*Now with correct Roman enumeration.*
Well it’s been a fortnight so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a 28th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this week so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except Kaki King. Though you can condemn me for not knowing about her til I saw Spicks & Specks this week.
I won’t condemn all media and blog outlets, including larva prod, for not reporting and commenting on the 4Corners this week about the latest examples of Murray Darling water-corruption in Queensland and NSW.
An arrogant spiel from whoever is the minister for water in Queensland, followed by the gormless Penny Wong made it hard to keep down dinner, ready for the following Media Watch..
In need of guidance here.
Should one condemn one’s more-or-less beloved for expressing profound boredom with Scorsese’s ‘No Direction Home’ (other than it’s allegedly demonstrating that one RZ is an ‘utter bastard’)?
The first 30 minutes or so that I managed to snatch between stage-whispered snoring were intriguing…
I’m going to condemn the gummint for trying to slip through internet censorship. Apparently it’s not opt-out, either? Here for more information, from Brisbane Times blog here – if anyone has more info on this, please share.
Kaki King is amazing! Not the best guitarist of her kind I’ve seen, but certainly puts my noodling to shame.
I condemn the number XXVIII. It is neither a prime, a square or a cube.
On the other hand, both adjacent numbers – XXVII (III cubed) and XXIX (a prime number) – have redeeming numeric properties.
Nonetheless, XXVIII is the third (a prime) number in the quasi-Fibonacci sequence:
V, XXIII, XXVIII, LI, … which has two very pleasing primes as its “seeds”, including the number-of-the-blessed-reforming-Pope, and you can’t get much more mystical than that, oh Mighty Abacus.
Abacus and Ambi @ 4.5 +/- 0.5:
XXVIII perfectus est. That’s more mystical.
And, like MrB @ 3, I condemn Stephen Conroy and all his works. Do the Chinese want him back, at all? Swap you for Harold Holt?
I condemn the concept of a turducken.
And Kaki is a pretty cool axe meister.
@4 — but XXVIII is a perfect number! They’re far rarer than perfect squares or primes — in fact, we don’t know whether or not infinitely many exist.
Alan Greenspan:
Well, I condemn the stupid bugger. It only took him forty years to wake up to economic libertarianism.
However, that makes him smarter than 99% of the rest of them.
I condemn Shaun for condemning the perfectly delicious turducken. It has turd in the name, consists of numerous meats… what’s the problem?
I did think of something to condemn several days ago but I forget what it was.
I condemn not only internet censorship but most kinds of censhorship.
I perpetually condemn the Coalition who seem to have got worse not better under Turnbull.
I condemn people who stuff up rosters of Home-Care helpers so you don’t know the day or time they’re coming.
I condemn post office couriers who leave books outside your front door when you’re not home.
Yes, I too like the look of the turducken (in spite of its name), which reminds me of the kind of thing they used to serve at Roman banquets and other degenerate tables. I do however condemn the “word” chestal, as in ‘chestal cavity’.
Yeah PC, much like my stance on txt-sp33k, faux anatomical words are only okay when I’m making them up. Or Shaun Micallef.
‘Chestal’ reminds me of a phrase I read once in abook about canine behaviour. It went something along the lines that dogs didn’t like ‘ventral comforting’. WTF! After some musing, I worked out it meant ‘hugging’.
I condemn FDB and PC for having opinions different from mine. Something I’d never thought I’d ever see on the internet.
Chestal was a word my players used to deploy during D&D sessions – usually interrupting me in mid-flavour-text – to determine whether a room was worth searching for filthy lucre. Because TSR made full use of the thesaurus when describing lockable containers, they would enquire: “Is the anything chestal?”
The Wiki
Glorious.
I’d love to make one of those turducken things out of several layers of f*cking magpies (which I condemn). I swear it’s the magpie zombie apocalypse here, with the mongrels doing their best to extract brains. It’s been 8 weeks now, when will it end?
