Saturday Salon

An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.

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47 Responses to “Saturday Salon”


  1. 1 j_p_zNo Gravatar

    MISS CRABTREE: Who was Washington?
    KID: Frist in war, frist in peace, and frist in the American League!

  2. 2 JahTehNo Gravatar

    2nd, always the bridesmaid.

    The HEROC report on gay rights will now be left in the dust by Howard and his compassion for abused children except the ones he put in dentention centres.

  3. 3 Christine KeelerNo Gravatar

    867-5309. Damn you Tommy Two-Tone.

  4. 4 Graham BellNo Gravatar

    All youse there:
    Freezing cold - pouring rain - drought gone.

    Oh yes. 4th - 5th - 6th or something like that.

    Wasn’t Washington a West Indies fast bowler? [ho=ho=ho= exits stage right]

  5. 5 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar
  6. 6 Lefty ENo Gravatar

    That is excellent news Frank.

    Anyone see that Crikey tip that the SMH is allegedly sitting on some royal piece of Rudd dirt?

  7. 7 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar

    Anyone see that Crikey tip that the SMH is allegedly sitting on some royal piece of Rudd dirt?

    Yep :-( I reckon the MSM are all out to get Rudd/ALP because of Ratty’s changes to the Media Laws.

  8. 8 Christine KeelerNo Gravatar

    Latest Morgan poll. Arrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh! Still no change! http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/

    The latest face-to-face Morgan Poll finds that primary support for the ALP is down 3% to 48%, while support for the Coalition Government is down 1% to 37%. With preferences distributed as they were at the 2004 election, the two-party preferred vote is ALP 57.5% (down 0.5%), L-NP 42.5% (up 0.5%).

    On the important question of who the electorate “think will win� the next Federal election, 50% (down 9%) think the ALP will win, 35.5% (up 7%) think the L-NP will win and 14.5% (up 2%) can’t say.

    Among the minor parties support for The Greens is 6.5% (up 1%), Family First 2% (up 0.5%), Australian Democrats 1.5% (up 1%), One Nation 1% (unchanged), and Other Parties and Independent Candidates 4% (up 1.5%).

    Currently, 51.5% of electors think Australia is heading in the “right direction�, 33.5% in the “wrong direction� and 15% are undecided.

  9. 9 Graham BellNo Gravatar

    Frank Calabrese:
    Yeah. I hope it it is something about which Australians would get a chuckle and then forget - like having a zipper problem or selling a car with bodywork full of bog or getting the good oil on what will win the 3rd at Rosehill or telling fibs or being seen talking to Brian Burke or being a practicing warlock. I would love to see the mud-slingers get their own back - right in the face :D

    Now back to matters that interest Australians ….. will Rudd introduce conscription? Will he dissolve the states?

  10. 10 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar

    Taken from the Subscriber only “Tips & Rumours” section of Crikey.

    This report came (to me from a reliable source) allegedly from within the SMH. It suggests that on the day Howard announces the election, an SMH reporter will publish a story about Rudd which, it is claimed, would blow him out of the water. Apparently, the Rudd team is using every means to block it, but it is claimed the reporter is adamant that he will proceed, but only on the day the election is announced. Whilst intriguing, it worries me that a respected newspaper could contemplate interfering in the political process by sitting on a story until the point when it could achieve maximum damage.

    All I can say that the SMH want to be the Shorter Govt Gazette

  11. 11 mickNo Gravatar

    If that’s actually true then it’s a disgusting bit of behaviour by the SMH. There’s been all sorts of dirt out there on Howard and his senior ministers for years that has never been published, and hasn’t been pushed by the ALP, because it wasn’t considered appropriate to do so.

  12. 12 mickNo Gravatar

    On a somewhat lighter note, I’ve just had a haircut and I’m shedding little pieces of hair all over my keyboard. They are tricky little buggers to get out from between the keys…

  13. 13 ArchNo Gravatar

    Ahh yes, hair in the keyboard, the bane of my existance and torment to my better half. Unfortunately, most of mine is falling out of its own accord…

  14. 14 PaulNo Gravatar

    In Crikey, yesterday, the following was in the tips and rumours section, and it somewhat concerns me:

    This report came (to me from a reliable source) allegedly from within the SMH. It suggests that on the day Howard announces the election, an SMH reporter will publish a story about Rudd which, it is claimed, would blow him out of the water. Apparently, the Rudd team is using every means to block it, but it is claimed the reporter is adamant that he will proceed, but only on the day the election is announced. Whilst intriguing, it worries me that a respected newspaper could contemplate interfering in the political process by sitting on a story until the point when it could achieve maximum damage.

