The Daily James

2003-09-24T09:02:00.000+10:00

THE DAILY JAMES HAS MOVED!

RESET YOUR CO-ORDINATES TO

http://www.gravett.org/dailyjames

SEE YOU THERE!

2003-09-22T22:48:00.000+10:00

THE REAL REASON FOR THE BAD ECONOMY: According to the New York Times,

The slumping American economy has proved to be a boon to the Army's efforts to recruit the 100,000 enlisted soldiers it says it needs this year to fill its active-duty and reserve ranks, senior Army officials say, so far relieving concerns that the turmoil in Iraq could crimp new enlistments.

You just know that this story was the product of a conspiracy theory -- evil warmonger Bush tanks economy to recruit cannon fodder -- in the Times newsroom that every staffer knows is true, but can't quite prove...

Unlike this one, of course.

2003-09-22T22:24:00.000+10:00

THIS MIGHT BE the most depressing survey phone call ever...

2003-09-22T22:22:00.000+10:00

I AM BESET BY MOSQUITOS.

2003-09-22T20:50:00.000+10:00

SCARY STEYN:

If the objective is to squash Bush's war advantage, vote Dean and move on to domestic policy. Vote for the general and you're stuck talking war till next November with a candidate who is not up to it.

Unless, of course, there's a third scenario, which, given last week's lamentable performance, makes a strange kind of sense. General Clark is merely an unwitting "stalking horse", designed to weaken both Dean and Bush just enough to enable the Democrats' real white knight to jump in: waiting in the wings, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If this hideous prediction comes true, it will be further proof that in an otherwise mis-spent life, my one intelligent move was decamping for Australia.

2003-09-22T20:41:00.000+10:00

HEY EVILPUNDIT! Get yerself one of these. Whaddya think this is, some overhyped taxpayer-funded whinge-fest?

2003-09-21T14:13:00.000+10:00

IRONY-PROOF FENCE: Thank God you racist, ignorant white Australians have a few brave souls in your community like Phillip Noyce to show you the error of your ways when it comes to your treatment of Aboriginal children.

Me, I've been here two years and I've already learnt to acknowledge the real owners of the land on which I live -- when I wire them the rent every fortnight!

2003-09-21T08:43:00.000+10:00

DREAM WATCH: Watched a series of fascinating in-sleep movies last night after passing out on the couch, the best one being one in which I led a team of commandoes on a mission to Charles de Gaulle Airport where we stole four Air France Airbuses and flew them to Iraq to be the new long-haul fleet for their new civilian airline.

Not surprisingly, we didn't encounter much resistance.

2003-09-20T21:04:00.000+10:00

OF COURSE, IT WOULDN'T BE BECAUSE THE DECISION WAS TOTAL CRAP: Here's the New York Times on the possibility that an en banc panel of the 9th Circuit will allow the California recall to proceed:

The 11-judge panel that will reconsider the California recall case includes eight appointed by Democratic presidents and just three appointed by Republicans, which at first blush might hearten the civil rights groups that had persuaded three judges, all appointed by Democrats, to delay the election in a decision issued Monday.

But the consensus among legal experts yesterday was that most of the judges on the larger panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, are either aligned with the circuit's more conservative wing or are moderate in the sense of avoiding drastic actions like calling off elections...

Howard J. Bashman, a specialist in appellate law in Philadelphia, agreed, calling the panel about as conservative as one is likely to find on the Ninth Circuit.

Those damn conservatives again, following the law and abridging civil rights [or rather, the interests of "civil rights groups"--Ed.] like the jack-booted, racist, fascist right-wing death beasts they are!

Wasn't this sort of civil rights crusading supposed to have left in Howell Raines' briefcase?

2003-09-20T20:53:00.000+10:00

THE YOBBO WOULD BE PROUD: I've got the house to myself, a bottle of Beam, and a coupla large Domino's pepperoni pizzas. Expect increasingly incoherent blogging.

P.S. Speaking of Domino's, which makes great bad pizza and sells it cheap enough so you can order a ton and have lunch taken care of the next day, what is up with all the mayo on their pies? I mean, hell, I'm WASPy as Judge Smails (and no slouch myself), but this is ridiculous!

2003-09-20T20:47:00.000+10:00

FINALLY, SOMEONE WHO TRULY UNDERSTANDS LOVE AND FARTS:

The best sign that you are in love with someone is when you can rip off the stinkiest, rottenest, foulest, loudest fart possible while sitting on the lounge watching TV and NOT blame it on the dog.

