Well, we haven’t condemned at all in 2010, so it must be long past time to condemn again. Here’s a 42nd open condemnation thread. What’s been worthy of condemnation this year so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except French po/mo vampire movies and their soundtracks.
Yayyyy I’m first: Amazon.com for me being the honest online citizen and alerting them to a bug that allowed free downloads of books through their Kindle for iPhone app, and receiving back an Indian call centre response advising me on how to electronically pay for books.
I condemn Channel Nine’s incompetent and ethically challenged Winter Olympics commentators (with the partial exception of Alisa Camplin who at least knows her stuff but who needs to, when commenting, put some emotional distance between herself and her estwhile teammates in the aerials).
Rupert (not the bear).
As always…
I condemn stay at home dads who will not go to parent’s groups numerically dominated by women because they “want to have a real conversation”. Sad.
Paul Norton- We could ask the question “Why was Eddie McGuire put in there?”
But we both know that’s one of those age-old questions with no comprehensible answer.
Channel Nine’s coverage of the Winter Olympics needs to be roundly condemned.
But it has further knock-on effects, as it says to the punters who can afford FOXTEL (and to some who really can’t) that the only way to get decent sports coverage is to get FOXTEL. And this will see sports coverage on free-to-air broadcasters get even worse (this cycle is already happening, and access to sports is absolutely the primary driver of the decision to get FOXTEL.
In case you are thinking, “Well, a pox on all their houses”, the other thing to note is that homes with cable also watch a lot less ABC and SBS. They kind of leave the free to air universe.
Its a bit like how Albert Hirschman described the middle class flight away from public schools in the U.S. in the 1960s.
I condemn the lack of worldwide acclimation of the genuis of The Tindersticks …
The “James Hansen coming to Australia” thread reminded me that P.Z.Myers (Pharyngula) is coming to Melbourne to speak at the Atheist conference. I strongly condemn the Victorian government for funding the Parliament of World Religions conference to the tune of $4.5 million but refusing to fund the Atheist conference. the result was that the conference organisers cautiously booked a too-small venue so none of us will be able to go and hear P Z, unless we already booked a few months ago. Shame on you Vic government.
Dylwah, that’s sad yes – do you know people who actually say that!?
Had to think about what to condemn as I got waylaid by enjoying the Tindersticks track that I somehow missed hearing ever before. OK. I condemn ugly slapped up buildings where no thought has been given to aesthetics or comfort. I condemn public areas developed with no regard for pedestrians.
Dylwah, are they the same ones that write into Sydney’s Child
ish Parentscomplaining that they don’t feel accepted at playgroups? As a friend of mine has been saying to his six-year-old daughter, take a concrete pill and harden up.ObCondemn: Sydney’s Child. Pretentious middle-class people telling everyone else what wonderful parents they are while they groupthink their kids into neurosis. Or possibly catatonia.
blatant, but very much on topic ad break:
The new Clare Denis film, “White Material” is screening at the French Film Festival commencing next week. Fans of Isabelle Huppert don’t want to miss it, and neither do Tindersticks fans as Stuart Staples from the band creates a minimal and exquisite version of his own band’s some-loved sounds.
I condemn Dennis Shanahan for referring to Kevin Rudd’s “effete media policy of … going to Facebook, Twitter, light FM radio programs and soft television shows”. This is apparently opposed to a macho media policy of going onto 2GB, or presumably spending time giving exclusive interviews to, um, Dennis Shanahan.
Link for Shanahan, if you care:
Linked text
I condemn the shambolic “non-planning” of transport in Sydney. So many plans, none that stick and few that are sensible.
The planning isn’t the problem, there are lots of plans. It’s the actual building of the damn things that seems to be the problem.
I condemn losing my internet connection for four days.
I condemn the kids who smashed my letterbox with a hammer and who tear up or open my mail.(Reckon that’s a pretty good one.)
I condemn how people are allowing themselves to become skanky, feral and unattractive with obesity, overdone tattoos and piercings, offensive t-shirts, tits hanging out, muffin tops and $9 tracky daks becoming symbols of a sad mixture of traits from desperation to impress no matter how negatively, to a desire to be offensive, to no class or clue about how to appear, to couldn’t give a stuff why make an effort.
Helen @ 8, yes it was said to me at a BBQ this summer. I went, as keen as mustard to meet some other stay at home dads, got that line early and excused myself. I’d condemn myself for not challenging him on it ‘cept, well just ‘cept.
Chookie @ ten, I don’t know, it was in Melbourne tho. I havn’t seen anything like that in the Melbourne equivalent of that advert sheet. if the concrete pills don’t work i can recommend the Tarzan’s Grip Thick Shake. Say it five times fast without laughing and you know you are tough.
