serious) question: “Am I a ladyboy, a pantytwister, or a bit of both?”
As for me, I have been known to fork out for a haircut, that might make me a bit of a ladyboy. As for being pantytwister, you’d probably have to ask around…
Ladyboy Pantywaist — I love it! Wicked Tim.
Sissyworld certainly has a ring to it..
Actually, the reference to “Sissyworld” from JC is to Troppo.
Whatever you think of Tim B or LP you have to admit this is funny:
No one denies, Rob, that tim is a talented sub-editor.
Does anyone else go to “gayboyz” gym? My membership expired a while ago.
Mark, with your inability to lift fertiliser bagsmaybe it’s time you sign up?
I quite liked Nancy Drew when I was a young’un.
mick, it’s impossible to live in New Farm now without getting about 5 offers of trial gym memberships every week in your letterbox!
Mick says:
“As for me, I have been known to fork out for a haircut, that might make me a bit of a ladyboy.”
Well yes, that makes you a big NancyBoy in my book. I haven’t paid for a haircut in 10 years. I bought a pair of clippers from Kmart and my boyfriend gives me a shavin’ every few weeks and vice versa.
Oh dear boys, get with the grooming please!
It’s also impossible to live in New Farm without running into boys and girls with impossibly perfect bodies as you walk around every corner!
At my current gym (actually, I think it’s current but it’s been a while) they give away gazillions of free sessions a week. But, and this is truly weird, they actually keep a database of people (with photos) that have had a trial gym session so you can’t go there more than once for free. I think they are way too stingy – as does my girlfriend who stays awake at night trying to work out how to exploit their system so she can get free sauna sessions…
That does sound stingy. A lot of the gyms in this neck of the woods encourage you to bring a friend to check out the facilities and have a free session.
Update: Further investigation suggests Birdy started it. What a surprise.
steve, my head is shaped funny. I’ve thought long and hard about the clippers option but really, I’d just look like a total tool with a shaved head.
I was chatting to my hairdresser here in crazy mountain land and he was totally shocked to discover that in Brisvegas it isn’t uncommon for well groomed young lads to spend in the triple figures for a haircut. Here it is considered expensive to spend 30 euro for a haircut, no-one here understands why I find that funny (and in some ways very cool).
Check out the Brisneyland prices for well groomed young lasses’ haircuts!
Kim – yea I think it’s very lame. The city here is small, they don’t have an aweful lot of competition so I guess they don’t mind being stingy about this. They are actually stingy in many ways – there are no drink fountains in the gym and they don’t let you bring in a bottle of drink from outside. Well that’s the rule at least, most of the employees don’t have the heart to tell someone that they can’t carry in a bottle of water.
It’s very different to UQ in the pre-VSU days. It was common then to be allowed free sessions to “get a feel” for the gym. You also got free sessions if you were drinking buddies with the people at the front desk.
The sauna might be useful and/or dangerous after a drinking session, though, mick!
Yes, yes it is. Especially seeing as my gym is open 24/7 and Euro rules apply as to the attire.
Ah, yes, those Euro rules. But I think you commented ages ago that consumption of large numbers of sweet German-style desserts somewhat unsexified the effect of said rules?
‘Club Faggot’ was coined by Birdy. I don’t endorse it. I’ve reprimanded him many times about making homophobic comments. My joke about the Young Liberals and was meant to be at the expense of a certain ‘country club’ mentality which has permeated Troppo recently (see for instance Nick Gruen’s reaction to completely mild criticism on his car policy blogpost) and my getting annoyed by certain interlopers from Troppo (including but not restricted to Nick) wanting to pressure me into banning certain people.
I want a blog called “Surrender Monkey”…. I love crazy Neo-Con epithets. Who’s got a compendium of them?
Speaking of which, this will really get up their noses. War Nerd – who, being a Nerd of War, knows more about military history, practice, strategies and tactics than any RWDB around here, reckons the French are ace, and has zero tolerance for uninformed neo-con loser anti-French rubbish.
And he knows waaaaaaaay more about it than you. Check it out http://www.exile.ru/2003-October-02/war_nerd.html
allons enfants de la patrie
la jour de gloire est arrivee
Yea, it’s true. The sauna, while pretty much a nude fest is pretty asexual. It’s one of those nasty little catch 22s that life likes to throw at us all.
Didn’t “surrender monkey” caome from the Simpsons? I think it was Groundskeeper Willie saying, “Ya cheese eatin surrendah monkees!”, or something like that.
Ey, why-a you make-a the fight, why you call-a the names, eh? Attsamatta, you no got-a respect, you call each other these words, the “ladyboy,” the “pantytwist”? You be nice-a! Or else I come over there with my soup spoon, I give-a you the “Discipline and-a Punish,” eh? Then we see how you like-a, eh?
Why you no sit-a down, I fix-a you all some nice orrechiette, with-a the fresh scallops and-a the cream sauce, so good. Then, over the cappuccino, I call-a my nephew Sal, the college boy, that’s a very bright kid, that Sal, and he teach-a you the books, the Queer Theory. Very smart, very good, you like. You learn-a some respect, then you stop-a the fight, eh?
Jason, see the update to my post. I did mean to acknowledge (as well to absolve Ken from coining the term) that Birdy came up with “Club Faggot”, and FWIW I think that a lot of the Troppo threads are terribly earnest these days. But on the other hand, I’m not much interested in posts on either technical details of economic policy or football which covers most of the Troppo subject matter.