    What would this be? Is there likely to be any truth to it, or is it just another young-Liberal having fun at Crikey’s expense? I’m not sure I can cope with the ear-to-ear grin of Howard winning again…

  15. 15 Adam GallNo Gravatar

    I can handle a Howard win, I think. It’s all I’ve ever known as an adult. The party’s at my place if Rudd wins it though. And you’re all invited to the brunch the next day where we can discuss what we’re going to do to make things hard for Rudd during his PM’ship!

  16. 16 philiptraversNo Gravatar

    If as what is being said about the SMH and Rudd,surely that paper would only take that level of risk to itself ,if there was evidence matters,and,it was some sort of moral or criminal matter,hog tied down,and,can only be brought about on that day. He has some heavy-weight friends like Laurie Oaks,who may already know,but for his own reasons could be sitting mum. So if they are building up the pressure in this way,then essentially the man has got a problem,that, in itself he is unable to come to terms with it,and the journoes dont want to carry his problem. I mean,the SMH isnt the Sydney Institute,and Australians generally,vote parties out,not elect parties in.And fearing the populace in what they may think of you,maybe better than being a coffee addict!? Then again bullshit always hits the fan.

  17. 17 LauraNo Gravatar

    Don’t speak of it Adam. You may be able to handle it but I don’t think i can.

    Anyone hear Nicholas Gruen flying the flag for the blogosphere on RN this morning? He was very good. Although I’m not sure Geraldine was entirely convinced.

  18. 18 BrianNo Gravatar

    mick, no problems with hair on the keyboard here, or anywhere else for that matter.

    Adam, I’ve got no choice. I’ve often considered migrating, but NZ and Canada are too cold, and I’m too old.

    Laura, I did hear Nic Gruen and Julie Shiels on Saturday AM. It’s worth a listen.

    But accuracy please, Geraldine. I don’t think Nicholas would clain to be the founder of Club Troppo. In fact he made a reference to the real founder during the interview.

  19. 19 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar

    Originally posted here http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/21/tampa-2007-edition/#comment-378960
    is an example how how the MSM have no clue about Child Sexual Abuse and the Intertubes. Oh and note the mistruths about the P2P being secure and how easy it is to delete stuff so you can’t be caught. All Bollocks, if you have access to the various data recovery tools etc, you can uncover heaps of skeletons.

  20. 20 Lang MackNo Gravatar

    I have done my homework and if the Rodent slimes his way back in, Mrs Lang and I will be in the south Isle of UnZud. I really cannot live in a country, and it’s my country, where such a person will be in control again.Although rural land is bloody expensive over there, the cost is cheap against the agnst that having a person like Howard in office again is too much for us. I have family buried in the Southern Highlands of NSW going back to the 1850’s, but what we intend is to piss off untill he’s pissed of, then come back to where we belong.I hope it won’t happen, but, that’s what were doing. With air travel and the ‘net, not such a big move, a moral one for us.

  21. 21 John GreenfieldNo Gravatar

    Laura

    You had better pack your bags and book your ticket out of here pretty soon. I imagine seats will be filling up fast - David Williamson, Robert Manne, David Marr (we wish), Phillip Adams (again)………

  22. 22 AlexNo Gravatar

    Back in Queensland!!

    Nick Gruen was good I thought. Gave this site a real plug which was nice and well justified.

    Is the Currency Lad a professor?

  23. 23 John GreenfieldNo Gravatar

    Brian

    You’d hate Canada! Canada is Israel’s biggest supporter in the UN!

  24. 24 PhilNo Gravatar

    Heard Gruen on the show, born to be mild. Sounded like they were gonna do it again, maybe a blogger with a bit more vibrancy and excitement about this kind of media sitting alongside would help.

    And yes, Geraldine didn’t have a clue and probably doesn’t want to.

    I don’t really care who wins the election BTW, nice to see Rudd have a go but in the end I don’t see either party doing anything of substance about the big problems in energy, climate, transport etc….it’ll be more of the same protection for the usual vested interests. Coal, motoring orgs.