This and more wisdom from someone who might as well be my alter-ego, the Househusband Blogger.

2003-09-20T19:14:00.000+10:00

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH BLOGGER THESE DAYS?

2003-09-18T14:50:00.000+10:00

DAVID FRUM ELEGANTLY STICKS IT TO WESLEY CLARK on NRO today, noting (among other things -- read it all) that

If any one figure sums up the illusions and errors of the 1990s, it is Clark. Clark was the general who led the U.S. into a purely humanitarian war in Kosovo – at exactly the moment that the Clinton administration was disregarding the gathering threat to the United States from Middle Eastern terrorism. Clark has criticized the supposed and alleged errors of U.S. planning in Iraq – notwithstanding that his campaign in Kosovo was based on an unending series of errors, above all his claim that his air campaigns could destroy Serbian military capabilities without harming the Serbian civilian population.

Most disturbingly, however, we find out that Clark is a former Rhodes Scholar, which is enough to disqualify him in my book.

(Side note: Given Rhodes Scholars' penchant for trying as hard as possible to disavow their Americanness -- see Clinton, Bill and Talbott, Strobe for prime examples -- how did a guy like Clark wind up going into the military, of all places?)

2003-09-18T12:04:00.000+10:00

THE BEACH BECKONED YESTERDAY due to the fine weather, and my blogging was the worse for it.

Fortunately, Tex has stepped into the breach, dissecting the latest anti-capitalist drivel from Herald columnist Ross Gittins.

Meanwhile, readers who are feeling encumbered by an overabundance of cash or possessions are free to send surpluses here for safe keeping.

2003-09-16T13:10:00.000+10:00

ASLEEP AT THE RESENTMENT SWITCH! How the hell did these two submissions wind up leading today's Herald letters page?

Now that Anne Summers ("Bush can expect a hot welcome", Herald, September 15) has prepared the way for a toxic cocktail of anti-war demonstrators, disgruntled Iraqi nationalists and disappointed farmers, may I suggest another scenario for our visitor.

Bush may wish to thank some of the families of ADF personnel who served in the second Gulf war, brief ordinary refugees who had fled the murderous Saddam regime on his plans, and exchange dialogue with farming families seeking to break down trade barriers.

Ugly and unproductive demonstrations can only harm Australia's interests and feed the ego of media commentators.

Noel Hadjimichael, Mount Annan, September 15.

I would like to thank Anne Summers for reminding me about George Bush's visit. I will finalise my banner and go out there and join the demonstration, but I may be the only one there in support of his visit.

While George Bush may not be the greatest orator or carry the charisma of Bill Clinton, he at least had the gumption of not being fooled by the likes of Saddam, Arafat and their brand of ideology. Sadly history has demonstrated that the eloquent and charismatic leaders in the past have been totally hoodwinked.

Good on ya, George.

Leslie W. Rosen, Woollahra, September 15.

You won't be the only one, Leslie.

2003-09-15T15:01:00.000+10:00

THE GUNSHOT VICTIM LIVED, while the stabbed ones died.

When will they stop the insanity and outlaw knives, once and for all?

(Seriously, though, they can have my beloved Furis when they pry them from my cold, dead, stinking-of-garlic hands...)

2003-09-15T14:44:00.000+10:00

STOP HER BEFORE SHE...MIS-FILES FORMS AGAIN! I'm not a lawyer (but I play one in my toolshed), so I guess I don't know what I'm talking about when I wonder why Pauline Hanson was denied bail again. I mean, it's not like she's charged with a violent crime and thus a potential threat to society that warrants her being locked up, nor does she strike me as much of a flight risk.

Perhaps some lawyer out there can tell me, then, why she can't walk the streets while her attorneys plan her appeal?

2003-09-15T13:33:00.000+10:00

BOYCOTT BUNNINGS! Prudent corporate executives who are shaken down by left-wing extortion operations normally have two choices: Quietly give money to whatever reverse-racist, socialist or green organization that has come knocking at the door, and hope they just go away, or loudly proclaim their new, shareholder-financed "community initiative" while handing over a large check -- and hope they just go away.

Now hardware giant Bunnings Warehouse has come up with a new option: Pony up the dough for the left-wing standover artists, but make the customers pay the black (er, green) mail.