I’d also point out that Mark has made some interesting meta-comments on one or two of the Catallaxy threads to which I linked since I put up the post:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=1995#comment-132118
And Ken Parish makes a point, to which Mark also linked, about the possibility of defamation actions against bloggers for comments. I think it would be a sad day if somebody were sued, but all of us collectively have a responsibility as well as a right to preserve as much freedom of speech as possible in these spaces.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=1995#comment-132120
There’s a gym over at Wollongabba, mick, that’s women only, that has a nude sauna. Not saying any more. Heh.
Actually I keep meaning to take one of the local gyms up on one of their free offers. The big problem is fitting in the time.
That’s pantywaist — I think ‘pantytwist’ must be a rather sweet bit of word-association slippage from ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist’ (though I do rather like the American form of this expression, viz ‘Don’t get your panties in a bunch’ which somehow gets closer to describing the actual sensation).
What Blair almost certainly doesn’t know is that he’s actually calling you boys children, rather than girlies or girlyboys:
Gotta love metonymy.
It was decidedly untalented of him to leave the unnecessary “that” in “. . . and decided that they really don’t like John Laws.”
Is there an online tropology to which we could direct tim?
As you were. Resume discussing nuding it up in saunas and the price of a good haircut.
Back on topic for a second. I will say that I bet anyone anything Nick Gruen has never been compared to:
…before.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/index.php?p=1984&cp=1#comment-131618
You know what I reckon is really gay? Blogs with comment threads overwhelmingly populated by blokes waving their dicks in a mass chorus line at anyone they’ve been told are bad people. And then turning back to congratulate eachother on the length of their comments, ogle miltech (Incidentally this is a genuinely riveting docu even if you’re not into miltech.) and discuss the fortunes of buff young men in very tight footy shorts.
Look, there’s some groupthink shit on LP I don’t agree with and it can be bit precious at times but at least it does host some damn good barnies with less censorship and more wit, spit, chicks with attitude and epic stoushes than pretty much all of its detractor sites.
I do miss EP though.
Ooh, now my iTunes party shuffle has just thrown up the “Get Carter” theme. A young Michael Caine naked with a shottie. You don’t get those kinda curiously apropos non sequiturs on many blogs I can tell you.
Jason Soon sez:
“‘Club Faggot’ was coined by Birdy. I don’t endorse it. I’ve reprimanded him many times about making homophobic comments.”
Get real, Jason. It is becoming increasingly obvious to many of us that Birdy is your alternate personality. You need help dude, you really do.
And it’s becoming increasingly obvious to many of us that you need an alternate personality Steve.
Well well well.
Babes and girly-men and tough-guy-Jason-Soon (Jat San Xu) talking about me.
BUT THATS GOOD!!!
Doesn’t matter what they say. Whether its good or bad. Just so long as they are talking about you.
But Kim.
Babe.
Much as I like you referring to my work… being as a good sermon on the mount can do with repeating…..
Look you have Annas email right?
And you have my email or can get it from Anna right?
So you didn’t need to dedicate another thread to me if you wanted us to get aquainted?
You could have emailed Anna for permission. And then once you two had sorted it out in your Italian Maffia sort of way you could have shown up and taken your top off and hoped I was in the right sort of mood.
Make sure you get Annas permission first but.
The only site that censors more than LP is Tim Blair’s.
You banned my last 87 comments Yobbo.
lol
I should point out here to others, that while Yobbo and I have clashed antlers from time to time online, I must say he did come up with one of the funniest and most perfectly timed comments I’ve ever read on the blogosphere and which I was riffing off above.
T’was about 18 months or so ago when Tim Dunlop had to take Surfdom down for a while ‘cos he was getting overwhelmed by spam. Then he was back up and proudly announcing he’d conquered the menace.
The first comment on that thread was by Yobbo:
“Free online poker!” (link)
OK, you had to be there, but it was bloody funny.
Not quite right Kim. In fact it’s little wiggling *ic* day.
In situations like this it’s important to achieve some perspective.
Clearly Tim Blair sooled his keyboard monkeys on to LP. The result was that avalanche of nonsense on the John Laws thread.
Simple cause and effect.
However, here’s the perspective.
One reading could be of Blair’s provocations that, but for the obstructiveness of LP and other leftists, Australia would have more effective measures against Muslims both at home and abroad. This, of course is clearly nonsense. After all, the Right controls public policy at the federal level. Any failure to act in ways welcome to Blair and his keyboard monkeys should therefore be sheeted home to the Right Wing Federal Government. There is a subsidiary subtext in the Blairite blatherings that runs something like this: we individual RWDBs are ready and willing to take up arms in defence of Our Civilization, but we won’t until we convince you Lefties to do the same thing. All this posturing is mere rhetorical fantasy: adolescent theatre of the impotent.
What is the function of this part of the blogosphere? One day it may swing elections, but not yet. In reality, it serves as a mine for useful slogans and aphorisms and it serves as a meme factory. Felicitous phrases and slogan occasionally escape the screen and live out in the real world. These productions are politically useful. Like Lenin’s killing slogan of 1917 “Peace! Bread! Land!”
Which brings me to the structural point. Look at the difference between how Blair’s blog is managed and how LP is managed. This one is open access, while Blair guards his like a Pit Bull.
Why is this? It might be that Blair is simply a control freak. But I believe there is another reason: Blair, who has some competence as a subby, understands that the contributors who peddle the line he wants simply aren’t clever enough or articulate enough to produce a reliable supply of slogans, aphorisms and memes.
Blair knows that he survives as a meme factory only by running a sheltered workshop.
And occasionaly he sends his keyboard monkeys out on kamikaze raids on blogs such as LP.