    It’ll take another electoral cycle before the problems become so intractable that something will have to be done…..just in time for another national emergency.

  25. 25 AlexNo Gravatar

    Michael Costa shows his political genius - via unhinged wingnut, Imre Salusinszky (no link yet)

    When informed there was a consensus among economists on the merits of countercyclical public
    spending, he remarked it sounded as bogus as the consensus among scientists on climate
    change.

  26. 26 joe2No Gravatar

    Just out of interest, does anybody know who does the “Tips & Rumours� at Crikey.
    In particular, the stuff written above….?

    …..”This report came (to me from a reliable source) allegedly from within the SMH. It suggests that on the day Howard announces the election, an SMH reporter will publish a story about Rudd which, it is claimed, would blow him out of the water…..”
    etc

  27. 27 MarkNo Gravatar

    They’re just submitted by readers, joe2. Sometimes they’re spot on, a lot of the time they’re wrong.

  28. 28 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar
  29. 29 MarkNo Gravatar

    Actually, Frank, I think there’s probably something in that, as I was saying in my review of the unauthorised bio of Rudd:

    http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6016

  30. 30 Graham BellNo Gravatar

    John Greenfield:
    Don’t knock Canada! Canada works - turn on a faucet and water comes out; throw a switch and the light comes on; public clocks tell the correct time; pay your money and you get what you pay for ….. Yeah, Canada works. [btw, listening to an intersting Canadian singer right now :-) ]

    Alex , you asked

    Is the Currency Lad a professor?

    Why do you ask? Tell us more ….

  31. 31 BrianNo Gravatar

    On Rudd’s stumbles, I listened to parliament quite a bit last week in the afternoons. In pure debating terms I’d say the Coalition won by a country mile. Labor scored a few points but the Coalition heavies were very disciplined, very bouyed and laying down memes that they’ll hammer right up to the election.

    It’ll be interesting to see whether the public take any notice.

  32. 32 LauraNo Gravatar

    He certainly does profess.

    John, I won’t emigrate if Howard wins another election, just get a shitload more cats & never leave the house again.

    Look, I thought the RN thing this morning was good - not all heavy and solemn and frightening (it was Saturday morning after all) and Geraldine D. was quite positive, I mean we know how disparaging people can be when they really want to get stuck in. And Nicholas said just the right kind of sensible and encouraging things.

    Yes: lure people into the blogosphere with promises of Crooked Timber seminars about Levitt. Then, later, once they’ve stopped buying newspapers in favour of reading 533 feeds by RSS every morning before breakfast, there will be plenty of time for free market threads of doom and debating whether Missy Higgins is a lesbian.

  33. 33 Frank CalabreseNo Gravatar
  34. 34 Enemy CombatantNo Gravatar

    Creation Science Geography on CNN.

    http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/1419/

    2nd image down.

  35. 35 AngharadNo Gravatar

    Hopefully it will prove that it’s Heffo that’s on Drugs

    As long as they don’t breathalyse him, he’ll probably be OK.

  36. 36 Fiasco da GamaNo Gravatar

    Hey, jinmaro, did you pass your test? Lovely day for riding around Sydney yesterday.

  37. 37 ZoeNo Gravatar

    And cats, Laura. You of all people forgetting the cats!

  38. 38 joe2No Gravatar

    “They’re just submitted by readers, joe2. Sometimes they’re spot on, a lot of the time they’re wrong.”

    Thanks for clearing up Crikeys “tips and rumours” info, for a non-subscriber, Mark. This one certainly sounds like extreme twaddle for a least 5 reasons.
    I have no plans to head for Costa Rica, just yet.

  39. 39 jinmaroNo Gravatar

    Yes, thanks, Fiasco da Gama, all seven passed the test. In celebration today the rain gods danced. I upgraded to a 150cc Taiwan Golden Bee, a mystical two-wheeled steed of steel. Pitiless, we swarmed into the forbidding steppes of the Princes Highway, its environs, and beyond, tracked but never conquered by the crazed car czars.

