Well, we haven’t condemned for ages, so it must be long past time again to condemn. Here’s a 41st open condemnation thread. What’s been worthy of condemnation in 2009? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except Sarah Blasko.
In which Casey condemns the break up of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
I mean, really. Who could agree to it?? I say NO to this break up.
I condemn the blithering idiot on ABC 1 who replaced Kerry O’brien with Chris Uhlmann on the 7.30 Report for the holiday period. Uhlmann’s interview of the WA Fire bloke was wooden in the extreme. And in his interview of the Federal Labor Minister responsible for security he could not keep his RWDB political prejudices under control. He was so eager to “get” the Minister he forgot to outline to his TV audience the basis of his questions – something to do with staff airport security passes, I gather; I, for one was utterly bamboozled about what Uhlmann was trying to get at. A very big fail. Message to ABC Current Affairs. When it comes to the crunch, the guy is not up to the job.
I really must condemn Christmas and Santa, only because there hasn’t been a good war against Christmas and Santa bothering since the early part of the decade. Those were the days.
I condemn Microsoft for installing all sorts of nonsense updates which slow down my eeepc. And I condemn bronchial infections during the festive season.
And, for 2009, I condemn increased electricity prices, increased rents, the failure of the Copenhagen Conference, the inadequacy of Rudd’s ETS, the existence of Tony Abbott, the destruction of Malcolm Turnbull (though not entirely), the beat up and political cowardice about asylum seekers, the dreadful Wednesday night TV on ABC1, RWDBs everywhere, bad-mannered and argumentative people at dinner parties, noisy neighbours, dust storms, bush fires, nearly choking to death, garrulous politicians trying to play politics on Q&A of whatever party.
I’ll probably come up with more later.
Oh, and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
I condemn being on holidays and forgetting to go to the supermarket before it closes.
Oh why? Of all the troofers, he was out there. BTW, Daggett on his bloggett, is still complaining about PMS bloating of the thread, and is, inexplicably, calling Mercurious “Barry”.
I mean, why “Barry”. Why not “Irwin” FFS. ????
I condemn him for not letting me do his chart and therefore providing us with an answer to the mystery of the Daggett.
OMG, is the D word now a no no?
The moderation this Xmas is severe folks.
I condemn lazy climate change skeptics, who spend far too much time trotting out trash argumentation that just gets in the way of helpful discussion and I condemn the even lazier media that gives them airspace
I condemn my body clock for not being easy to reset after a double whammy of night work and jet lag.
I condemn ugly Christmas lights.
I condemn ugly Christmas relatives (not just mine — yours too).
I condemn the Christmas Fridge Problem, which would appear to be solved by the New Year’s Eve Party, except that I seem to need more food!
I condemn the emptiness of the Christmas box of cherries.
I condemn Wikipedia for saying that “Va, pensiero” wasn’t the anthem of Italian reunification.
Comdenare…a drought of Colin Firths…
I condemn how the debate about climate change has been bastardised and simplified so that it is about those who are Correct and those who are Wrong. In this country Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong bear a large burden of responsibility; a vacuum has been created in which the likes of the Australian newspaper have leapt in and reaped much havoc.
I condemn not condemning condemned buildings.
Oh and anything the Fibs put out as policy.
And condiments,just cos they sound condemning like.
Have a good 2010
there’s no doubt
this is the time of the year
to get out and about
I condemn gout
I’ll condemn the NUS, for being rather useless and now dead. Guilds gotta do it for themselves now… cheers for that, Young Labor kids.
I condemn people who can’t wait until pedestrians have completed crossing the road and roar over the crossing when they get to half way. Uncivil.
I condemn being old enough to understand at last why my parents’ generation’s Christmas cards always seemed to be just one long catalogue of illnesses, accidents and operations.
I also condemn the weather* (to say nothing of the climate).
Also, what Paul Burns said at #2, and I mind the RWBD aspects of Uhlmann’s performance less than I mind its sheer inadequacy. But there’s a bright side there, which is that he made Albo look really good.
*41 degrees in Adders and she’s making meringues for a communal New Year’s Eve dinner, because she has promised Eton Mess and bought meringues are horrible.
I must condemn Sarah Blasko’s lyrics. “Hurt like a bird on a wire” makes no sense at all. Compare Regina Spektor’s “Two Birds [on a wire]” which breathes life into this metaphor.
I condemn the act of driving on beaches.
Every year around the year end holidays many tourists purchase a beach driving permit for $30.
This allows them to pound up and down many beaches across 3 council areas here on the mid north coast.
The stream of thousands of heavy 4WDS compacts the sand crushing all life out of them.Plus they seem to think a permit also allows them to leave litter behind.
Maybe I should condemn the councils for not setting a prohibitive price on the permits – say $500?
If you love the ocean and our beaches leave your car at a car park and walk along the beach.