Thus, structurally, for all their sound and fury, the Blairites are losers, with little wiggly d**ks.
And deep down, they know it.
*Rolling on the floor, cackling fyendishly.*
You can’t beat a good inter-blog meta-stoush. If EP were around he and Nabs would be in the spa by now. However, somehow I can’t quite see Nabsy nudeing it up with the Birdman in La Cage aux Fowl.
Is the upshot of all this that I get excommunicated from the LP collective if I don’t get my torso and legs comprehensively waxed?
The use of depilation cream, or laser hair removal, would also be acceptable, Paul.
“Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Lover of the Pirate Queen on 15 August 2006 at 9:56 am”
That would be “Lover Of The RUSSIAN ‘Queen’ dopey.
I believe the BCS is de rigueur, Norto.
Back in the good old days, old leftists used to like to say that their opponents thought of them as ‘dirty, commie, poofter bastards’. Of course, that was in the good old days of WHITE AUSTRALIA. These days were troubled first by the ‘refos’, then by the ‘wogs’, then by the ’slopes’ and finally by the ‘towel heads’. The fact that the right mix a certain kind of masculinity with a hatred of sexual, ethnic, religious and other forms of difference has been well-known for a very long time. What is surprising is this ‘quasi-fascist cocktail’ seems to be the stock in trade of even nominally leftist blogs like this one, which seem to function as an alternative outlet for people who can not get onto talkback radio ’shockjocks’. Moreover, the constant invocation of the ’security threat’ is in fact a masculinist demand for the suspension of an effeminate democratic order, which is in fact the core demand of those who want to get tough on ‘Islamo-fascism’. It seems that the left radical/rationalist tradition is indeed dead.
Well, Bartleby, we’re not responsible for the RWDBs who come here, nor are they our “stock in trade”.
Birdy, I suspect the reference is to Kimberella the Pirate Queen.
Ah, I see the Bird is riffing on an old theme. Like the second movement in a really messed up symphony. If I remember right, its almost time for the trumpets to come in and deliver that clarion “only Commie Witch hunters round here” call.
Is it nearly over?
Marks right. The RWDB’s – that term seems so passe nowadays – come round here to test their might and I must admit, I think we do get close to the cream of the crop.
Half the fun is stopping them dead in their tracks (or at least trying to.)
There’s a crop that Birdy, Rob and Yobbo are the cream of?
Yes, but what is the point in trying to convert the unconvertible? And how are they in effect stopped in their tracks? They seem to burble on incessantly. The fact is that I am genuinely surprised by the dominance of right extremist positions wihin even leftest blogs. I realize that they are uninvited but the fact that they colonise the blog means that the conversations/analyses are hijacked and derailed into unprofitable slanging matches.
Bartleby is onto something. Longstanding democratic political orders, in which resolution of issues through dialogue and through observance of conventions of civility is the norm, tend to render redundant the advantages of male muscle and bulk, and to actively discourage testicular thinking. Periods (such as the present one) of widespread geopolitical conflict and the consequent polarisation and brutalisation of political discourse within democratic states provide a raison d’etre for dumb blokes and for blokey dumb behaviour.
It’s because chicks won’t talk to them IRL, Bartleby.
IMHO.
This is from the Introduction to a key text, which was cited by someone on the Daily Kos:
That description of fascism is total bullshit Bartleby.
You might have to read some other books.
Yeah Paul. And thats roughly how it works. There’s barely a (half-decent) ‘rightist’ comment round here that doesn’t go unanswered and convincingly. there are a couple of issue in that:
1) How to distinguish between the trolls and those trying to make a substantive point. Get it right and everthing goes right. Get it wrong and you both encourage the trollers and piss off the rest.
2) How to react to the genuine ‘dissenters’ (im being kind.) A good whack has its own rewards, but its pretty counterproductive. Especially when – at least in the australian context – the interlopers here seem to represent the dominant, incumbent view.
I think the real question, is how do the 80 or 90% of people who ‘don’t think about the issues’ react to all this. What kind of discourse, what kind of approach convinces them of something or encourages them to go out and form their own opinion. I think Katz is right, The dynamic between LP and Blairs place reflects positively on LP and is at least one step in the right direction.
What exactly would you like to see Bartleby?
Bartleby is correct. When a discussion is reduced to a pointless left/right slanging match, they have won, because they’ve succeeded in gaining attention and diverting the discussion.
Most of them are like a particularly obnoxious student that I’m sure many of us can recall from school, whose sole motivation seemed to be the gaining of attention at all costs. It didn’t matter if the attention was negative, nothing was worse than being ignored.
Graeme Bird is a prime example, as he virtually admits above. Some birds shouldn’t really be fed, however:
Er, here’s the
link
“Most of them are like a particularly obnoxious student that I’m sure many of us can recall from school…”
Oh dear oh dear. Terribly sorry about that, adrian.
Mmmm, it was quite funny that comment from Tim Blair.
However, I think there’s a lot of retarded masculinity on the blogosphere. A point I think Leslie Cannold suggested in her article in The Age last week.
Reminds me of a quote from Latham’s book about a factional hack which went something like, “he’s big on the blower, but not so big in person”. (Correct if I’m wrong, I don’t walk around with a copy of The Latham Diaries at the ready).
Good to see you’re blogging again, Darlene.
Don’t apologise, Rob. I was actually recalling my days as a teacher, when much of my time was spent providing these particular individuals with the attention that they so desperately craved, and obviously found it difficult to get outside the classroom.
Darlene, why ever not? So handy for those moments when hurling something heavy across a room expresses one’s feelings precisely.