Bunnings Warehouse, in an initiative with Keep Australia Beautiful, will add a 10 cent levy to disposable plastic bags distributed in its 176 stores throughout the country.

NSW Minister for Western Sydney Diane Beamer, who launched the initiative in Sydney today, said this was a win-win deal for the environment.

Or, rather a win-win deal for Keep Australia Beautiful, which is getting the money charged for the hated bags -- making the so-called environmental organization as hypocritical as an anti-smoking campaign taking money from Philip Morris.

"Customers will think twice before using the disposable plastic bags," Ms Beamer said.

Try reading that quote aloud in a German accent, and see how silly it sounds. Is there no end to the sort of private behaviour the do-gooders will try and change? Really, I guess not.

In the meantime, I'll buy my goods from stores that don't want to penalize me for taking them home.

2003-09-13T16:20:00.000+10:00

TO THE GUY OVER THE ROAD LOUDLY POWER-WASHING HIS DRIVEWAY: Stop giving me dirty looks, I'll play Johnny Cash and Hank Williams Jr.'s duet of "That Old Wheel" with my front door open as many times as I like, thank you.

2003-09-13T16:17:00.000+10:00

FUNNY OF THE DAY: Damn good thing I filed my immigration papers before they implemented this idea.

2003-09-13T15:51:00.000+10:00

R.I.P., JOHNNY: Sad, but not unexpected, news this morning that Johnny Cash passed away. Like a lot of people, I guess, Cash was my first introduction to proper American country music, listening to a greatest hits album tooling around Washington with hangovers in a convertible singing along to "Sunday Morning Coming Down". In the years since, I've acquired a bunch of his other albums, from the scratchy old "Live Broadcast" to the dark "American IV".

And you can bet they're all getting a workout today.

2003-09-12T03:30:00.000+10:00

RON JEREMY DEMOLITIONS: This is one of the funniest spam subject lines I've seen in a while, though I think Sam & Caz are missing some of the great commercial/fun-at-parties potential of this offer, especially in renovations-obsessed Oz.

2003-09-12T02:58:00.000+10:00

BY THE WAY, why is everyone acting like the new Osama tapes are genuine, when they only show him walking around some rocks while an audio track of his tape (he is not seen speaking) plays? Voices are the easiest thing to fake, so why is everybody credulous of what is very likely some old terrorist b-roll?

2003-09-12T02:46:00.000+10:00

MEANWHILE, THE SYDNEY MORNING-HERALD is, of course, not above playing the equivalency game, sticking the two stories "We will never give up, says Bush" and "And taped bin Laden promises the same" next to one another on their website -- because, you know, Bush, bin Laden, they're just a coupla guys who've got a beef with each other, and God forbid we be seen to be taking a side...

2003-09-11T16:03:00.000+10:00

PURPLE AMERICAN FURY: If you're looking for something to read today, you could do a lot worse than Morrow pere's essay for Time two years ago, The Case For Rage and Retribution.

2003-09-11T15:49:00.000+10:00

MORAL EQUIVALENCE WATCH! Well, we're two years down the track since September 11; I won't even bother trying to come up with some sort of reflection on the topic except to say that I am absolutely appalled at the bad taste and moral equivalence of this New York Times editorial, "The Other Sept. 11".

You see, we may be pissed off about what happened two years ago, the Times will have us know but, hey, we're all guilty:

Death came from the skies. A building — a symbol of the nation — collapsed in flames in an act of terror that would lead to the deaths of 3,000 people. It was Sept. 11.

But the year was 1973, the building Chile's White House, La Moneda, and the event a coup staged by Gen. Augusto Pinochet...

In the United States, Sept. 11 will forever be a day to remember our victims of terrorism. Yet our nation's hands have not always been clean, and it is important to recall Chile's Sept. 11, too.

There you have, in a nutshell, the entire Times-y mentality on the topic of September 11: No matter what happens to the United States, don't dare call it anything as simplistic as plain old evil, and by all means, trot out as much implied Rube Goldberg logic to suggest that America had it coming.

Utterly disgraceful.

2003-09-10T08:02:00.000+10:00

BAD NEWS FROM THE MID-EAST, with Islamist psychopaths killing at least ten in a pair of suicide bombings in Israel. One of the bombs went off at a bus stop crowded with soldiers; the other in a cafÃ© on a street crowded with restaurants and shops.

