An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Am I the only one awake – just after eleven here in the west. All this disaster and loss of life makes other news seem petty. The grief of parents who have lost children and the bewilderment of little ones at the destruction around them makes me almost ashamed to be safe in my home, with my family nearby.
The Red Cross has just launched appeals for Indonesia and Samoa and Tonga. The Philippines appeal is ongoing and help is still needed for victims of the overwhelming monsoonal floods which are extending further in South Asia.
And this is before the catastophes we are told lie ahead if we do nothing about global warming?
True Patricia WA, nothing like this ever happened before I saw ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Now my eyes are truly open. Lets ensure the coal industry receives absolutely no exemptions under the ETS for the sake of the planet and our children.
Miranda Devine buys into NSW Liberal Party factional politics, mourning the sidelining of the hard right:
Linked text
Her star is sinking fast, even on her own side. With Paul Fletcher’s pre-selection in Bradfield, the Libs have actually picked a candidate for a safe seat who is both close to where his electorate is at (small-l liberalism) and who gives them a route back to Federal power.
This will, however, having a good hard look at the elements of the punditariat who have latched themselves ontot eh hard right of the party during the Howard years, like Devine and Albrechtsen.
Bernard Keane in Crikey “Turnbull’s High Stakes Gamble” (2/10/09), mentioned “Turnbull-at-a-gate” – shouldn’t that have been “Tumbril-at-a-gate” – ?
What the world needs is a party…you too can have your very own Micro$oft launch party…It will be good for the economy and you can watch all the disasters unfold online.
What’s going to happen to Malcolm. It are such fun to watch. Who’s the next dill to step up to the poisoned chalice?
I have much coffee, some chocolate biscuits and some popcorn. If it gets much better I might go out and buy a bottle of good dry Reisling or Blue Nun. It’s getting warm enough for my summer bubble-baths again, but I suppose that would mean I have to move the TV into the bathroom, and there’s all those leads to disconnect …
Paul Burns, you could just get a TV tuner for your laptop, if you have a laptop that is. That’s what I do, because I don’t have a TV at all.
When I told my mum I had a tuner on my laptop and that I was watching TV in the bath…she later revealed she thought I had a large fish on my computer. oh dear. sashimi anyone?
Log of Ship’s Dinghy “Kestrel”
The Viscount Turnbull did bid farewell to the Crew, and rowed strongly off awhile but now lies becalmed. The Ship’s Cat was persuaded to accompany the Viscount in case of Rats but now looks forlorn. It appears the Cat’s former Meats remain on the Larger Vessel (Her Majesty’s Ship Memzies).
A worried Cat is a Sad Cat. The Viscount has ample provisions, but could have done without the Farewell Jeering of Midshipman Tone, who abandoned all pretence of Charity in his Remarks enjoining Faith and Hope upon his erstwhile Commander. The Viscount and his Companion will resume rowing at first light.
They are expecting to be run over by a large Merchant Vessel, much in the manner of young gels who go solo on uncharted waters near the Gold Coast.
The Viscount hopes to dream of Gold tonight.
His former crew are content to Coast.
Is it just me that finds the continued abuse of punctuation intolerable?
“An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.”
No. I don’t find it so; the use of punctuation is, as others might say, entirely, a personal thing. You, on the other hand, might be more inclined to use a more minimalistic approach, that is your choice. Unless of course you were referring to some other use of punctuation besides the one quoted.
Unclear, Rog … but Rog … me that finds?
Skitt’s Law …
The humiliating failure of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 is a real slap in the face to …. the Chicago school of free market economics.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/blair-favourite-to-be-europes-first-president-20091002-ggjm.html
Yea ! Tony Blair to be Europe’s first president.
We must be closer to the post capitalist future than we imagine.
rog@9
My weekly agony. I was only thinking similarly this morning. Thank you for raising it. You who raised it, in fact.