Just fixing adrian’s link. Birdy’s place is great.
Trouble with Blair is he would not know if his arse was on fire,we use to kick bums like him out of the clubs in the cross after they made arseholes of them selves,which was not real hard for people like him to do, unctuous bastard.
It’s always interesting to read Rob’s comments elsewhere, such as this one after the link from Adrian:
Graeme, keep on with it. You get them ducking for cover like none of the rest of us can.
Only so’s we miss the spittle, Rob.
[/laughs] Got me, Zoe. I do deep as well as macho.
If you’ve seen blair’s pic in the bulletin you’ll know where the compensatory schlong-swings are coming from.
Not that I can talk, I barely ever get drunk these days and have taken on a blog and gravatar that suggest wanton consumption of incredibly expensive french spirits.
Blogging; therapeutic outlet for the wanker within…
Thanks, Rob. Have linked you, of course.
The Latham Diaries is too big to fit into a purse. I am hoping someone comes up with The Latham Diaries, the pocket version.
It would just contain the best quips and observations about the ALP.
Bird responds!
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/tough-talk-at-prodeo/
Birdy seems to think Kim wants to “hook up” with him.
But apparently she will first need the permission of Anna Winter the Goddess of Reason. Birdy is evidently already spoken for.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/14/inter-blog-wars-the-masculinity-connection/#comment-127291
That is a classic Birdy quote!
And I thought intense militarist nationalism and anti-communism were central to fascism…
I have given Kim my blessing.
Does Kim want it though?
It’s more of a curse, really, but very reasonable of you all the same, Snegoruchka.
Bird has amended his post just for you, Zoe …
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/tough-talk-at-prodeo/#comment-495
Actually, fascism is in part a mix of capitalism, a state of emergency and paedophilia. I have that on good authority from Visconti’s ‘The Damned”. Or did you miss the part where the SS kills off the anti-capitalist SA? Hitler kept capitalism, proclaimed a state of emergency and was on some accounts a paedophile. And you may have missed this, but German companies helped to build and run extermination camps and that is why they had to pay reparations. Capitalism is by nature politically promiscuous.
Snegoruchka. Heh.
It’s better than Smegoruchka…
So who is Panelbeaterbird and what is his/her address?:
I am not an ‘idiot’ so who are you? And what is your address?
derrida derider commenting on Troppo:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/08/14/just-another-day-at-club-faggot/#comment-41586
The best response to Panelbeaterbird is to take no notice whatsoever of him.
Unless you feel like a gratuitous stoush, of course.
Seriously, though, Bartleby, taking Birdy’s commentary seriously will only encourage him to direct more of it at you. It’s a childish behaviour pattern, and if you don’t enjoy arguing with him, he is best ignored. We of course filter out many of his comments here because they’re just attacks on others. He’s not constrained at all on Catallaxy, which is part of what all this argument here, there and at Troppo is about, and obviously can say whatever he likes at his own blog.
Anna, I’d hate to trespass on your
petman…Personally, I like to bring Birdy to the boil, then let him simmer.
When he starts reposting the same comment you know he’s al dente.
Like most noisy RWDBs, he’d make a crap soldier, or resitance fighter. Too easy to psychologically manipulate.
Yes, he has certain pasta like qualities, Lefty E.
Yes, well, a nom de plume still has a consistency over time and at any point in time someone can say this is who I am so it is extremely stupid to think that one can defame people because they express themselves in the form of an avatar. Does anyone really presume that the internet is ‘hors de lois’ because if you do you do you are extremely mistaken. I don’t take things seriously, but I’m not really interested in being extravangantly insulted by people who are mendacious in the extreme.
Anyway, since Bartleby takes offence at Birdy’s comment, I’ll delete it, and remind everyone not to post purely abusive comments.
Well, you’re certainly not alone in your being the recipient of Birdy’s abuse, Bartleby, which is why we generally keep him on a leash here.
However, his attacks on people are such ludicrous hyperbole I doubt that they would be actionable. And they’re not worth losing any sleep over.
I must admit I did take offense at a comment he made about my sexuality once, but I’m long over it. It’s obvious that what he is looking for, as is the way of the troll on the nets, is for someone to take the bait at which point he will escalate. It’s typical bullying behaviour, and the response should be to ignore it. In my view. People of course can do what they want, but life is too short, I think.
If you feel like engaging, engage. But you don’t get sensible argument back from Birdy.
As was pointed out before, there was some discussion of defamation and blogs on the Troppo thread:
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/08/14/just-another-day-at-club-faggot/#comment-41534
http://www.clubtroppo.com.au/2006/08/14/just-another-day-at-club-faggot/#comment-41550
I think I’ve discovered that the world of blogs is like the world of Hitchcock’s Psycho: people inventing identities and talking to themselves by inventing other identities. I’ve seen this on more than one blog, by the way, and it quite clearly is both a strategic device and a form of psychopathology. If you are seriously disturbed then this is a private matter, but if you shout and threaten people in the street then that is a serious matter and if you choose to publish ridiculous material under the pretence that you’re just talking to yourself then you are indeed seriously disturbed.
Not wanting to prolong meta-blogging any further – what Bartleby means to say is that he doesn’t have the intelligence to scroll up a blogpost to look at who actually wrote it and accused me of writing Birdy’s post about ‘Holocaust denial’. And he had the hide to ask for an apology for it and threatened libel for it (despite not writing under his real name) and when I told him he was clearly making a fool of himself he ran away.
