Thanks to commenter Paul Burns for alerting readers to this bewildering story of Tony Abbott lost in the outback at Kings Creek Station. On a quad bike. With Aboriginal guides. For 12 hours. Really.
Questions:
- Did he encounter a serpent in the wilderness?
- Instead of 12 hours, why couldn’t he make it 40 days?
- Where’s a rapidly-braking road train when you need one?
- Is he trying to emulate Rudd & Hockey on the Kokoda trail, or is this more of a John Kerry windsurfing moment?
- What’s next? Hot-coal walking? Slamming down some Solo fast? Nude bungy jumping?
Whatever the outcome, I’m sure the comedic value of all this will be lost on Tony. He still believes irony is women’s work.
Election years tend to bring out some frayed tempers on the conservative reporter benches, what with Caroline Overington giving a good slap upside ALP candidate George Newhouse’s head before the 2007 poll, hot on the heels of Glenn Milne’s “tired and emotional” assault on Stephen Mayne at the 2006 Walkleys.
So, folks, it’s time to get your crystal balls on. Place your Cluedo-style predictions for the quadrella, in the run-up to the 2010 poll:
a) Which journalist is going to assault…
b) …which public figure…
c) …at which venue/event, and…
d) …for what reason?
Winner receives one free internet!
I’ve never had much patience for, or interest in, Labour Unions. But recent events have given me pause. So this post is an attempt to triangulate between two hot-running issues of the summer: the late, unlamented roof insulation scheme, and the chaos of serial college collapses in Australia’s vocational and languages education sector.
I’d like to know if we are seeing, in the deaths of insulation installers, and bashed and murdered Indian students, the tangible outcome of freewheeling market-led policies in under- and un-regulated markets. In short: where are the Unions?
The Australian’s editor today is boringly predictable in their attempts to characterise the roof insulation scheme as a failure of big-government schemes and bureaucrat-led service delivery. But that shoe doesn’t fit: no public servants were harmed in the installation of this roofing material. The whole set-up was a Workchoices wet-dream, with risk and cost systematically managed downwards to the base of the pyramid: Marketing companies won the installation contracts, hired contractors to provide the service, who hired sub-contractors to do the work, who brought in the neighbour’s kids to go up into the crawlspace. So instead of the comically slow, instransigent, late-arriving government servicepersons of 20th century legend, the ALP unleashed a lean, efficient, 21st century employment market that could put young men in harm’s way with unparalleled efficiency and speed.
Continue reading ‘If it weren’t for the Union…’
Former Dancing With The Stars contestant Pauline Hanson has reportedly told a couple of magazines and newspapers that she’s put her home on the market and is maybe, possibly, thinking about moving to merrie olde England, for which she can obtain immigration rights through her father’s side of the family.
Of course, individuals have all kinds of private and personal reasons for emi/immigrating, although few of us tend to muse about them publicly with journalists or have them ricochet around the national media. But that’s all down to Hanson’s public history in this country, much of which is common knowledge, some of which is folklore; and very few people to this day know where all the bodies are buried.
The Chief Undertaker of Hanson’s political career was one Abbott, A.J.T. (Liberal, Warringah). The manner in which he went about her political assassination had all the hallmarks of a Da Vinci Code plot, without the ethics or restraint. SkepticLawyer made this comment on another thread, which I reproduce below for the fold for consideration. Continue reading ‘Hanson goes “home”?’
Today I attended the debate between UNSW computer scientist Dr Tim Lambert (author of Deltoid blog) and Lord Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.
The venue was the Hilton Hotel Grand Ballroom, and attendance was about 60% of capacity, that is roughly half the number of people who attended last time I was there, when it was packed to 120% of capacity for the launch of MySpace (remember MySpace? Neither do I…)
At any rate, I am pleased to report that the debate was indeed just that, a real debate, conducted civilly, in front of an attentive and polite crowd, and well moderated by Alan Jones.
It was neither the rabble-rousing denialist circus some feared it would be, nor an embarrassing excursion into Monckton’s many personal foibles. It was instead, a robust, articulate presentation and dissection of the factual content behind Monckton’s denialist propositions. Both speakers were modest, neither hyperbolic, and both approached the question in an open and non-dogmatic fashion. Continue reading ‘I went to a circus and a science debate broke out’
The below comment is solely the opinion of the author and is not reflective of or endorsed by the publishers of Larvatus Prodeo or related entities.
Today in a glorious wrap-around cover, the Sydney Morning Herald published an extensive league table of NSW schools as ranked by the MySchool website.
The newspaper explained that its actions breached NSW law at the risk of a potential $55,000 fine.
In a lengthy editorial, the newspaper took hundreds of words to express the following principles as a justification for publishing the league tables:
- That information about schools performance should be public, transparent and accountable.
- That the government has no business interfering with a free press.
- That members of the public are entitled to make their own decisions about whether and how they wish to use the information.
Now these are fine principles. You might even agree with all of them. But despite the ardour of the Editor’s insistence, these principles in no way justify publishing the league tables as they did.
Continue reading ‘Hit ‘em where it hurts’
In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court has brought down a ruling that puts paid to the existing framework for campaign financing, enabling unfettered donations and financing for corporations and labor (sic) organizations (sic).
Unless Congress finds a way to regulate campaign financing in a manner that the SCOTUS finds Constitutionally acceptable, there can be no legislative roadblocks to the buying and selling of candidates and legislation.