Before anyone starts rambling on about the "cycle of violence", imagine a trendy street in your hometown, and then imagine if every time you went there for dinner or drinks, you had a reasonable chance of getting blown up by someone who hates you for what you are. Then think about what you would expect your government to do about it, and the sort of courage it takes for Israelis to maintain the only vibrant civil society in an otherwise socially fetid part of the world.

2003-09-10T07:54:00.000+10:00

ANYONE WHO'S SPENT SOME TIME IN AUSTRALIA knows that the best way to fire up an Aussie on a project is to tell him he hasn't a hope in hell of completing it. Thus, in an attempt to fire up Philip Adams and his lot, who have clearly been phoning it in lately, John Howard has declared victory in the kultcha wars:

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has effectively declared victory in the so-called culture wars over the past treatment of Aborigines, saying that "people no longer ask me for an apology".

He also believes more recognition should be given to the role of white settlers in the development of Australia and its culture.

However, Mr Howard stressed yesterday, in a debate in his government's partyroom, that special recognition should be reserved for traditional indigenous land-owners.

In making the remarks, Mr Howard issued a provocative, yet probably sincere, message to his predecessor, Paul Keating: "It has been more than seven years. I hope you get over it soon."

Expect furious shrieking from Marxo Kingston, Teary Dunlop, et al within hours!

2003-09-09T15:25:00.000+10:00

MOVING WITHOUT MOVING: Sasha Castel writes to let me know her blog can be reached here, which is the same place it always was, just with a different address. Kind of like the Post Office insisting that the house on the corner is officially on the perpendicular side street instead of the big, main road.

Drop in, and adjust links accordingly.

And for what it's worth, my favorite late-night drunk food has always been Papaya King hot dogs when I'm back in New York, or eggs at El Tipico in Washington's Adams-Morgan. I'm not sure if I've ever been trashed enough to have one of these "pie floaters" Sasha refers to, but it sounds awfully dirty - does one give or receive such an item?

2003-09-09T11:37:00.000+10:00

CARR-MUNISM! Because pitting the peasantry against the bourgeoisie has historically had such great results, New South Wales is considering retooling the way passengers pay for rides on the local, decrepit bus and train system:

The blueprint to fix NSW's transport network targets Sydney's better-off commuters by proposing to strip away heavy fare subsidies which, it argues, favour them...

Poorer travellers bought more single-fare tickets, so "ending the heavy discounting of the periodical and multi-trip tickets" could improve equity.

Ah, right. So I guess I shouldn't have paid any less today for buying a three-liter jug of milk instead of a one-liter jug. Hey, I probably shoulda paid more! After all, with all those big freelance writer dollars pouring in, I can afford it!

But wait a second...aren't we supposed to be all green and car-hating and singing a re-written cover version of the Ramones hit ("I Wanna Sign Kyoto!") in Bob Carr's NSW?

But the [author of the proposed changes] believes commuters will not rush to their cars if fares rise - and says Sydney commuters enjoy relatively cheap fares by world standards.

If anyone needs me, I'll just be over here, eating cake.

2003-09-08T05:47:00.000+10:00

APOLOGIES FOR THE LIGHT POSTING, (and shuddup all you "suuuuuure it'll be daily" skeptics) -- a client hit me Thursday with a ton of work that needs doing by tonight.

Waxing wroth by the Morrow to resume on the morrow, so to speak.

2003-09-04T08:24:00.000+10:00

SNAG SKS PRSDNCY! Well, it looks like Kerry has just had his Muskie moment:

DERRY, N.H. (Reuters) - Maybe it was the ginger tea or the homemade brownies, but Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry ran a gamut of emotions on Wednesday, angrily denouncing President Bush as "dead wrong" on Iraq and shedding tears at a jobless woman's story...

Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts and a Vietnam combat veteran with a reputation for aloofness, lost his composure when Barbara Woodman of Concord told him how she was battling to educate her children after being laid off from a publishing company.

"I don't care how many jobs I have to work, those kids are going to college," she said. "And if I can, I'll do whatever it takes to make this country stronger."

Kerry, sitting beside her in Mary Ann's Diner, a popular small-town New Hampshire stop for 2004 presidential candidates, choked up and his eyes watered.

Jesus, how bizarre. At least Clinton had the decency to just bite his lip - I wonder whether the crying jag was provoked by the woman's story, or the fact that Dr. Dean is now being treated as the de facto frontrunner and the man needed to get a little buzz going.