You can read the whole farce here
https://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/bartleby-the-holocaust-denier#comment-524
Any regulars here can verify that Graeme Bird’s blog is not written by me. Apparently just because he saw me commenting there he assumed I wrote it. So all of you must have collectively written Kim’s post. The guy is stupid and doesn’t even have the grace to apologise to me for a false accusation and threatening libel for a post I didn’t write.
So where is my apology now, Bartelby?
Yes, I’m totally in agreement with you, goodbye.
What an ass. Threatens to sue people for blogs they didn’t write and won’t even admit he’s wrong.
Next time think twice before adopting a hectoring, litigious tone like you did here, you illiterate twit
https://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/bartleby-the-holocaust-denier#comment-519
Let’s hope we don’t see you anywhere again.
Once again, I’m totally in agreement with you, goodbye.
Bartleby, Jason, please take it outside and stop cluttering up the thread. It’s not amusing.
And who are you tigtog? Nothing on this thread has been of any intellectual interest whatsoever, so clutter is the stock in trade of both the thread and the blog. Is this not so? And, yes, we are not amused.
I’m on of the LP collective, Bartleby, so I’m one of the voices who gets to say that you’re officially boring us and derailing the thread by becoming a parody of your earlier disapproving remarks about the RW trolls:
You and Jason have devolved what was a bit of fun metacommentary into an unprofitable slanging match. If it was an attempt at deliberate performance art, then your execution was cloddish and ponderous and definitely won’t make the cut for the next Biennale.
If you’ve just got carried away with the stoush, meh. It happens. Take a deep breath and stop typing, come back when you’ve calmed down.
Careful tigotg, he might mistake you for me and then accuse you of writing Birdy’s post about holocaust denialism.
OK I’m done and that was in jest …
Is the point of blogs just to provide intellectual interest?
Anyway, it certainly isn’t the case that Birdy and Jason are the same person. End of story.
Why get real? And what is a collective?
You really are obtuse, aren’t you?
This is a group blog. The posters who contribute to the group are the LP collective.
LP is a group blog, and therefore each blogger has the power to make moderation decisions and to enforce the comments policy, and decisions about policy and editorial matters are reached collectively.
And I’ve met Jason Soon – he is most certainly not a pseudonym for Bird or vice versa. In fact, as I recall, Jason’s profile on his group blog, Catallaxy, contains a link to the economic consultancy for which he works. So if we’re talking “real” or degrees thereof, Jason’s online identity is much more closely aligned with his offline identity than is the case with those who go solely by pseudonyms, as would be the case with other bloggers such as Nick Gruen and Ken Parish and John Quiggin, all of whom blog under their own names.
And FWIW, I tend to agree with derrida derider that Birdy probably has a mental health problem, and I don’t think Jason is doing him any favours by egging him on to more excesses.
If you read Jason and you then read Bird, Bartleby, you’ll find a yawning chasm in intellectual prowess between them. I agree with hardly anything Soon writes, but he’s a thinker and, for the most part, a clean and reasoned arguer. Compare and contrast with Bird…
Though Jason is also sparing with the art of apology, and doesn’t back down easily. And I don’t think Jason’s style of provoking Birdy “hey, look what this person wrote on LP” is helpful, but it’s outside our control.
True. He can be most ungracious. But there’s no mistaking him for Bird, iz basically wot I’m sayin…
Yep.
OK, since we’re sorta back on topic again, I have to strongly disagree with DD’s highly insulting (to Birdy) armchair amateur psychobabble.
Birdy in one of his many comments said he once went to acting school. He also said that he got on the blogs as a way to unwind after a day’s work and after a couple of beers. I think that and a touch of Asperger’s and ADD explains all that needs explaining about Birdy’s hyperbole. It is partly him putting on a bit of an online persona and being a bit pissed when he blogs and getting carried away and lacking social graces. I don’t think he’s mentally ill.
See the thread on Bird’s blog where he amends a post because he though he was excessively mean to Zoe. I really think he’s a bit like Nietzsche who thundered on against Christianity in his writings yet was a totally meek soul in real life and didn’t have the heart to personally offend actual Christians he met.
Anyway I’m going to put my money where my mouth is so to speak unlike amateur Freudian dd. I think JC is coming down to Sydney in a couple of weeks and wants to invite me and Birdy to drinks. Curiosity killed the cat but it tempts me. So I’m happy to put my hypothesis (that Birdy is actually a pretty mentally stable human being in real life) to the test pretty soon.
And btw some commenters who have begun debating constructively with Bird over at Catallaxy like MichaelG and Boris and John will I think agree with my interpretation of Birdy. Basically, a bit autistic and manic but a harmless soul.
And so you’re telling me that outside the reality that is this blog you know reality? Collectives died in the sixties, or haven’t you heard?
That first sentence of yours should have died in the 60s, Bartelby.
Man.
Apparently not – since I was a member of some in the 80s and 90s.
Jason, I’m not trying to cast aspersions with my comments about Birdy. Aspergers and ADD would be mental health issues. I just do worry to some degree about whether the degree to which he (apparently?) gets steamed up over blog discussions is good for him.
And so who are you Zoe? Presumably you are not life?
As contrasted with Bios?
If it’s a serious question, Bartleby, you could always follow the link which is Zoe’s name to find out something of her life.
THIS DUDE IS WEIRDER THAN OBSERVA!
I heart you, Bartelby. Please don’t go changin’.
Has anyone considered that Bartleby and GMB, might be the same person? They are currently operating at about the same distance from reality.
Anyway, I agree with Jason, that GMB is manic yet harmless. And that he possesses interesting ideas. But I also agree with Mark, that encouraging his excesses is a pointless and mean-spirited endeavour, even if you’re really attached to these inter (or intra) blogwars.