I condemn golfers on the Yarra Bend Golf Course who hit the ball out of bounds and on to the road millimetres away from my head.
I also condemn the Liberal trolls who are wasting our time on LP at the moment.
Hey, Robert, they may be Labor trolls working hard to make Liberal trolls look like irritating prats. Anyway, I two condemn dem trolls.
Kim, I’m condemning you for not telling us where you were when you went away to the US of A. I thought you’d been abducted by aliens.
Yes, I know that going away involves more than buying a ticket and hopping on a plane, so you would have been busy.
But welcome back! Missed ya heaps.
Seconded. I have missed Kim’s great contributions here, as well.
And condemn those aliens who clearly whisked her away to America and hope they have not interfered with her vital bodily juices which they have been known to extract with special silver, metal, straws. Bastards.
Ease up Salient – your verging on fashion fascism there.
Anyways, I condemn the music industry. May they sue/circle-jerk themselves into oblivion.
I condemn the YouTube clip back up at the top for not being a cover of the Mothers’ song of the same name. (Don’t get me wrong, I liked it well enough, I was just disappointed.)
I condemn fascism, and ugly fashions.
@22 & 23 – thanks, Brian and Joe2!
I condemn myself for being generally happy, and having nothing to condemn.
Although I can condemn myself for having not gone to the gym. From here on in it’s computer games and beer till dawn… unless Dexter intervenes.
via collins @ 11, thanks for the heads-up, I think the French Film Festival makes it’s way around to Adelaide at the end of March, it looks like a great program this year, I’ll certainly be checking out “white material”. cheers.
..err….to condemnation..hmm, I condemn the TAFE college I attended this week. I have an employee doing some training and I thought I’d go along as well to get a refresher and see if the subject matter was more useful to our industry than it was when I first did it. The instructor’s background was great, but this ‘competency based training’ guff really irritates me. I mean once they run through the stuff that you are going to get in the exam, and skip over everything else, you finish a couple of hours early…rather than cover some more info, or initiate some discussion about industry standards/ethics whatever, we just left. As an employer who is paying for the course, as well as your employees time to be there [not to mention the loss of income from them not being at their job], it’s a really costly process, and they could have covered it in 2 days, rather than 3. I went to a personal interest language course at the WEA this week as well, and everything about WEA is altogether more professional than TAFE – bless ‘em, I love the WEA.
Also, one rather frightening tidbit of info from the TAFE course, there is no licensing of pest and weed controllers in NSW and QLD, so those states at the top of our countries main catchment have no compulsion to train people who are putting chemicals into the environment. I condemn the NSW and QLD governments. If there are safety issues in putting people in to rooves, what about the issues of having people with zero training using agricultural chemicals? Is it just because it would be a slow, painful death from years of exposure to toxins, and therefore somewhat invisible, that there is no training/licensing for workers in that industry? mega condemnation to ‘em.
Is it just because it would be a slow, painful death from years of exposure to toxins, and therefore somewhat invisible, that there is no training/licensing for workers in that industry?
That’d be a ‘yes’.
I condemn the NSW Labor party for yet another Sydney-centric transport plan aimed at the total apartheid of pedestrians and cyclists, never-never urban train plans and the continuation of the tyranny that is the motor vehicle industry while ignoring everywhere outside the Sydney basin.
I further condemn them as they co-opted that clueless little martinet Richard Torbay that is the local member so now we have exactly nobody to vote for. Nobody. The local green candidate is usually some kind of lunatic with a fixation for freaky-deaky home henna hair dye jobs, the socialists are wide-eyed asylum escapees full of conspiracy theories and the conservatives are a collection of Barnaby clones and/or failed serial killers and animal worriers.
Democracy, I weep for thee.
I condemn the ABC for the following statement, and the actions presumably arising from it:
At the conclusion of one of the most opaque articles I have ever had the misfortune to read.
If the ABC were a horse we’d be putting it out of its misery.
Pterosaur @ 33. I see what you mean about opacity. Jonathan Green, demonstrating total inability to quote or use references coherently, while weaving exaggerations about Clive Hamilton, wingnut rants, and possibly some attempts at irony and sarcasm into a steaming mess of pig guts. No self-respecting ABC should employ anyone to waste time on such crap.
And I’m still trying to remember when exactly Fran and Michelle on RN got replaced by Murdoch pod people: I’m still convinced that they were really quite good, once.
Endless pandering to wingnuts and morons is an insidious abuse of our tax money. We need our ABC, but it is the one that grills such people and makes them wriggle. It isn’t this one. If I were it, I’d have gun in hand and would be taking myself out to the paddock (cf. adrian @ 34). I condemn it not doing so.