Just watched “Goya’s Ghost” on DVD, by Milos Forman who made “Amadeus”. Total movie experience, fabulous plot, gorgeous to look at, explains why the Garden of Earthly Delights ended up in Madrid, features that weird guy Javier Bardem, and provides a head-shaking lesson in the hideous hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Opening another bottle of red for a second look…
Read the Pensioner paper Senior,Nexus Magazine, and held back on Silicon Chip for another day.Big Government Welfare Cheque fizzled really quickly.Like it was a normal one.I don’t understand the non-criticism of Rudd,and Labor States really.The cheque reminded me,that whatever is said about the price of this or that,it will never be the same as the price you pay,as a non-economic determinate.Feeling angry about my own circumstances,of having to find another place to live,which means money, bloody money ,always money!Getting more efficient as a cattle cow handler for calves.I think someone made a really silly comment here,that, the tsunamis and earthquakes are part of the AGW perspective.They aren’t really,and cooling is still up ahead.So I dipped out on giving money to victims overseas.Unlike Peter Cundle,of ABC fame retired,I cannot be everywhere ,whereever injustice shows up.As he was quoted,in type of, upon retirement recently in the Sydney Morning Herald.And no doubt all ABC staff have given generously!
Just when I thought that Joe Hockey could not get anymore embarrassing, I find this article which lists the musical tastes of some of our Federal politicians…I’m not saying any of them are great, but Joe Hockey? Look at his choices:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/02/2702766.htm
Just when I thought Berlusconi could not get any worse (he now wants to sue Spanish media for releasing some fuzzy pictures of his naked guests) I found this on the InterTubes:
The comedian is Sabina Guzzanti who was threatened with prosecution September last year under archaic laws for saying:
Berlusconi & politics, sex, blasphemy, the Pope, comedy gold live on TV–Italy must be a great holiday destination!
Truer word was never spoken.
Rog, would you care to spell out exactly what you think is wrong with this? Can’t see it, but am happy to be enlightened. ‘… at your weekend leisure’ here is a subordinate clause properly bracketed by two commas. How would you have punctuated it?
“Is it just me that finds the continued abuse of punctuation intolerable?”
Seeing as you’ve just grammatically dehumanised yourself, I won’t be rethinking my stance in the punctuation wars on your say so.
Eek! The post currently reads “An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.” (In this case, I’m with rog.) Was it always like that, or has it been changed?
Enquiring minds want to know, Mark.
I was never taught grammar at school, or maybe I was taught it but I didn’t learn it? I try to make sense of rules, rather than learning them rote, and while I think most punctuation rules probably have some sense, I did not have a teacher that could convey that.
It’s kind of like the Australian Taxation Office employee who hung up on me in exasperation because I simply asked why the car-related tax deductions included and option ‘called one-third of actual expenses’..I merely asked why, when all of my other actual expenses could be deducted in total, were car-related expenses treated differently? This did not seem like an unusual question to me, but she paused for a moment and then hung up.
There seem to be a lot of situations with Australian Taxation Law, where the only answer that can be given is, “Because it is”.
/snark
You folks’d prefer the comma after the ‘where’, I take it?
Hmmm, could be a goer actually.
Well, ‘at your weekend leisure’ is the subordinate clause, and is therefore grammatically dispensable. (‘An open thread where you can discuss anything you like’ makes as much sense and means the same thing.) You work out what the subordinate clause is and then signal its grammatical separateness by bracketing it between commas. Any one of the following would work:
‘An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like’
‘An open thread where you can, at your weekend leisure, discuss anything you like’
‘An open thread where you can discuss, at your weekend leisure, anything you like’
‘An open thread where you can discuss anything you like, at your weekend leisure’.
*Runs away*
Oh, I see now why I couldn’t make sense of what my teacher was saying. There is no sense to be found.
An at-your-weekend-leisure open thread, where you can discuss anything you like, including punctuation.
Why would anyone want to subordinate a clause anyway? This world is just so sick.
We could query ‘can’ and ‘may’, too. Does Mark mean that we are capable of discussing anything we like, or that we have permission to do so?
Joe2, never mind the subordinators of clauses; it is the danglers of modifiers who are the really sick puppies.
Furious balancing, it helps to think of a sentence as a piece of Ikea furniture and therefore a matter of correct assembly, using all the parts provided. If Tab A is not properly inserted in Slot B then the whole bookcase will fall over. Unfortunately, there is no allen key.
“Unfortunately, there is no allen key.”
Pah, a hex on them anyway.
Well at least its not full of errant apostrophes that its possible for some people to understand the use of when combined with the word it’s. Its as though it’s brain is switched off when the word it’s comes into view.
Well at least its not full of errant apostrophes that its possible for some people to understand the use of when combined with the word it’s. Its as though it’s brain is switched off when the word it’s comes into view.