I like Birdy. He shoots off at the mouth a lot but underneath it he’s actually a well-read and well-thought kind of partridge with a gift for some devastating bon mots.
I generally think inter blog wars should be discouraged, Michael. Though I’m well aware that perhaps this post doesn’t help there – though it was meant as metacommentary (that’s what they all say, I know…)
Group hug people! I’ll break out some West Coast sounds & lets all feel the love here at the Be-in…
Singing:
Hey people now smile on your brother
let me see you get together
love one another right now….
Man…..These SBS docos are getting to me.
Heh.
It’s true that no one does pseudo-Nietzschean rants like Birdy does.
We can see that, Lefty E. Better get a good dose of reality into ya by walking the forbidding corridors of Keating Towers before lunch.
H.P. Lovecraft!
One of the great unknown bands of a great era for music.
Thanks for the (recovered) memories LE.
Yeah, what Rob said. it’s shooting off at the mouth but there is substance underneath.
It’s like blogging without your superego.
One does not have to comment on this, merely quote it:
One does not have to comment on this, merely quote it.
You fastidious soul, you (me) (us).
Some people have far too much time on their hands not to mention some rather unhealthy obsessions…
But – and this is the last thing im gonna say – the shooting off of the mouth is motivated by the same thing/s which render useful discussion near impossible. Encourage the former and you also encourage the latter.
Yeah Kim, We probably stand a good chance of getting yet another GMB post out of this. Oh well.
Yes, I agree, and that’s at the heart of the controversy over Birdy at Catallaxy – what used to be a relatively abuse free space became all about Birdy, his antics, and hyperbolic abuse. Jason might maintain that some of Birdy’s interlocutors get something out of it, but I’m with the “Catallaxy isn’t such a good place for a sensible discussion anymore” crew. Of course, in doing so, I’m not seeking to suggest that Jason needs or should follow my advice. Just that I’m obviously not alone in the opinion – so he could take it as reader/commenter feedback should he wish.
You people need to get some perspective. At the end of the day it’s some guy tapping away at his Mac while laying into some Bundaberg Rum listening to Frank Zappa …
One does not have to comment on this merely quote it:
Yes, indeed, Jason, but I also think you underestimate the fact that a lot of people used to go and discuss things over at Catallaxy to get away from drunken ravings and talk sensibly and without too much partisanship.
Actually Katz, I was thinking of the Jefferson Airplane version (first album, pre Grace Slick); but I know HP Lovecraft’s work, and some of it was right on.
Although, some of it was overworked, self-consciously mannered psychadelia eg the risible “Keeper of the keys”.
I find it hard to believe that Jason has got himself into strife.
He seems like a gentleman.
I agree that people come to sites like this one and Jason’s to get away from partisanship and people making up pretend names and chucking their metaphorical willies around.
Yeah Jason, (Ok one more comment) but the other point is that clearly Birdy is more than a sideshow, though you wouldnt know it if you asked people around here. You, yourself work off that conclusion intermittently.
And don’t bother trying any shenanigans on at Darlene’s.
You’ll be set right quicksmart.
Yeah, but musically sophisticated and complex.
And those voices: Jerry McGeorge and Tony Cavallari. Along with Grace, the best in rock.
Yes, you do need to get some perspective…
Now don’t you go starting that again, Mr Obtuse. You’re the one getting worked up over and threatening to sue me for a post I didn’t write. I’d already abided by the ceasefire as tigtog proposed but I’ll start dropping the bombs again if you send your militants over.
Katz, my vote for best voice of that decade is Roky Erikson from 13th flooor elevators. Exhibit A: ‘You’re gonna miss me’.
Sure, he went nuts on acid for 20 years, but I here he’s back on track of late.
Let’s not go there, folks. Play nice.
Otherwise we’ll end up with a French led UN peacekeeping force patrolling the borders between LP and “Graeme Bird for High Office” or whatever Birdy calls his bunker.
Just issuing a warning is all, Ms Rice! No rockets, no bombs.
But what about the underlying causes? How, oh how will we achieve a lasting ceasefire?
Well, just be on the lookout for more of my stellarly successful shuttle diplomacy, is all!
We need a road map to the Bird cage. Or should that be the Bat cave?
That’s right, Zoe.
I will inflict a, arrghhh, group hug on people who be naughty.
Oh no I never said he was just a sideshow and I agree, Michael. That reference to Bundaberg Rum wasn’t to imply he was blogging drunk all the time. Just to paint a picture.
Jason, that’s DOCTOR Rice.
Heh.
Thanks for that Dr Cat!
Roky …
… a fallen angel tormented by apes … and the supreme voice of outrage …
Guys, gals
aren’t you all slightly obsessed with the Bird.
What the hell is going on in Ozblogdom these days? Everywhere I go I see another set of bird’s victims etc…… talking about what else…. Bird.
It’s getting to be like a battered wives blogs convention or something.
You have Bartlesby threatening legal action. Ken Parish hoping someone will sue him. There are all these hurt and emotionally upset people walking round having been done over by Bird.
Get over him or meet him is what I says.
Here’s my suggestion.
Let’s have a Bird convention in Sydney where all you guys can meet him. I stick $3g for a venue if some organizes it and a few others put up a little more money.
I think, this way you can all meet you tormenter.
There has to be three rules though.
1. No physical violence and
2. No process serving on the premises
3. Bird has to promise to attend
Ken Parish and Nick Gruen can come along. They can wear trousers and slippers.