At last, all Americans have achieved equality before the law: One Dollar, One Vote.
Well, at least it’s out in the open now. The legal inviolability of corporate personhood ensures that Flesh-Americans can have all the freedom they want, as long as they don’t tread on the toes of the Leviathans who will henceforth determine who governs and what laws they enact.
This Democracy is proudly brought to you by the good people at Blue Cross, Altria, Exxon, Pfizer, the NRA and Wal-Mart.
In view of the charming thread that has resulted from Legal Eagle’s discussion of earliest political memories, let’s open a computer-related thread.
Prolly anybody born from about the mid-70s onwards had some encounter with computers during their childhood or adolescent years. But mebbe some of our more senior readers were “fortunate” enough to encounter some kind of punch-card contraption in a gentler era?
I’ll go first: The P&C at our primary school managed to scrape together some funds to buy a batch of Microbee green-screen computers for our school. For one hour a week, we got to have a go.
Continue reading ‘Geek corner: earliest computer memories’
Spaghetti bolognaise. We’re doin’ it wrong.
The Times reports that the culinary archons of Bologna would like to inform the world that they, and only they, have the definitive, traditional recipe. Anything else just isn’t spag bog.
Since any popular traditional dish becomes subject to many, err, creative variations, based on local kitchen conditions, ingredients and chefly competence, I invite readers to nominate their favourite bastardised dish.
My vote is for tuna mornay. I can’t get enough of the glug.
So LP denizens, fire up your flat-bottomed electric woks and tell us which
culinary travesty has stolen your heart!
I claim no special authority in the geopolitics of this subject. I’d like to promote fair-minded proposals of the “now what?” variety.
First, a disclosure/confession: Yes, it is ghoulish, and presumptious, and all those terrible things, to begin discussion of this topic while they’re still pulling victims from the rubble. I guess I’m just acting on the eternal human need to try and make sense of blind cruel disaster, so please forgive me the impulse. Any denunciations you wish to make for even raising this topic will only be agreed to, and doubly so, by me.
What’s the best solution here? A Marshall Plan/Berlin Airlift scenario? UN/US takeover of the country? Full-scale evacuation? Nothing so dramatic? None of the states affected by the 2004 tsunami collapsed, not even Burma; but is Haiti more vulnerable to anarchy? Do we even have a schema for such a benighted country being dealt what could be a mortal blow by the fist of nature? There are 10 million Haitians. What can they do now, where can they go, and how can the world help?
Update: [by MB] New post citing disturbing reports about aid being blocked by the US military’s control of the airport at Port-au-Prince.
Due to an unforeseen technical side effect of the Federal government’s forthcoming internet filtering regimen, an online article reviewing the year 2010 has fallen into a wormhole in the intertubes, giving us all a glimpse of the year ahead.
However, the article did not survive its temporal dislocation unscathed. It is also not clear from which publication this review originated. I have indicated the gaps in the text with letters below. Can LP denizens please assist to recreate what the original text will-have-been as it once-might-was?
Please use the letter key to list your suggested answers in the comments:
—–
2010: The year we finally (a)____________!
Continue reading ‘2010: The Year in Review’
Apart from aforementioned schadenfreude, is there anything worth celebrating about the LNP’s SNAFU, FUBAR and BOHICA moments in their preselection for the seat of Macpherson in Queensland?
I shall pre-empt the next Open Condemnation thread and condemn myself for being so chuffed.
But seriously, I’d like to know if any good can come of this in terms of governance north of the Tweed or in Canberra?
And if anyone can contribute other military acronyms to describe the LNP’s predicament, please go right ahead…
It’s time to talk about Victoria.
It’s become clear since yesterday’s arrests that the alleged terrorists have one thing in common. One thing that the PC-obsessed, ALP-controlled, ethnic-loving media are too scared to talk about.
They all came from a state with a history of violent separatism dating back to 1854. Their home territory has been torn apart by lawless crime-gangs, random gun violence, racist street thugs and strident voices preaching hatred.
You know what I mean. Even the name carries triumphalist overtones of world domination.
Continue reading ‘Victoria, we have a problem’
Hello world. It’s your friendly neighbourhood denialist here. Look, we need to talk. I think we got off on the wrong foot. You’ve got me all wrong. I’m really an open-minded guy. All I’m asking for is evidence of your AGW claims. Surely that’s not too much to ask?
And please note, that when I say evidence, I mean:
1) Nothing that was recorded by instruments such as weather-stations, ocean buoys or satellite data. Since all instruments are subject to error, we cannot use them to measure climate.
2) Nothing that has been corrected to account for the error of recording instruments. Any corrected data is a fudge. You must use only the raw data, which is previously disqualified under rule #1. Got that? OK, moving along…
3) Nothing that was produced by a computer model. We all know that you can’t trust computer models, and they have a terrible track record in any industrial, architectural, engineering, astronomical or medical context.
4) Nothing that was researched or published by a scientist. Such appeals to authority are invalid. We all know that scientists are just writing these papers to keep their grant money.
See? I’m a reasonable guy. I’m perfectly open to being convinced by real evidence — you know, the kind that doesn’t rely on scientific instruments, or corrected data, or computers, or results recorded by other scientists. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I’m sure you’d agree that any evidence which meets my criteria would be extraordinary indeed.
Continue reading ‘The rules’
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