2003-09-03T23:47:00.000+10:00

AT LEAST HE CAN'T SPREAD HIS GENES, even if he can still soil them:

A firecracker accident which left a 26-year-old man incontinent and unable to have sex has prompted warnings from police and health authorities about imitating stunts from the cult prankster film Jackass...

The man suffered a fractured pelvis and severe burns to his genital area after a firecracker exploded between the cheeks of his buttocks...

Illawarra Health emergency surgeon Dr Robert McCurdie, who operated on the man when he was taken to Wollongong Hospital, likened the man's condition to "a war injury".

Dr McCurdie said he believed the man had stumbled while the firecracker was in his buttocks, and fell down on it.

"I tell ya, doc, it was a one-in-a-million shot!"

UPDATE: Slatts has more fun with genitals. Don't try this at home, kids!

2003-09-03T23:41:00.000+10:00

AYATOLLAH COLA, OR, THE FLIGHT FROM RESPONSIBILITY: Who knew there were gangs operating in western Sydney - gangs that had a penchant for violence? Certainly not this guy:

A man who was shot five times while loading a vending machine at a western Sydney TAFE is suing Coca-Cola for negligence.

Craig Pareezer, 38, is suing Coca-Cola Amatil after he was shot as he loaded a soft drink vending machine at Werrington TAFE on February 17, 1997.

Mr Pareezer was shot in the head, chest, stomach, leg and hand, and would be able to work again, the NSW Supreme Court was told today.

A terrible thing, but just who is responsible here? Coke may have been aware that the area was inhabited by baddies (western Sydney? whodathunkit?) and, as Pareezer maintains, sent a security guard to watch him on his rounds. But surely Pareezer must have known there were guys up to no good in Werrington, too:

Mr Pareezer's counsel John Rowe said his client also had been assaulted while working at Werrington TAFE two years earlier and Coca-Cola knew about gangs targeting vending machine operators in the area.

If Pareezer was so worried about stocking this particular machine, surely he could've gotten another job in the intervening two years, yes? Sure, but then he wouldn't be able to sue a big American company for his own bad fortune.

Just like those UN guys and that Shi'ite cleric who ostentatiously refused American protection in Iraq and then blamed the US when their mosques and ministry of love got bombed, this fellow had a clear course of action (i.e., get a new gig - we're hardly in a depression, despite what the ABC tells us). He chose to refuse it, and has decided to go after deep-pocketed Yanks instead.

2003-09-03T16:58:00.000+10:00

WHENEVER I BITCH ABOUT BEING A RENTER, I will click on this link and count myself lucky to never have to be tempted to improve anything in our house and let the landlord pay to re-do the kitchen (which she has most graciously agreed to).

I mean, I'm sure it looks good. But at what cost, man? At what cost!?!

2003-09-01T13:01:00.000+10:00

INDEED!

2003-08-31T15:03:00.000+10:00

TWO YEARS AGO TODAY, I first set foot on Australian soil. It was a bright, early-spring day much like today, which is an auspicious omen when starting a new life far from home.

Since then, I've gotten married, become a parent, and made some great friends in a great place. Thanks, Australia!

2003-08-31T14:50:00.000+10:00

BIAS? WHAT BIAS? Glad to see that the enterprising journalists at Fairfax are playing things right down the middle, as in this report on water wastage...er, consumption in various suburbs:

The well-heeled residents of Woollahra in the eastern suburbs are Sydney's top water users for for the third consecutive year.

Two other Liberal-voting strongholds, Ku-ring-gai and Hunters Hill on the North Shore, are placed second and third on the list of the city's most prolific water users.

The rest of the piece, which reads like a the bastard love child of a Utilities Ministry press release and a Green Party policy statement, informs us that these "guzzling" suburbs use twice as much water as leftier locales like Leichardt, ostensibly because their residents keep pools and "luscious gardens" - exactly the sort of behavior one would expect from Howard-voting right wing death beasts.

Interestingly, readers are not told what water meter readings look like in Paddington, home to plenty of pools and luscious gardens - as well as the Howard-hating Philcher Adams and epicenter of chardonnay socialism. Presumably Paddo's only water "wasting", if that is the current term used for goods and services purchased by individuals to dispose of at their leisure, is committed by the last conservatives left in that part of town, Keith and Liz Windschuttle.