I condemn – in the strongest terms- the Independent Schools Association for cynically, perhaps corruptly raising the “hit list” scare, just because the government is asking them to be transparent about their funds.
What a naked accountability dodge! I’m sorry, who the hell do you people think you are? Above the law, above scrutiny? This form of accountability is applied – rightly – to any organsiation receiving massive public funds. What’s so special about you lot?
Oh Kim you must see Kaki King live if you get a chance. Extraordinary talent.
I loudly condemn the externalities of garbage trucks, circular saws, squeaky garage doors and drunken idiots for preventing me from getting a proper night’s sleep for what seems like months now.
I demand satisfaction through some form of Coasean remedy. The most efficient means would be a sleep trading scheme whereby a central authority can set a total cap on the optimal amount of total sleep and anyone making noise must purchase ’sleep credits’ generated by approved projects elsewhere. This could be quite the revenue generator for areas of the economy in structural reform – apparently unemployed people don’t have a reason to get out of bed = $$$.
It wouldn’t help me get any sleep, but in theory, it helps some people get more sleep so our Walrusian coefficient of sleepiness (and thus our Gross Average Sleep, or GAS) improves.
Oh and I loudly condemn anyone who questions this logic.
gilmae
I feel terribly sorry for the poor little Garden Warbler; I mean, what did anyone have against her? Warbling in a Garden, for crying out loud. Animal innocence versus human gluttony.
DR – as of yesterday I’m a huge magpie fan*.
An off-the-leash terrier in the park was growling and snarling at a couple of scared kids as I walked home last night, then it ran off as the owner tried to catch it and put it back on its leash. As the old dear was apologising to the kids and reassuring them it’s all bark etc etc, two magpies ganged up and started swooping the little mutt. It ended up cowering under a bench and whimpering. Sweet justice.
*no, not that kind.
dk.au – As the GAS increases, can the little guy expect a trickle-down of some sort? Or is it tough luck unless you live near a public lullaby generator?
But the bustard, turkey, goose, pheasant, chicken, duck, guinea fowl, teal, woodcock, partridge, plover, lapwing, quail, thrush, lark, and Ortolan Bunting were all guilty of crimes most fo(will resist)ul?
dk.au
you may have logic on your side, but it would never actually work in practice.
I invite you to consider its flaws by using an analogy. Suppose WATER were scarce, and the Govt capped water use and invited “users” of non-existent water to “trade” their rights. I said it was in short supply, didn’t I? (that’s the key here). Well, it wouldn’t work would it?
Likewise a scheme to reduce pollution output by allowing polluters to buy some clean air (or some “negative pollution” – look it up, the entry is near “phlogiston”). Not a goer.
What?
WHAT ??? !!!! ???? *&$@^%#(^$^$$$@*&!
gilmae,
ignore Beastie. He has non-altruistic special interests at stake here. No need to delve into the details, it’s a sad, sad story.
You’re right about the others: guilty of fowl crimes. The Beak did right to condemn them. He threw the chook at them!
FDB wrote:
Sweet justice will be when I land a reverse glasgow kiss on my tormentors FDB, I just can’t time it right. I condemn myself for being an unco.
You need one o’ they propellor hats from Beano comics. Maybe souped up a little a la Vyvyan’s vacuum cleaner.
FDB – Armidale is currently inhabited by a strange breed of cyclist festooned with antenna to fend off the magpie zombie apocalypse. If I were a conspiracy kind of guy, this is my guess of what is happening:
Aeroplanes are spreading nano-particles via contrails which enrage the magpies into attacking cyclists.
Nano-particles do not directly affect humans until partly metabolised by magpie.
Magpie injects morphed nano-particles into human skull via murderous beak/claws.
Human suffers major brain damage, fits antenna to bike helmet.
Human starts receiving secret government messages, “don’t panic”, “everything is OK”, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” etc.