  40. 40 Fiasco da GamaNo Gravatar

    Well done Jinmaro. I thought the Ps test could have done with some more interesting tasks in addition to the cone weave, u-turn and emergency stop, personally. Say, a one-handed wheelie task, a “Great Escape” fence-jump obstacle, tent-pegging, a jousting tournament, the death-defying Hoop Of Fire, etc.
    Anyway, on another topic that’s been irritating me: I hereby put forward the following hypothesis for review.
    Fiasco da Gama’s Rule Of The Comma
    In any comment or forum post, the likelihood of comment coherence is directly related to the author’s ability to properly space commas within text.

  41. 41 LazarusNo Gravatar

    Does that mean, Fiasco, a space after the comma, or, commas peppered throughout the sentence, often, needlessly, if correctly?

    It seems to me that you are a comma pedant. (I admit to a apostrophe mania).

    In either case, da Gama’s Dilemma is a flawed dictum because there is myriad of instances where coherence is unrelated to grammatical correctness.

    Are you one of those people Fiasco who torments staff at a supermarket with a product one day out of use-by-date and after having been reimbursed the 52 cents you say: “it is not the money, it is the principle of the thing”?

  42. 42 Fiasco da GamaNo Gravatar

    An example: “one, two” is correct, where the space comes after the comma, while my rule applies to comments that use “one ,two”, “one,two”, or “one ,, two”.

    coherence is unrelated to grammatical correctness

    I agree totally. Fiasco’s Rule applies to the correct use of the space bar, not the correct use of grammar. Hemingway would be unaffected, rightly, as it’s his ungrammatical style to which most bloggers aspire. Apire to emulate. Aspire to emulate crisply, but repetitively. In the rain.

    Are you one of those people Fiasco who torments staff at a supermarket

    Hm, define ‘torment’.

  43. 43 RegNo Gravatar

    The RTA contractors who run those tests are cards. You spend a nerve-wracking day trying to understand their uber-fast American-inflected mumbles, execute the confusing manoeuvres they have dreamt up that inevitably send cones flying in all directions. Then they tell you the route of the road test, expect you to remember it, tell you if you get lost to go back to base, as if you could possibly remember in what direction that might be when you do get lost, and stress, above all, that you must not, repeat NOT, go below the speed limit on the highway and that you may go above it by 5-10kms. Much safer, they say.Any other breaches of the road rules will result in failure, but not the speed rule.

    Mixed messages. Gotta love ‘em.

  44. 44 Enemy CombatantNo Gravatar

    Congrats jinmaro, although I must express avuncular concern about the extra 100 cubic centimetres that you’re packin’. Did you catch the recent EP post about the road safety ad which features the “Weener Wave”?

    Don’t be led astray by a lair like da Gama:

    ” a one-handed wheelie task, a “Great Escapeâ€? fence-jump obstacle, tent-pegging, a jousting tournament, the death-defying Hoop Of Fire, etc.”

    Such feats are the domain of fools and professional stunt-persons. And, I suppose, people who wear funny hats.

  45. 45 NabakovNo Gravatar

    All you two-wheeled wonders may be interested in this project.

    Was just in Paris where all the Velib stations were popping up almost overnight at strategic intersections and squares. Don’t know how it will pan out in the long run but the design of the stations and the bikes is tres sexy. Looks like they roped in Starck or Newson rather than yer bog-standard municipal contractors.

  46. 46 jinmaroNo Gravatar

    Fascinating, Nabakov. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be dictate that Sydney, Melbourne, etc are long ways from such a commonsensical program, though the day will surely come as population, gridlock and pollution grow.

    Enemy Combatant & Da Gama: rest assured, dear uncles, having to wear a helmut aside, the joy of travelling fast without enclosure, even in the rain, and being able to observe topography, the configuration of trees and clouds, and intermittent faces beating against glass, is enough excitement for me.

    The upgrade was an economy of scale thing mainly. I am 1.83m in bare feet. The bigger scooter fits my limbs better. And I can more easily balance furniture, pets, firewood, dry-cleaning, crates of wine, etc, across it.

  47. 47 Enemy CombatantNo Gravatar

    The “Key Finding” augers well for the planet’s future providing he doesn’t get whacked. There’s also the small matter of formally nominating, although he’s firmed markedly with punters from 8/1 to 13/2 over the weekend. Something’s happenin’ here.

    http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/06/27/clinton_leads_in_new_hampshire_but_gore_would_win.html

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