2003-08-30T02:07:00.000+10:00

WELCOME TIM BLAIR READERS: Looking for Tim Dunlop's mugging-by-reality? It's a coupla posts below. But feel free to take your jacket off and stay a while.

2003-08-30T01:45:00.000+10:00

DRINKING WHILE INTOXICATED: When I first moved to Australia, I thought I had found a new homeland sympathetic to my hooch-hounding ways. No more: First there was the unpleasant little incident when I was given a "responsible service" warning on a QANTAS flight to LA (though granted, the issue was hard liquor, which Aussies seem to have a peculiar fear of). Now there's this:

Being drunk in a pub or club would become illegal and "intoxication" defined formally in state law under proposals by the NSW alcohol summit.

Under the recommendations, patrons - not just publicans - could be penalised for being drunk on licensed premises.,.

"It's time for the public to take responsibility for their behaviour," Mr Armati [chairman of the Liquor Administration Board which introduced the proposal] said. "There needs to be a change in the mindset of the public who adopts the view that it is quite alright to go out and get drunk and . . . to get drunk on licensed premises."

Will someone please get Bob Carr some foreign academic posting or something so he can go overseas and be a professional ex-pat Aussie, where his bitching about the yobbishness of his countrymen won't do any harm, instead of a local pollie, where it's just a pain in the arse?

2003-08-30T01:39:00.000+10:00

JUMBO SHRIMP: Just what the hell is so "adult" about the "adults only" edition of Video Hits they're playing on Ten right now? Aren't these things, by definition, for kids anyway?

Anyway, for me, no video will ever top the fantastic collaboration between Ray Smuckles and Roast Beef.

2003-08-29T12:40:00.000+10:00

WHAT A DIFFERENCE NINE MONTHS MAKES. Here's Tim Dunlop on 20 November 2002, writing about the Bali attacks and "root causes":

If [the terrorists] did commit these heinous acts as a reaction against, say, western intervention in their country, or as some misguided attempt to escape poverty or meaninglessness, then it behoves us, if for no other reason than self-interest, to consider what role our actions might have played.

Now here's Dunlop just the other day, after being confronted with the news that one of the Bali bombers has thanked Aussie pro-Saddam demonstrators for helping the cause:

Frankly, I don't don't give a toss what some murderer thinks of my opinions and I'm not particularly inclined to adjust my behaviour according whatever twisted logic such a sicko comes up with. I don't need to "bear in mind" anything terrorists say...

Methinks the Dunlop dost protest too much...

2003-08-29T11:23:00.000+10:00

JUAN GATO does a nice fisking (if that word isn't totally passé by now) of an AFL-AP-CIO press release/news report.

Yes, that acronym is correct.

UPDATE: Reading this over at Colby Cosh's, I'm now wondering if the AP is becoming the Reuters of domestic policy stories.

2003-08-29T11:20:00.000+10:00

SO I GOT HOME A LITTLE WHILE AGO from playing golf with once-and-hopefully-future blogger Paul Wright, who rattled my nerves on one particular fairway with the news that The Bleat might be ending.

Fortunately, it doesn't look as bleak as all that, though it may also mean its time to invest in broadband if Lileks' whole streaming dealy thing comes off.

2003-08-29T11:15:00.000+10:00

FUNNY, WE WERE JUST DISCUSSING THIS POSSIBILITY over a nice bottle of '01 D'Arry's Original the other night.

The possibility in question is that Hillary will enter the presidential race - the original source is Drudge, which for this sort of thing is only marginally more credible than Debka - which would be a helluva thing, as they say. It's surely an outside shot, but I reckon it would be great theater.

2003-08-29T11:01:00.000+10:00

A BUSTED CLOCK IS RIGHT TWICE A DAY, so I guess it's only natural that a normally spot-on Bunyip is wrong once in a while.

I refer specifically to his backhanded congratulations to blogger Gianna on the impending birth of her heir(ess). The good professor is concerned that the raising of the kid will largely be financed by tax dollars, which is a fairly picayune concern given the fact that they will be particularly well spent - more so on Gianna and her progeny than on many others.

Why? Because motherhood is an inherently conservatizing experience - so for "just pennies a day", as they say on the sponsor-a-third-world-kiddie ads, we get to watch Gianna's political transformation take place on her blog. The fact that she's going through with the pregnancy is first evidence of the shift; I can't wait for the first time Gianna makes a "more maths, less multiculturalism!" post about public school curricula.