I condemn this conspiracy to enforce mind control via helmet mounted antenna. Mine is now lined with aluminium foil
I condemn Kim for not letting me condemn Kaki King. She is a good guitar player, but so is Steve Vai, and I don’t want to watch him for prolonged periods either.
I’ve always wondered what an ortolan was.
Okay Rubie, just be sure to earth the foil to the frame of your bike, or it’ll just store the messages up until the differential charge between your brain and the helmet reaches Tesla’s Complosion Threshold. You don’t wanna be riding around when that happens, magpies or no.
FDB wrote:
Hmm – good advice. What should I do about the dripping fat coming off the foil? I got it out of the oven. In hindsight, I probably should have got some new stuff, but I wasn’t sure the Tesla Coefficient of magnetic flux density is right for new foil compared to baked foil.
On the upside, I now require far less of that metrosexual hair product I’ve been partial to.
In the event of elctromagnetic complosion, I’d guess (only a guess mind you) that the fat would more likely help you than harm you. In any event, a garland of tantalum capacitors at the temples will not only look fetching, but protect you from even close-range narrow bandwidth complosive radiation. But I’m sure you knew that already.
Just remember to divide 1 farad by the number of gears on your bike to derive the total capacitance of your garland, or it will interfere with your Van Flandern waves.
you guys are like really wierd, everone knows you have to extract the fluoride out of the vegemite before you wipe it on your bike tail-lights with the feather of a magpie that died in another zone. you’re serously messing with the spirit-birds of the zones you ride through. like get real. you don’t even sound as if you like LIKE magpies.
FDB wrote:
My thinking is alternating capacitors and garlic cloves worn around the neck, but my temples do remain unprotected in that scenario. I do not want to end up as an antenna wearing pod-person. Is there a newsletter you produce that I can subscribe to?
Fine @ 14,
‘ventral comforting’. I thought it meant farting.
DR,
The magpies down this end of town have gathered in two clumps of trees on the school grounds on the way up to the corner shop. Whichever way you go you can’t avoid them. So I bought myself a suede leather hat of the JWH variety for future protection. Talk about impulse buying.
(They usually have a map in the local papers at this time of year, marking where all the swwoping magpies are in town. Haven’t seen it to date.)
I condemn swooping magpies.
Leon @ 8 -I have always loved the number 28, and now I know why. It is wholly the same as the sum of its parts, no more or less.
I condemn anyone who thinks Sarah Palin would make a good candidate for US President in 2012.
Paul Burns wrote:
Just another piece of evidence towards the zombie magpie apocalypse conspiracy theory. The editor of the local paper has clearly been pecked on the head and is wearing antenna as we speak!
Mr or Ms Cakes at #35, may I just say that you are a commenter after my own heart, cummingsesque punctuation notwithstanding. If you have any comparable advice about rainbow lorikeets, who regularly whisper messages into my ears as they zoom past close enough to part my hair with their little green wing-tips, I will receive it gratefully.
I condemn ‘blonde’ beers
Thank you for this opportunity
Encourage Westboro lorikeets to flock near you, PC. They and the rainbow lorikeets will then picket each other and you should be able to flee unnoticed.
I condemn the sight of former ACT chief minister, Kate Carnell now spruiking for the advertising industry on TV telling us how socially responsible lolly makers will be in advertising their wares to kids in future. Ms Carnell I believe is a trained pharmacist and must know something about tooth rot, obesity, diabetes and all those other childhood horrors … should be looking for a sea change.
BUT she’s yet to conquer the giddy heights of former Hawke Government minister (Education) Sen. Sue Ryan who spruiked for the packaging industry. A reminder to readers that some of these folk want to be exempted from the proposed emissions trading scheme. Then of course there is the conviction for running a cartel.
alas I know only the swooping peck of the parenting magpie, Ms Cat; lorikeets I rarely see, and they never swoop to conquer. hereabouts the other swooper is the spur-winged plover, but it announces its intentions with terrible screeching as it plummets towards one’s scalp: avoiding its lovely little spurs is easy. this plover also spills its seed upon the ground in the sense that it makes a small dish-shaped possie for its eggs, on open ground. little wonder it must attack any who stray near. cummingsesque n’est pas moi. au ‘voir.
i condemn the aggressive parenting of the spur-winged plover, who brings her troubles upon herself.