One note of care. If Faydor turns up, don’t tell Bird or it could turn nasty.
This is truly becoming a remarkable event in Blogdom history. …. this rise of the Bird.
is mr bird really a panel beater, cause that might explain alot – spray painters and panel beaters were always seen as the most foul mouthed, told the dirtiest jokes and were considered the craziest (not ‘zany’ either) of all the tradesmen, house painters also.
it was ‘common knowledge’ when i grew up – probably linked to all the solvents and other chemicals they used without masks.
Jo
He owns a chain of panel beating shops around the country. I think they go by the trade name
Panelbeatetbird. He’s quite wealthy and single. A great catch for a nice gal.
… a fallen angel tormented by apes …
I can see you and I are going to have to discuss these matters at length sometime Katz. Perhaps on a dedicated Freakbeat/ garage thread.
Meanwhile, see if you can track this down. I saw it at the Melbourne Film festival. Highly recommended: http://www.youregonnamissme.com/main.php
Thanks for that LE.
I’d heard about this doco.
Melbourne’s my hometown. I’ll look out for it.
Your post inspired me to put on a 13FE compilation CD.
The boys were out there.
It’s just like Sister Ray said.
JC
thanks for your offer “He’s quite wealthy and single. A great catch for a nice gal.”
v. tempting, but slightly knocked off blokes with drinking problems are so last season. besides, i have nothing to wear to the local asian, and you do tend to get sick of home-brew.
thank god for the blogsphere – every Mrs Bird out there is no doubt keeping the ISP account, six months in credit.
Jo
I was kiddin round. No idea if he’s a panel beater or neurosurgeon.
Sorry to wander off-topic again, but this just crept into my head, and I couldn’t resist…
Lefty E, Katz — since you guys are fond of the psychedelia, are you familiar at all with the hilarious send-up of psychedelic music that the old National Lampoon Radio troupe did on the “Goodbye Pop” album? If memory serves, it was written by a young Christopher Guest and Paul Shaffer, and it contains gems like this…
“Fall with me up this staircase
To a blue electric room
Where towers made of tarot cards
Tell princesses their doom,
And the tears of empty windows
Are the promises you broke
When you ate the magic cookie,
And your brain went up in smoke.”
I swear, if I had something left in my head more useful than the lyrics to “Ogre Battle,” I wouldn’t be living out of the public men’s room at this damn gas station…
Nice one j_p_z.
It could be the “Real Thing”. (Local Reference), until the killing last line.
“… a fallen angel tormented by apes …”
Lefty. This shocking TRUTH almost brings tears to my eyes.
Well it would do if the tears of laughter weren’t getting in the way.
Man this thread is the gift that just keeps giving.
That is a classic Birdy quote!
And I thought intense militarist nationalism and anti-communism were central to fascism…
One of these days everyone will get together and come up with a final definition of fascism that everyone can agree with.
Or maybe:
I think I’ll go with that last one! :p
I won’t press JC… But he might have a confession to make.
How’s this, Tim T
I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone would ever think any of the isms derived from capitalism. It’s inconceivable…. impossible.
A market-based economy is one, which places the consumer as the sovereign element in the system.
Also a market-based system could not operate without a fully functioning legal system and rule of law.
Isn’t it notable that the two bigwigs of Fascism were socialists before giving their ideology a nationalistic bent? Milosevic was a communist before turning nationalistic and behaving like a fascist.
Why is it a surprise to anyone that the isms are closely related, having obvious socialist roots? More to the point why is it so important to distinguish between the two anyway? We know that many more deaths were caused by the utopian paradise Communism was looking for. It’s high time these two ruthless ideologies were framed as inseparable twins with communism a few hours older than the younger twin
I think this thread became far too serious after I checked out of it a couple of days ago.
Kim – I think you should write a post on the pros and cons of defoliating cream vs waxing vs shaving. Probably isn’t a good idea to make it a photo essay though as I’m sure some sys admins might freak out.
I think LPs lack of d*%k swinging makes it one of the better blogs out there by the way. I am put off by commenters that just rant and fall back on the same old arguments. Stoushes with wit and humor and in which people have to concede ground I always find more interesting aggresive rants. That might just be me though.
Heh.
Previous threads on depilation have been quite interesting mick.
Back on topic (I think). Birdy has posted a comment which I think refers to his relationship with TEH GODDESS OF REASON. But it may also refer to me. I’m not sure who “she of the ruby lips” is. Can anyone read, parse, and provide the shorter Birdy?
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/bartleby-the-holocaust-denier/#comment-545
Are you guys still talking about EP? Goodness me.
My blogging semi-hiatus seems to have coinceded quite nicely with the rise (and rise) of the Bird. (Perhaps he’s the dark side of my id or somesuch.) (Or not.)
As you all were.
Birdy’s obviously taking the piss out of himself, Kim. I mean, can anyone still seriously contend he’s some mentally ill paranoiac after reading that?
As I said, he’s like Nietzsche. A ranter on paper and mild mannered in person. Though old Freddy did finally go mad in the end from syphillis so that may not be the best comparison …
Heh. Well I started posting here only a few weeks after EP was banned.
I’ll let you all draw conclusions as you see fit
You don’t think it’s apt to compare Nietzsche to Bird on the basis that Nietzsche was mad???
Au contraire!(My one and only contribution to this thread. No way I’m reading 170 posts fool!)
BTW the addition of “fool” there is a hip-hop expression. I’m not actually accusing anyone of being a fool (or bird as being insane for that matter).