Well, “its” vs “it’s” is one of the more arbitrary rules. Basically it runs:
-all contractions need an apostrophe (including “it’s” for “it is”).
-all possessives need an apostrophe, before the ‘s’ for singular possessors, after for plural.
-oh wait, except for pronouns for some reason. When you refer to a possessor using a pronoun… hey, forgeddaboudit!
The only concievable objective of this rule is to prevent ambiguity between the contraction and the possessive form, which context will always make abundantly clear anyway. Can anyone think of sentence where the disambiguation is necessary?
And anyway, since when was English scared of homonyms?
Not that I’ll defend the rule any the less of course. English is like cricket – sure, you could make it more efficient, but that would be missing the point.
furious, it all makes perfect sense. It’s obvious you teachers just didn’t care enough to devote sufficient effort to thrashing it into you.
Fuck! s/you/your/
“Can anyone think of sentence where the disambiguation is necessary?”
Sorry.
If I were half-Russian I’d have an excuse for writing as few articles as I do. But sadly…
Oh my God. Welcome to the Hotel California. A thread of Pendant doom has begun. About grammar. It’s like Bacchanalia for the pendants of LP, all just hanging around – waiting for their turn to stab it with their steely knives, see if they just can kill the beast. Down with this sort of thing immediately.
As previously established I can perform miracles with a flat-pack – Saint Furious of IKEA. Some here have expressed concerns that witch-craft might be involved, but I can assure you I can perform these miracles sans allen key.
As for the Hotel California, I think the # key might have more to do with it, and I’m not sure that even counts as punctuation?
FDB
The words: his, her, their and its are all possessive pronouns so that’s why an apostrophe is superfluous. “Her” of course can also be the accusative or dative case third person singular female pronoun.
Jesus, Fran, the educators really thrashed the rules into you! (We are not worthy … )
Personally, I think the dash is a very underutilised item of punctuation. Perhaps:
An open thread, where – at your weekend leisure – you can discuss anything you like.
The ellipsis also adds some dramatic flair:
An open thread, where……at your weekend leisure……you can discuss anything you like.
“The words: his, her, their and its are all possessive pronouns so that’s why an apostrophe is superfluous. “Her” of course can also be the accusative or dative case third person singular female pronoun.”
ORLY?
My point was that for no reason whatsoever, pronouns, and only pronouns, have a different grammatical structure in their possessive forms.
KTHXBAI!
Cripes James, those are some frickin’ long elipses.
I’d be tempted to elide them with a regular elipsis.
More ellipses, more drama……
Will no one speak for the humble parenthesis? ‘An open thread where (at your weekend leisure) you can discuss anything you like.’
Or a footnote:
An open thread where you can discuss anything you like1.
1At your weekend leisure.
Nobody has mentioned that, there being no principal clause, the endorsement in question is but a sentence fragment.
It’s (correct use of the apostrophe) the weekend – knock yourselves out!
Brevity my friends and appropriate use of the vernacular
And while we are at it ….”Daylight savings” (sic), my arse!
The headline jockey of this report, as opposed to the writer, should be sacked.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/daylight-saving-begins-in-four-states/story-e6frf7l6-1225782543818
And nary a poet among them.
…or perhaps just put it in slightly more populist prose, to whit:
“Open thread. Talk about wot you wanna when you wanna.”
I’m glad that’s been sorted. Apostrophes, in particular, are so hard to stab. Now, what’s been happening on Lazy Sunday?
I’ll go for the ellipses. Bracketsm i.e. [note the poiunts or full stops.
But, when it comes to ellipses do you use (...) or [...] or {…}.
Anybody else got commas, apostrophes, -including those one’s that magically reappear – (or should that be re-appear?) dancing before your eyes before your eyes?
And what kind of spacing do you have to have between the dashes -…- or – … -
{Omits query/question mark or whatever that other thing is that you call it.
Hands up those who think there should have been a comma in that last sentence.
I wish I’d thought of the footnote!
From the lunatic fringe in the US …
Newsmax columnist, John L Perry winks at anti-Obama military coup
John Derbyshire, in We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism calls for repeal of women’s suffrage in the US.
More from Mr Derbyshire:
Just to show that it’s not only men who think the vote for women isn’t a good idea …
Ann Coulter:
I wonder if visiting the US blogosphere should come with a health warning.
And just north of the border Lawrence Solomon is predicting the end is near…
But at least the socialists are back in Greece!