I condemn SA Liberal senator Cory Bernardi for complaining to the press that women would get late-term abortions just to get the Baby Bonus (because it’s paid for stillbirths after a certain point), and Sen Chris Evans, who you’d think would be less of a misogynistic fruitcake, for taking him seriously. According to the linked article, he’s actually going to get Centrelink forms changed to prevent this imaginary problem, and in the meantime “the publicity surrounding the loophole would also help to act as a deterrent.” Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence in women, you utter douchebag.
HMM, Helen.
If the baby didn’t show, maybe the SS could “breach” those concerned?
REAL douchebags don’t get pregnant
I condemn chardonnay. Or at least opened bottles of same left in the fridge for three weeks. Which I’ve now poured down the sink, and opened a bottle of the *ten dollar* French sauvignon blanc instead.
Steady on, Mr Walter. Sheep jokes are banned on the NZ threads. Birthing jokes may get prohibited here, you saucy old obstetrician, you!
Well it’s your own fault for allowing the air to get into the half opened bottle
Solution, decant into a smaller bottle and ensure no air gets in. I should know, Folks make wine, Italian style commercially in the Swan Valley, without the preservative which produces the headaches.
http://www.wineboss.com.au/Winery/Winery.aspx?WineryGuid=c3b33b17-68b4-43f4-920b-8b1cdc7dcadf
Problem is, Frank, after I’m at the point where there’s a newly opened bottle but not the stamina to finish same, I’m a bit too sozzled to think about preservation techniques! I hadn’t known about decanting, but I’ve got a few perfectly serviceable vacuum pumpy stopper thingies that when too wined, am too lazy to bother with…
However I think I overdosed on Chardonnay in the summer of 2002, and lost the taste for it. For which I am no doubt to be condemned.
For god’s sake Mark, tip the douche cleanser out and have a big, long, cold beer!
For God’s sake Mark, tip the douche wash out and have a big, long, cold beer.
Ambigulous, what these poor old reprobates are into would miscarry a whole flock of these silly, woolly frolics!
I condemn chardonnay because it’s vile and I condemn Cori Bernardi because he’s a complete wanker and Chris Evans for taking the idiot’s bait hook, line, sinker and copy of the Angling Times.
I also condemn the Victorian government’s new proposed legislation, the “indirect interest” rule. If passed, this means that no local councillor who has ever made a submission on an issue can participate on a vote on that issue. Handy, no? If you’re actually really passionate on a subject, it disqualifies you from making any actual difference on it.
I thought Conflict of Interest actually meant standing to gain a financial benefit from something. The Victorian government must be truly desperate to stymie the growing dissatisfaction with logging, transport and water policies, not to mention inappropriate developments like the St Kilda triangle. (Was that what sparked this woeful legislation?)
I haven’t read the legislation, so submission to what is a bit vague to me. Senate committee? State government?
At any rate, of course, never having seen a developer you didn’t like will continue to be a requirement for voting on council measures, rather than a barrier.
OK, found the wording of the Amendment (not Bill) and an elucidation of what constitutes a submission.
http://www.kieranbennett.com/2008/10/brumby-attacks-active-local-councillors/
I condemn Adobe Flash Player and my inability to find plugins (if I have them in the first place) because they’ve stuffed up YouTube etc on my computer and I have no idea how to fix it.
I should’ve done what the nuns and brothers taught me and just said no.