I know plenty of women who've gone through this change (just try to talk smack about John Howard to my wife, for example), but even if it doesn't take, that means that a decade or two from now, Gianna's kid will almost surely rebel and become a big-L Liberal, asking mom what she did during the war - and telling her why she was wrong for doing it.

If this happens, I can't wait for him to get a blog.

2003-08-27T11:43:00.000+10:00

THAT HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A PREDICTOR FOR PEDOPHILIA has been considered gospel truth for at least a decade now (though adult attraction to teens is another matter). Yet the New York Times seems to imply something of a link between the two in its report on the murder of child-molesting priest John Geoghan:

State and local officials opened investigations today into the prison killing of John J. Geoghan, a former priest convicted of child molestation, saying the suspect, a self-proclaimed homophobe, had been planning the killing for more than a month.

That's a very interesting way to put it, since it implies that the reason for Geoghan's being marked for death was his homosexuality - a charge which, as far as I know, was never leveled against the man. So why does the story's author, Fox Butterfield - who's worked the crime and prisons beat for the Times for long enough to know that scum such as Geoghan are a favorite target of both guards and inmates - mention it?

As the Times' has a pretty major problem with the death penalty, clearly they can't happy about anyone dying in prison - after all, everyone deserves a second chance to be a recidivist. Is the paper trying to pin a thought crime on Geoghan's killer to make him seem less attractive to readers who might otherwise be sympathetic to his actions? (A homophobe? Why they should lock him up and - oh wait, already done).

Or was the Times guy - er, empowered worker - in charge of making sure articles are purged of un-PC language off on a smoke break with Butterfield's copy came across the desk?

Me, I vote option one.

The guy who killed Geoghan was, by all accounts, a world-class piece of shit. But in a funny sort of way, there's something a little redemptive about his actions in taking out someone else who was at least as big a cancer on society. Which is something the root-causers at the New York Times will never understand.

2003-08-27T11:25:00.000+10:00

CONGRATULATIONS, GIANNA! (From a Right-Wing Death Beast who can't be too offended - given that his own kid was born about fourteen months premature, to judge by his marriage certificate...)

2003-08-25T12:26:00.000+10:00

DEATH TO JEWS, SELVES! Indymedia's not just the internet home of anti-Semitic, intolerant freaks - no-ho! It's also the hip place to celebrate junkiedom!

I'm hoping the cops up in Darwin are keeping an eye on what the freaks at Sydney Indymedia are up to - which includes promoting something called "the 2nd Darwin International Syringe Festival":

Tracks of a different kind will be laid in the Northern Territory of Australia in September as dozens of illicit drug users converge on the city of Darwin for the 2nd Darwin International Syringe Festival...

This years Syringe Festival includes an art competition and exhibition, a cabaret dinner night for local users, an underground dance party, a community smoke-in and a tour of injustice.

Some of the comments on the site are pretty stunning ("unadulterated heroin would be nice, if it wasn't so damned addictive...gets ya every time... I admit I don't know the Socialist solution to legalising heroin without it becoming another form of guarranteed income for capitalist governments along with tobacco and alcohol"), though amazingly, this one was allowed to stay on the site:

Having lost much of my life to addiction I cannot agree with the concept of celebrating such an insidious disease.

While the NT drug laws are certainly draconian and an invasion of civil rights, the fact remains that IV drug abuse is not a positive experience.

I simply cannot understand how anyone can regard a compulsion to inject toxic chemicals to get through the day as freedom.

Probably the same people who get through the day thinking this is incisive political commentary.

UPDATE: EvilPundit has a snappy new home, and more thoughts on IndyMedia.

2003-08-25T12:15:00.000+10:00

ANTI-SOCIAL STUDIES. Here's a great piece on the decline (was it ever at a lofty height?) of "social studies" in the US:

It begins in the early grades with a dreary curriculum called “expanding environments” that acquaints children with “community helpers” (e.g., “your friendly postal service worker”) but neglects to introduce them to the great tales of patriotism and treachery that make history so gripping. It continues in middle school with a multicultural piñata from which the world’s foods, holidays, and quaint customs shower down on youngsters who possess no foundation in basic chronology or geography. It finishes in high school with a quick dash through U.S. history and perhaps a civics course that nowadays may be replaced by semi-politicized volunteer work called “service learning.”

