Not having previously heard of these two sheilas I don’t know much about them. (Ann Coulter & Michelle Malkin)

When I went to read their stuff, I got only as far as their respective photos.

Am a bit glassy eyed after that. They both score in excess of 10.

They’re both certainly glossily groomed and telegenic.

But would they be considered meaningful pundits by the conservatives in the US if they weren’t? If they were saying exactly the same things but carrying a smidge of avoirdupois or not wearing professional makeup? Is there a single Right-Wing woman with a public platform who is not a high-maintenance ultra-fem?

The only way the Right considers them acceptable as public intellectuals is because they both fully play up to the eye-candy role. Who is it again that thinks what they say is more important than how they look?

That’s totally sexist shit.

Craig Mc on 7 March 2007 at 7:39 pm

This is the second time you’ve brought up ancient blogwars (July 2006) elsewhere in response to Greenwald’s name.

You forgot to say “Good DAY, sir!�

Ya smooth-talking honey-dripper, I’ll pay that.

Howard’s biggest micro-economic reform has been a tax: the GST. Most of this is going to fund the state community services and infrastructure that he quoted above. When not being spent on a bit of routine pork-barrelling and paying off the debt

As every cent of the GST goes to the states to spend as they wish, it wouldn’t be paying for Howard’s pork-barrelling nor paying off the debt. Not that the states aren’t beyond looking after their cronies – witness the S11 protester payouts this week.

I state catergorically that I am against any form of rent seeking, and Burke and Grill seem to be great facilitators of such behaviour. Rather than worry about whether individuals are trying to take advantage of government regulation for commercial gain, I’m concerned about limiting the impact of government on commercial activities such that rent seeking becomes less of a problem. Such activity increases transaction costs and lowers economic efficiency, making us all worse off.

You may stamp out Burke’s influence in the halls of WA state and local government, but so long as there are regulations and bureaucracy to overcome or exploit, there will always be willing participants. Sure such behaviour may be considered immoral and unethical, but unless the system changes, it will continue, because human nature sure as hell isn’t going to change any time soon.

I’ve often argued that Howard’s practice is about as far from neoliberalism as you can get, while still paying “the market� lip service.

Since I went out of my way to stress that Howard’s policies had reverted to classic Coalition “centralised liberal nationalism” I am entitled to politely suggest that you tell me something I don’t know. YOu are more than three years behind me on the political learning curve, too.

You also need to bring yourself up to speed with Howard’s ideological revisionism. Things have moved on since your hairer undergraduate days when Howard-style Razor-gangs loomed large.

Nowadays Howard does not “pay” that much “lipservice” to the free-market ideals of his wacky middleage anymore. Pr Q quotes from a landmark concession to social statism by Howard:

There is a desire on the part of the community for an investment in infrastructure and human resources and I think there has been a shift in attitude in the community on this, even among the most ardent economic rationalists.

Howard’s biggest micro-economic reform has been a tax: the GST. Most of this is going to fund the state community services and infrastructure that he quoted above. When not being spent on a bit of routine pork-barrelling and paying off the debt

mark says:

Crony capitalism is right – this government specialises in deals for mates and the big end of town, and throwing hundreds of million at rural industries under the spurious guise of restructuring.

Sure Howard has gone in for a bit of crony capitalism. But that is no crime. No one has been charged or even seriously investigated for criminal dealings over cosy ethanol deals or media baron-friendly laws.

Every government rewards its friends and punishes its enemies. Its called politics. Left wing govts go one step futher and get into crony socialism, witness the bloated union, “community” and welfare bureaucracies sticking their snouts into the public trough.

Whingeing about Howard’s pork-barrelling is rich coming from a self-confessed multiculturalist, the system designed for succouring ethnic lobbies.

mark says:

An ethical climate where Howard can damn Rudd for meeting with Burke but simultaneously say “oh, no, it’s fine for corporates to hire a grubby fixer� is indicative.

An “ethical climate” where even a self-annointed Mr Clean is wallowing in the muck is indicative of the old saw “they are all in on it together”. So why be a partisan apologist for Rudd?

Truth is the democratic political system is dyfunctional because political elites are in cahoots with financial and cultural elites to do the populus over in favour of minority class and clan interests. Some old-fashioned, but well-informed, populism is indicated.

I merely asked the question as a matter of historical record.

Katz,

Fair enough, but I don’t think the author of the original post has done enough to back up her allegation of wrong doing by Burke & Grill, or acknowledged that she cannot back it up and retracted it.

This is the second time you’ve brought up ancient blogwars (July 2006) elsewhere in response to Greenwald’s name.

You forgot to say “Good DAY, sir!”

it’s so easy to get sucked into being pruient and pervy isnt it? but i think you’re right kim, i’m already bored!

so what does michelle malkin look like?