Lefty E gets the Birdy treatment:
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/16/ectomorphic-varsity-karate-sparring/
Birdy really buys Lefty E’s ironic pseudonym, doesn’t he? He also presumed my last post was about Windschuttle simply by reading the responses.
Bright.
Can’t imagine Lefty E in a bow tie myself.
Nah, he’s not the Ladyboy Pantywaist type.
(A friend remarked to me the other day: “Any male who calls female underpants ‘panties’ is a pervert.” Guess that makes Blair a pervert, in her eyes.)
Goaaaaaaaaaal! Thanks for establishing the point, Birdy.
Look at this way: imagine how dull blogging would be without ideological phantoms to hate.
You need me on that wall!
Weathergirl, your friend is correct. ‘Panties’ is what knickers get called in daggy old-fashioned American softish porn. It’s a dead giveaway.
That’s settled, then.
Tim Blair is a pervert.
Well then … perhaps when Blair is released from The Bulletin’s bosom he can apply for a job upstairs on the subs’ bench at The Picture.
Rumour has it that that day is already upon is, milly.
Lefty E Says:
Lefty, I hate to break the news to you but there is no war nerd, or at least no gary Brecher. And the cut out portroit of horrid looking Gary Brecher only exits on the web. Gary B is a made up name for Mark Ames see link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ames)
He was outed in the most hilarious way. Gary has been very critical of Victor Davis Hanson over his commentary of war. Funnily enough Gary was accusing Vic of the same things you are in your comment right wingers…. gutless, coward, blowhard etc. Anyway Gary is supposed to come from Fresno and Vic has a vinyard in the same region. It caught on fire one time when Gary/ mark was very critical of vic. Vic assumed Gary did it and so mark had to come out and say Gary didn’t do it becasue Gary only exists in cyber world.
So you wanna start again. War nerd is a moniker, just like yours. Theres no fat guy living in Fresno writing about the war. There’s a skinny guy living in Moscow pretending there’s a fat guy living in Fresno who writes about war.
Mark… no offense meant to fat guys here. That’s how the war nerd refers to himself.
Interesting JC – but hardly matters. Im interested in what he writes, not who he is.
But speaking of war etc: Britain has just pardoned the 300 soliders shot at dawn in WWI. Evidence suggests many cases of “cowardice/ desertion” were extreme shellshock.
Interestingly, it was New Zealand that made this inevitable when they unilaterally pardoned their 6 soldiers shot at dawn by Imperial command a few years back.
Australia wouldnt permit its soldiers to be shot. Ive often wondered if that was a legacy of the Breaker Morant episode.
It’s undies or nothing!
And here’s that link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4798025.stm
Surely, they couldn’t all have had shell shock!
At least one must have been an out-and-out coward!
Perhaps HMG should have announced that one of the executed soldiers was not pardonned, but not divulge the name of the still guilty coward.
By these means the descendants of soldiers detailed to the firing squads could have avoided Survivor Guilt by Proxy Syndrome.
This humane measure is in the finest traditions of firing squads, wherein in one of the detail was issued a blank round.
Well, my feeling about WW1 – both sides should have imprisoned their officers and gone home.
But thats class analysis rearing it ugly head – though appropriately: a big part of the case to overturn this has been that most officers who fled the scene were hospitalised and let off. Only three officers were shot, though heaps went AWOL.
Getting shot at dawn was strictly for the working class, it seems. So fuck it – pardon the lot I say. Even the so-called ‘cowards’. Who can blame them….
Not just daggy american soft-porn Pavlovs Cat.
They’re also the one thing that stops me from elevating this Nick Cave song into my pantheon of greats.
The butcher bird makes it’s noise
And asks you to agree
With it’s brutal nesting habits
And it’s pointless savagery
Now, the nightingale sings to you
And raises up the ante
I put one hand on your round ripe heart
And the other down your panties
Everything is falling, dear
Everything is wrong
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on
Damn formating.
Jason sez:
For some reason, since I read that I haven’t been able to get a particular song out of my mind.
http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/ll14.shtml
Like probably a lot of people, I’m curious about Birdy too. So, Jason, please please please write up an account of your evening a couple of weeks hence, and post it here or at catallaxy.
And can someone, anyone, explain the “Panelbeater” moniker?
Don’t get your panties in a bunch, JC: what’s your source for this supposed outing of the War Nerd as Mark Ames? I think it’s quite possible they’re the same bloke, but I don’t recall seeing any evidence of same.
Kate, please stop talking about undies.
I don’t think it’s fair to tar “panties” with the oh-so-softporn brush. That’s just what a lot of Americans call them, end of story. Just like they use lots of other wrong-wrongitty-wrong words by our lights but not by theirs.
“I don’t think it’s fair to tar “pantiesâ€? with the oh-so-softporn brush.”
Don’t knock ’til you try it. I’m thinking a fine Kolinsky sable brush would be more than fair. Depends on the quality of the panties as well, o’ course, and the booty filling them.
Paulus:
“For some reason, since I read that I haven’t been able to get a particular song out of my mind.”
Me too, but it’s this one.
True, and fair enough. Besides, as Fyodor hints, if one rejected ‘panties’ then one would no longer be able to say ‘Don’t get your panties in a bunch’ to people, which would make me sad.
Okay, to be fair, let’s qualify. An Australian who calls them panties is a pervert.
Who will speak up for knickers?
Knickers? Knickers? My kingdom for some knickers!
Gym knickers or lacy knickers, TimT? In a twist?
Why quibble over details?
Someone on this thread has a partner who calls tampons “pantymice”. I’m not going to tell who.
Tim Blair is a used pantymouse.