The American Revolution blog I visit had recently morphed into some weird religious history thing called American Creation. But it seems to have come back on line again, though it was never really off-line. So I condemn myself for not knowing enough about the sexual history of Colonial/Revolutionary America, or at least as much as I know about the sexual history of Phillip’s Australia and 18th Century England. So I missed out on the opportunity for some fun. Must check Amazon – so far most of the stuff I’ve found is 1600s
I condemn industry super schemes offering ‘locked in’ punters the chance to play with the big boys in more risky share investments. OK I took the bait and knew what I was doing but getting out has raised my ire. My super fund only moves on punters’ pleas at the beginning of the month and don’t bother trying to do it a la your personal stockbroker – by phone. There has to be a signed form. Watching the market all October waiting for November 1 has been excrutiating, believe me.
Everyone:
I condemn all the well-meaning but naive do-gooders, …. all the hypocritical do-badders …. and, of course, all the land-robber, neo-colonialist, flour-poisoner, child-stealer, black-shooting, closet-racist, transplanted-KKK, boong-haters, pseudo-intellectuals and latter-day-oppressors who knowingly and wilfully use the weasel-word indigenous when they should be using far less offensive words words such as …. Aborigine, Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, T.I., Murri, Koori, Australoid, Melanesian, First Australian, Original Australian, or, where known and appropriate, the names [used by Aborigines themselves for themselves and not the ones applied by pastoralists] of specific tribes, clans or bands.
“Aborigine” implies that one is a descendant of those who first came to Australia many many millenia ago and so deserves particular respect and consideration for being just that …. whereas the weasel-word “Indigenous” merely means that one happens to have had grandparents who were been born in Australia and therefore no only deserves NO special respect whatsoever but also does deserves to be cheated, maligned, swindled, lied about, mistreated and abused.
“You can condemn anything you like except Kaki King.”
(Sorry Kim)
God I hate tapping. A lousy technique that just happens to look flash.
How soon can we send this talentless twerp back to her bedroom?
Or is she going to learn more than two notes before then, because if she does I fear for the world as we know it.
Fingernails on a blackboard sound better than this.
I condemn you mean spirited critique JM. Listening to Kaki’s album “Everybody Loves You” JM, she has melody, rhythm and style as well as plenty of evidence of knowing far more than “two notes.”
There is a good argument that tapping (especially when extremely popular during the eighties) was a cliche and often used to cloud musical inability via technique. But when it was on, as in this clip it could be exciting.
For the record, I do not tap (unless playing my stunt axe).
I drank too much awful vodka last night. I condemn everything.
I loudly condemn the f*ckwits at Microsoftcock for creating some new version of word (docx) which isn’t compatible with the previous one I have at home.
Jeebus, now Mac is more compatible with PC than PC is.
WHY??? WHY ON EARTH WOULD THIS BE DONE???? YOU COMPLETE IDIOTS!!!
Mental.
On the other hand, I applaud Metlink/ Connex for finally growing a brain and allowing commuters to go straight to Flinders St without doing the entire city loop first. Hooray!
LE, go to microsoft.com and download the compatability plug in for whatever version of office you have at home. then it’s done.
thanks Jo, just did that.
I like to vent first, ask question later.
They used to do stuff like this years ago and then when every man and his dog was buying a computer w/windows they decided to make it all seamless – and has been so for quite a few years…now that sales and new customers have dropped off, it’s back to old skool tactics – I suspect a percentage of people will think they have to upgrade their version of office and will do so.
not so much fcukwits as bottom line feeders.
Open Office.
Forget Microsoft.
I might go Mac one of these days. PC/Microsoft really are teh evil.
Hmmm. We might need another condemnation thread at midnight, I think.
And, lo, a new thread was born; and there did gather several Wise Men, and numerous Wise Women, giving thanks and saying “You have given us a Condemnation Thread, that we may vent. And verily our spleens may then rest awhile. Praise be condemnation now, though that Little Babe yon, may teach us not to condemn, if he fails to take up his Carpentry Apprenticeship with his Dad.” And they spake truth.