For condemnation, I recommend the “Technical Support” department of Dell Computers.
They all deserve to be sent to Topeth in a small, open-topped container with two carrying handles.
Channel Nine’s Olympics coverage: 30 per cent ad breaks, 10 per cent Samsung-branded ‘mobile updates’, 15 per cent montages set to music, 10 per cent Eddie talking, 25 per cent half-arsed summaries of the events themselves.
I gleefully await the day IPTV annihilates our commercial networks.
pterosaur @ 33 and AndyC @ 35, all Jonathon Green, author of the article, had to do was use links and inverted commas, preferably with indent and all would have been clear. He’s got no excuse because he’s editor of the fricken site , so I condemn Jonathon Green.
I was moved to Write To The ABC about the incoherent formatting of that article yesterday. I took a a squiz with “view source” and he didn’t even attempt to use blockquotes.
I also condemn Anthony Green, for not having the wit to seek out an ABC-employed geek (or a reasonably savvy 12-year-old) to get the formatting in that idiotic attempt at “balance” correct.
I absolutely, completely condemn this absolute nightmare of a social policy being dreamt up by Pearson and Abbott. May they both rot in Hell!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/opposition-leader-tony-abbott-sees-radical-social-policy-change/story-e6frg6nf-1225834936623
Jesus, Paul! There’s a wealth of madness in that article. Shergold seems to want more of the same, only more so, with government totally abrogating its social welfare responsibilities to the private sector. (OK, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I’ll bet the house that that’s how Abbott will interpret it.)
DI (nr),
They want to take us back to the Dickensian 1840s. Proof that the Libs really do believe in dog eat dog capitalism! Its a good thing in one way, in that its made me realise afresh howw and why I hate the soulless, selfish bastards. My anger is being renewed. This man will be the ruin of this country if he ever gets his hands on the levers of power. He’s worse than Howard. Condemnation repeated.
I condemn Tony Abbott for being a rolled gold FAKER.
I watched Meet the Pest this mornin’ & felt a chill wind run across me as he spoke.
The idea that he was rolled by cabinet as Health Minister and embarrassed when it came to changes to the Medicare Safety Net is such a load of rot.
Abbott is one of the major strategists, head-kickers and influences in the Federal Liberal Party…the idea that he wasn’t aware of the upcoming changes is laughable. What a DECEITFUL character he is.
Abbott is a power hungry man who will do or say anything to win an election. Whether it be providing the knives to take down his own, like Turnbull…or insinuating that Peter Garrett should be tried for industrial manslaughter.
To hear him put on this earnest, weasel word tone of voice lately reminds me of a mortician who has lost a body and is attempting to cover-up by using a voice dripping with fake sincerity.
Or a Priest at a Christian Boarding School that puts on the kind, understanding face & earnest tone as they sit with parents…but once they’ve left he turns his attention to the pupils, scowls and turns into the monster of the hallways.
Abbott leaves me COLD.
N’
As a nation we are condemned for not clearly separating the role of church and state. I believe the French do this the best (and with good reason). This goes to marriages, taxation and so on.
I condemn those who have criticised “Moon” for looking too retro. That’s the whole point. As you’d expect from the spawn of that great pop magpie Bowie, Duncan Jones has been very canny in how he used the whole mise en scence in evoking the spirit and exploring the themes of much classic seventies SF.
It drags a bit in places but is well worth seeing. And listening too as well with a wonderful Clint Maunsell soundtrack.
I condemn hypocrites who throw around the term “Nanny State”.
I’ve noticed that the likes of Tony Abbott & Andrew Robb & a few of their MEDIA CHEERLEADERS enjoy branding Labor as “Nanny State” enthusiasts.
This coming from the same lot who brag about their regulation of the banks, apparently helping Labor to deal w/ the global financial crisis.
The same Liberals who are willing to provide SUGAR known as rebates to help the bad medicine go down…to improve the well-being of private health, childcare & education companies & institutes.
To provide a comfy welfare bed for those who don’t need it to LIE in. Including the rich.
The same Liberals who act like Nannies when it comes to providing sweet medicine for ailing car manufacturers. And farmers.
The same Liberals who like to sternly wag their fingers at women when it comes to how they decide they want to use their bodies.
Who tell off the naughty gays for not changing their lifestyle…and how dare they to want equal rights. “Off to your corner!”
The same Liberals & Nationals who tell us we must go to bed w/out dinner for being so naughty for watching films like ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’.
And who are planning on a US style National Guard that will force youth to do & say everything they see fit. Including going to war…on NEVER-ENDING crusades.
The same who still feel no regret about the forcing of “potentially naughty & unruly boys” into a Vietnam invasion force.