I condemn the relative apparent bonhomie at New Year’s Eve …
Mmmm… Eton Mess.
Possibly the best dessert never to contain chocolate.
I condemn thunderstorms forecast when you’re planning an outdoor party.
I condemn the powers that be for sacking this guy instead of giving him a pay rise.
I condemn Sydney NYE fireworks. Overwrought and overdone. I know it is good for the economy but NSW ALP need to understand that half the state would turn up to watch a single firework going off if it was inserted in the proper place in Tripodi.
I condemn underpants bombers. No, wait, I mean, underpants gnomes. Oh, never mind, I give up.
No it isn’t … there’s no evidence that it does the slightest bit of net good. I condemn you for underpinning one of the more persistent pieces of economic logic-chopping.
What’s “good” for the economy is what serves human needs efficiently.
Fran: totally agree with you. I condemn myself for unthinking replication of ridiculous propaganda and sentence myself to re-education on farm with lentil diet and recital of Gaia catechisms hourly.
Happy NY to you.
What Margi and Nick said.
A few days ago I had someone claim to me that climate change is a money grab by the science fraternity.
Gobsmacked didn’t even begin to describe what I thought…
Isn’t he Norbert’s brother?
I condemn ants for sucking the life out of my strawberries and infesting one of my sweetcorns.
I condemn snails for chewing my sugarloaf cabbages into lace.
I condemn whatever bug is de-leafing my fruit trees.
I condemn idiotic councils and state governments for approving extraordinarily idiotic marina developments which trick elderly (and brainless) GSPs into leaping into the water, unbeknown to their owners, and consequently having to spend hours swimming in circles before escaping and staggering home, while the aforesaid owners are getting heatstroke looking for them in snaky scrub.
Finally, I condemn GSPs for being dogs of miniscule brains.
Oh and a happy, healthy, prosperous and whatever else your heart desires, new year to all LPers.
I condemn parents who let their kids run around screaming their heads off and annoying everyone else at expensive restaurants.
I also condemn people are persistently unkind despite me already pointing it out on prior occasions.
I condemn Apple for not convincing Mark @4 to buy an iMac
(And I condemn Microsoft.)
I condemn Mark, of little faith, for subjecting his weeeeeeepc to a world without linux.
And I condemn Apple for being so secretive about the iSlate (while congratulating joe2 on the distancing from WinHastaLaVista7)
(Ducks for cover from an expected “PC attack”, which I also condemn in advance!)
I condemn baggage handlers at all airports. Surely those who check in earliest should not be punished on arrival by having to wait the longest for their luggage to appear?
I also condemn security guards at music festivals who refuse to allow cameras worth the name into the premises on the basis that they look ‘semi-professional’.
I condemn whoever it was who nicked both of my raincoats at the start of the wet season.
I condemn myself for forgetting to buy a new raincoat when I was shopping earlier today.
I condemn whatever it is that *makes* you forget the words when, with guitar in hand, you are entertaining the troops on NYE. I also condemn that same whatever it is that *forces* you to change key when the keyboard player is staying true to the one you both started in.
It couldn’t have been the alcohol, so it must have been a bad prawn.
Happy NY everybody.
Here is a real condemn. People reading this blog in NSW who follow the local news will probably have heard that a 21-month old child died after two men who fled the scene of an East Hills liquor store robbery and were pursued by the police on the motorway collided with the back of the family Subaru. At the time of the collision a number of police cars were involved and a police helicopter.
Now anyway you slice it, the two alleged offenders were not all that good at risk trading. Two guys who think holding up as liquor store and fleeing with about as much in cash and gods as they could make in a week of mowing lawns or distributing spam into people’s letter boxes ($1265 plus two bottles of whiskey) are not the kind of people to make good decisions when at the wheel of a car being pursued by the police. Post-collision, one of them got out and tried to hijack another vehicle, only to be knocked down. He’s in hospital.
My question is — what possessed police to pursue such a dangerous pursuit, particularly after the police helicopter had them under surveillance? Pulling back, allowing them to get a grip on their emotions and to entertain the illusion that they could dump the car and escape on foot would have been more sensible, but it seems the police were little better at risk trading than the two crims. They gambled with the lives of the public and, not surprisingly, lost what they had no business gambling with, given especially that the robbery in question was committed without injury by two obvious dimwits.
It’s simply madness that the cost of preventing the remote chance of a similar such robbery has proven to be a human life.
I absolutely condemn …
I was just thinking the other day that it was a while since we’d had a Condemn. Thanks, Mark!
I must say, though, I don’t much care for the Sarah Blasko song, particularly as the title led me to believe I’d be hearing a proper Bird on a Wire.
I condemn realy, really, really boring John Wayne movies like Tycoon. In fact, I probably condemn most John Wayne movies.
Is that wise Paul? I hope you are a fast draw.
The Shootist wasn’t bad, Paul, but by the time he made that he’d (almost) learnt to act.