Meanwhile history comes to the rescue of climate change scientists.
Oh, okay, that might be a bit of hyoerbole. Still …
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6862384.ece
And … The OverShadow hath faded …
http://www.theage.com.au/national/costello-quits-parliament-20091007-gmmh.html
I find it amusing, Paul, that NewsRadio is running a promo that packages the BBC citing British and US commentators commenting on the positive signal to world markets that Australia’s 25-point RBA OCR increase offers. Australia leads the world out of recession and the Liberals are still calling this the “bill” for Rudd’s reckless spending.
Truly, they can’t take a trick.
League of The Rodent: the year of the intervention.
“We will decide who comes to this game, and the manner in which they they will play it!”
———–
Should Mr. Howard unleash his exceptional leadership abilities once again and accept an offer to, “sort out the great sport of Rugby League; a game which I have held dear since taking an early interest in the Earlwood Echidnas and naturally enough in later years, the mighty St. George Dragons………etc. (ad nauseam)”, punters will begin calling the code, to which a great many “ordinary Australians” are tribally bonded, RatBall. Johnny poisons everything he touches. Alert punters know this first-hand, the less attentive, intuitively.
“Stuff RatBall!” they’ll say. “My kid’s gonna play Soccer.”
A NRL Senior Executive commented earlier today, “There is absolutely no denying John Winston Howard’s ability to penetrate and occupy a core position going forward in this nation’s psyche. He’s the right man for the job, tough as nails and well-credentialed at leadership.”
Move over Winfield, here comes the Bennelong Cup.
Ratball, indeed. yet another reason for me to have nothing to do with this pontless celebration of male brutality.
I just love the metaphoric penetration … He certainly screwed the country.
This live to air on national television last night.
So you have a civil rights movement that stretches back over a century, ok? A whole body of discourse develops over stereotyping, the most well known of which would have to be the “blackface” which has a whole history of it’s own. And Channel 9 seems to miss that. But wtf, this is Australia, you may well be ignorant enough to miss that or you may not even care, but then you have a history of Indigenous rights in this country you can draw from, and whether you like it or not, you live through it and you listen to the Stolen Gens, and you think about the stereotyping and you hear the apology. Your channel even reports on it. But still, Channel 9 misses that. Channel 9 misses all that ok? And the producers of Hey Hey think it’s also funny to put up the “Where is Kamahl?” sign in the middle of all that ignorance? And it is left to an American crooner, well versed in all his history at least, to tell us how ignorant and racist it all was?
Casey, it says a lot for the sensitivity of senior medical professionals as well. Australia and it’s representatives look like they missed out on crucial elements of important local and world history and celebrate the ignorance under the banner of not being “politically correct”.
http://www.chortle.co.uk/comics/k/33539/kevin_bloody_wilson
I suppose it is hardly surprising from a country where the law actually allows racial descrimination.
Casey
Hey Hey It’s Saturday like The Footy Show are, like most Channel 9 fare, pitched at intellectual antediluvians, and doubtlessly produced by them for greater authenticity. Even if the show had accidentally avoided trading on bigotry of this kind, no person with a shred of intellect or self-respect can directly engage with this material without coming off soiled. One passes Channel 9 with hazmat gear on
While the ethical paradigm attending this outlet and its core clientele are offensive to those of us who grasp the concept of cultural nuance, the fact remains that in Australian society, as in every society in the world, there exist morons with enough money to attract advertisers, and of course, the kind of dreck that Hey Hey It’s Saturday like The Footy Show are costs near nothing to put on at the margin, so the bar is very low. All such phenomena really say is that contemporary society remains inequitable, and accordingly continues to produce substantial numbers of socially and educationally marginalised people.
Thus, if there is something to be said for Channel 9, it is as cautionary exemplar — a reminder that inequality has pernicious consequences.
It was Hey, Hey … and the Footy Show that gave Howard his basic ideology while in government viz: Cretins Rule, OK?
OTOH, the thought of Ratty having some other troglydite neanderthal sub-human throwing up in Howard’s lap live on national TV is too delicious to pass up. (Because you can bet Ratty will appear on it if he’s appointed to the Neanderthal Retards Leaugue. He’d never miss an opportunity for the limelight.
BUt, OTOH, again, maybe the tele just wanted an excuse to put the creep on its front page after not being able to for so long.