Andrew Robb was heard saying:
“The coalition, on the other hand, believed in giving people their freedoms to live their lives as they saw fit.”
Yes, when Murdoch & the tobbacco & oil barons are in town handing out various goodies…I’m sure that FAUX LIBERTARIANISM is all the rage.
NO LONGER EYES WIDE SHUT
N’
“Make sure the public servants are monitoring the program, ensuring public accountability and then, the most important stage, get out of the way.”
I condemn Peter Shergold and his blind faith in private enterprise to deliver social welfare. And moreso, Abbott for believing this idiotic idea, when just plain common sense tells us, the profit motive should be no where near this kind of service delivery.
Interesting and scary link, Paul, that probably deserves a post of it’s own? People should know just what these arsholes have in mind if they get hold of power again.
Let’s just hope Labor does not match, but take on, this heartless crap!
““Make sure the public servants are monitoring the program, ensuring public accountability and then, the most important stage, get out of the way.”
Interesting inference there that the “most important stage” doesn’t need public accountability.
I condemn Australian film distributors for not screening all of Claire Denis’ wonderful work. And I so look forward to seeing ‘White Material’. I booked my ticked weeks ago.
Yes, Nabs, apparently those jobnetwork providers did not get enough power to beat the the unemployed around, according to whim. They just naturally have wisdom about suitable treatment fore the dole bludger because they run a business themselves.
Nasking, you’re not left cold by Abbott! You’re white hot with rage. That’s incandescent heat you’re throwing off. Though I guess it’s possible too to feel ice cold rage. I share your opinion of Abbott.
I’ve just watched Meet The Press, which I normally don’t, just to see what had actually set you off. I wonder how many people watching noticed he used most of his time for answering questions to slag off the government?
I see he’s dropped his characteristic um’s and hesitation before answering questions. The insulation issue has clearly given him enough verbiage and wallpaper to fill in time while he thinks of how to reply. He really is a piece of work. Talk about a forked tongue.
I liked your image of Abbott appearing as the Conquistador at the round table on the other thread. Your Rollin’ rollin’ thing was spot on as well as funny.
The Round Table idea had already suggested to me iron suited Knights etc. but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to sully their reputation with even a parody to ridicule Abbott and Co. My grandkids love King Arthur and his knights and play dress-up games of daring do legends all the time. So they are heroes and shall remain so. But the dastardly Conquistadors! Now there’s a challenge!
I condemn Tony Abbott’s parents for not using the rhythm method successfully. I still condemn ants and mice and I now add all Liberals to my condemn.
Joe2 at 51- oh come on – they have nice, heart warming stories to tell.
.
http://www.ingeus.com/about_us.html
.
See,they even become multinational corporations doing good all around the world!
.
http://www.ingeus.com/structure.html
I condemn the Sun-Herald and the ABC (with the exception of Lenore Taylor on Insiders) for their inept reporting and incritical interpretation of a rogue Taverner poll on Sunday.
I condemn noodle cafes which serve noodles in non-reusable cardboard boxes (which are also difficult and unpleasant to eat from) rather than porcelain bowls and plates.
Following the loss of my phone on Friday
I condemn the paucity of phones aimed at us late baby-boomers with our presbyopia and want of interest in fancy new phone based apps with ever more complex interfaces.
What can’t one easily get a cheap phone that does err… just phonecalls and the occasional SMS?
I also can’t work out why mobile phone carriers can’t support you in identifying the location of your phone when it is lost or stolen. I’d have happily paid a $30-$50 fee, imposed to discourage frivolous resort to the technology.
I condemn DI(NR) for getting his shades of Green confused especially when he has a name that invites people to get their shades of irving wrong …
I condemn what Disney Studios are doing/have done to Winnie the Pooh.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/who-killed-christopher-robin-disney-thats-who/2005/12/17/1134703644886.html
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-scheme-critic-profits-up-20100228-pb45.html?autostart=1
I condemn Michael Kadoorie and his threat to rubbish Australia around international capital markets.
As the accompanying video clip states closure of Yallourn and Loy Yang( owned by another company ) would remove 25-50% of Australia’s eCO2s.
For an asset which his company bought for $1.84 billion the value of C credits they are being offered exceeds that sum.
His company in Hong Kong is the largest polluter there and they are completely adapted to a corrupt and opaque system of government.It all works on patronage and payback and if that fails threats.
I condemn Damien Hirst and whatever dickhead paid $70 000 000+ for one of Warhol’s screenprints.
I also condemn myself for condemning Anthony Green (a sterling fellow) instead of Jonathon Green. (Thanks for pointing out my blunder, Fran.)