Rewi, let me further condemn airports that don’t let you sit with passengers until they board. I spent yesterday morning trying to comfort and reassure my extremely anxious son from behind a plate glass window. Airport procedures seem to be morphing rapidly into a kind of collective punishment.
Watch the great John Ford Westerns, Paul. ‘The Searchers’ is an absolute masterpiece of framing and rhythm. And you get Wayne as a psychopath as well.
Art imitates life, Fine?
I condemn myself for not having much to complain about, btw.
I also condemn my job for starting again tomorrow.
I condemn myself for having so much to complain about at the moment that I can’t even get started and anyway it’s all too serious and shitty to go into on a lighthearted thread.
I’m back at the bottom, big time, and there’s nothing for it but to write a song methinks.
Okay, most John Wayne movies. Last night’s was a shocker. I rarely turn the TV off in disgust, but I did last night. Lost count of the number of times I’ve seen Jaws.
I condemn TV when its boring.
(Maybe the ABC will screen The Searchers in their John Wayne season, but I won’t hold me breath.
On the subject of songs, Hubby and I were watching Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973) last night and it turns out he thought the key line in Suffragette City ran
There are whole sites devoted to ostensibly misheard lyrics, some of them very amusing, albeit not that credible. My own favourite was from another Bowie hit … Clown control to Mao Tse-tung
Honourable mention from a Jay Geils’ hit my anus is a centre-hole
A real one for you from my own collection Fran:
“I’ve been a gambler, but I’m nobody’s fool
And I’m Sean O’Something, Sean O’Something
You showed me things they never taught me in school
And I’m Sean O’Something, Sean O’Something
No one can make me feel the way that you do
And I’m Sean O’Something, aha”
I condemn being moderated in the ‘open’ Saturday thread. Is this some kind of post-truther thing?
furious balancing @ 50,
I thought it only happened when you mentioned John Wayne movies. (Don’t know what John Wayne movies did – think it was before my time, but I condemn them for whatever they did, anyway.
So the duke playing himself, Fine?
I condemn the Sydney-Casino XPT for arriving at Casino on the evening of Eednesday 30 December 2009 after all the pubs had shut.
I also condemn all the pubs in Casino for closing on the evening of 30 December 2009 before the XPT arrived.
Bird of paradox #17, any updates on the NUS situation?
My take on it is that if we still had a Coalition government, or even a Coalition which was electable, the NUS Conference debacle would not have happened, as the Labor faction leaders’ own employment prospects for the year or so ahead would not be so sanguine that they could afford to have NUS National Conference conclude without electing some of them to paid positions.
Update here.
I’m with you, Paul. In fact I condemn all pubs that close at inconvenient times for thirsty travellers. (Actually, there used to be a law that meant if you were a bona fide traveller, you could knock the publican up for a beer and a feed at any time of the day or night. Does that still apply, or did it go the way of the six o’clock swill and publicans who still live on the premises?)
Though unaware of the old convention you mention DI(nr), I tried my luck with that one, successfully, *cough* years ago. It was a country pub combined with a servo, and me and some mates had just put on a NYE party in the bush near Margaret River.
5 in the morning on about the 3rd, under various influences but finally out of alcohol and food at the
disaster areaparty site, we decided an expedition was in order for a few slabs and some greasy food. And sure, there were pies in the warmer at the servo, but I made an impassioned plea for bacon and eggs and bloody maries for the 6 of us, and three slabs to go. I guess something about the cheeky twinkle in my dilated eyeballs must have stirred the lady’s heart, and half an hour and $300 later we were set for another two days of not clearing up.I’d say she went to some not inconsiderable legal risk there.
Fran @ 48:
For too many years I wondered why Juice Newton sang this immortal lyric in Angel of the Morning:
…”Just brush my teeth before you leave me, Baby…”
It’s obvious, terangeree – who wants morning mouth?
Indeed. If she had morning mouth we could, like Manfred Mann and Rod Stewart, sing that:
“when she walks by she frightens half the neighbourhood…”
Apropos which, Paul, I condemn Rod Stewart for having turned into a wanker in about 1973.
I really enjoyed his work with Jeff Beck and the Small Faces, but since then …
I’ve been waiting so long for this – I condemn Miranda Devine and her guru, Piers Akerman. May they engage in a long morris dancing competition in the outer Hebrides for the foreseeable future and never darken our shores again!
I condemn the proliferation in development jargon of the non-word ‘trainings’.
Yeah, yeah, language evolves, blah, blah.
I’m yet to see how the title ‘Advanced Training in (insert course name here)’ is vastly improved by being re-cast as ‘Advanced Trainings on’, or how ‘The Advanced Trainings explore’ is better than ‘The Advanced Training explores’.
I condemn myself, also, for in truth not being so fantastically endowed with grammatical skill as to justify such pedantry.