According to The Stealthy Transsexual Woman, several “inconclusive” attempts have been made to out Coulter as a transsexual woman: “One theory is that she was born Arthur Coltrane in Georgia (USA) and had SRS in Denmark as a teenager. A host of circumstantial evidence has been offered to prove that she was once ‘male,’ e. g. that she is 6 feet tall; has brow ridges; an Adam’s apple; big hands; big feet; she has not been forthcoming with her childhood records; and so on” [2]. Those who believe this allegation contend that her sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) was “funded by her “mother, Darlene Coltrane, heiress to a hog-farming fortune” [3].

i wasted an hour on youtube trying to get a clear shot of her hands – but she does a v. good job of hiding them (folds the fingers over) or waves them around fast, and has very long nails …..

the reason being, that hands are a big give away in the “she was a he thang”….as people born “male” have longer ring fingers, and females longer index fingers…..

i actually couldnt give a stuff (as kim & tigtog haved posted) about anyone’s sexuality/attractiveness/gender in relation to their political views – but i really can’t believe it’s taken so long for the bleeding obvious “but she’s a big trannie” thang to take off, stateside.

boy, are americans straight!!

SATP,you must be joking? Ann Coulter is as ugly as a hat full of arse holes,Coulter would have to pay me to have sex with her.I can only conclude you aint no oil painting your good self,but after all you are a country boy and has to get what you can.

But I gotta be honest Steve, looking at Coulter I would choose a nice woolly sheep to sleep with.Of course sleeping with a sheep I would be less inclined to be charged with bestiality,and I would be able, without to much embarrassment, take the sheep home to meet my old mum.If I fronted up with Coulter she would give me a hiding.

My understanding, that I haven’t bothered checking against the enabling legislation is that the CCC is empowered to make findings and confer charges (I’m not sure if it is an indictment or not) the trial of which would revert to the DPP and normal prosecution (albeit with charges in existence).

As for the claim that the planning processes are all red tape, who would have thought business would have objected to regulation and planning. Reminds me of the former leader of the opposition in WA who in almost the same breath promised to abolish all red tape and have better planned, greener, healthier suburbs. I think a little investigation and lateral thinking will demonstrate that planning processes are supposed to delay business and ensure the public gets what it wants and needs.

Not having previously heard of these two sheilas I don’t know much about them. (Ann Coulter & Michelle Malkin)

When I went to read their stuff, I got only as far as their respective photos.

Am a bit glassy eyed after that. They both score in excess of 10.

Won’t comment on Malkin. But Coulter sure looks like a small skinny guy in a dress to me. She looks like a cross-dressing faggot. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-coulteradamsapple.htm

A handsome woman, to be sure.

With the WA Libs being Grilled about Burke, and the Qld Libs printing scandal, you don’t have to look overseas to see blowback happening – but if you must, see Cheney’s DVT and of course (snigger!) Scooter.

According to an AAP report in today’s SMH, he used Parliamentary privilege to slag-off at a foreign company that was involved in a dispute with Precious Metals Australia, an outfit in which he owned a sizeable number of share-options at the time.

The Burke connection is that he and Grill were lobbyists for PMA and involved in some sort of skull-duggery to “fix” a State parliamentary report relating to the company.

Lightfoot is reported to have bought options “within days” of Arfur and Terry doctoring the report and to have sold them only after PMA reach a settlement with the foreign company, well after his Parliamantary attack.

I dunno about you, but this stinks.

Here’s a bloke who holds shares in a company and uses Parliamentary Privilege to target one of its competitors, accusing it of “commercial banditry”, presumably in some sort of attempt to monster-it into doing something. Could that something possibly be reaching an appropriate settlement with the company in which he holds a million share-options?

Needless to say, those options give him a direct financial interest in any such settlement.

And Rudd is said to be compromised by merely going to a dinner attended by Burke.

Right-wing Blow-back indeed.

I’ve often argued that Howard’s practice is about as far from neoliberalism as you can get, while still paying “the market” lip service. Crony capitalism is right – this government specialises in deals for mates and the big end of town, and throwing hundreds of million at rural industries under the spurious guise of restructuring.

I think there is some merit in the point made in the post. An ethical climate where Howard can damn Rudd for meeting with Burke but simultaneously say “oh, no, it’s fine for corporates to hire a grubby fixer” is indicative. And while there may be some legitimacy to arguments about over-regulation, it’s important as well to examine exactly what types of regulation corporates are trying to evade.

Of course, the ALP state governments are up to their neck in what is almost akin to state based mercantilism too. Rudd could make a genuinely innovative contribution by putting this stuff, and corporate ethics, on the political agenda.