No wonder our kids cannot find Baghdad or Jerusalem on a map, have little or know understanding of how today’s world came to be the way it is, and are clueless about why—and even when—the Civil War was fought. Social studies is a deeply boring, intellectually muddled, and politically correct mess, taught by people who themselves have not studied much history and ruled by statewide academic standards that often consist of present-minded “themes” and pop-psych “strands” but little serious academic content.

Pretty awful stuff, and I'm glad I was never subjected to it when I was a lad. But with a toddler hurtling towards school-age, I'm more than concerned: is this same thin multi-culti gruel being served up in Sydney schools?

2003-08-25T11:46:00.000+10:00

GRAZIE, WOGBLOG! Posting has resumed!

2003-08-24T10:42:00.000+10:00

THE LIKES AND DISLIKES OF THE DIVINE MIRANDA: Pseudo-individualist Miranda Devine is at it again, this time adding a new item to the "things I don't like and should be impeded by government" list - "voluntarily shopping for stuff [people] don't need."

Among other things, Devine is concerned that the harmless diversion of shopping at weekend markets promotes "unhealthy acquisitiveness."

So, just so we're all clear: Drinking, driving (small cars only, please) and smoking -- all OK. Gay sex, 4WDs, and shopping for anything other than bare necessities (to each according to his need, indeed) -- verboten!

2003-08-23T14:49:00.000+10:00

I LIKE BURKINA-FASO as much as the next guy, but what the hell is some of the most important real estate in American journalism doing being given over to this touching tripe?

2003-08-23T14:16:00.000+10:00

CAT TOAST OR JUST TOAST? Observers of the American media will recall that a few years ago the Boston Globe suspended a conservative columnist, Jeff Jacoby, for failing to acknowledge his use of part of an e-mail that had lately been making the rounds on the subject of the Declaration of Independence.

I wonder what the penalty for that sort of thing is in Australia, specifically at the Sydney Morning-Herald? (We already know that if your name is Philip Adams and your employer is the Australian, one's sentence is continued receipt of a paycheck). The reason I ask is because, reading Pat Sheil's colum in the "Spectrum" section of the Herald today, I came across one of the more blatant re-uses of a bad Internet joke I've seen in ages. No link, but here's some of the offending bit:

Recent theoretical work suggests that given (a) a dropped kitten will always land on its feet, and (b) a slice of toast will always land buttered side down, the world's energy problems could well be solved simply by strapping a slice of buttered toast to the back of a kitten and dropping it off a ledge...

The result? An eternally rotating, hot-buttered feline, spinning just above the floor....

Yawn. Although he claims that he got the idea from "a recent letter to New Scientist magazine", that publication made the joke back in 1997 - which is about when I remember reading it in my own e-mail inbox. (I remember it clearly because I sent it to some people around the office and was quickly upbraided by the resident cat-fancier).

Sheil's crime hardly rises to those committed by other journalists but it's pretty amazing that it occured to no one at the Herald that the entire joke on which this column hinged was over five years old - an eternity in Internet time. It's especially ironic considering that just a few weeks ago Sheil had written a report about a successful Web hoax played on the New York Times involving hunting naked women with paintball guns in the Nevada desert (phwoar!).

Ultimately, I reckon that taken in the context of other examples of how the Herald works to cut down on environmentally-unsustainable originality being printed on its pages, Sheil was simply following the Green mandate to reduce, reuse, recycle.

2003-08-22T11:53:00.000+10:00

GARETH PARKER has come up with the best expression to describe Australian idiotarians I have ever read.

2003-08-21T12:45:00.000+10:00

YES! Achewood is back to five days a week!

2003-08-21T12:18:00.000+10:00

MIRANDA DEVINE WEIGHS IN TODAY with a fairly straightforward column today about Australia's bluenoses, a.k.a. "wowsers", who seek to make sure every pleasure is a guilty one:

There is a certain type of person ever present in Australian life, devising ways to deny pleasure to the rest of the population. In Norman Lindsay's day wowsers were churchgoers purse-lipped about nudity. But now that the churches are empty and their moral restraints cast aside, today's wowsers have had to find fresh fun to eradicate, like alcohol, cigarettes, Big Macs, vanilla Coke, cars and air-conditioning.

The neo-wowsers are obsessed with health and eco-concerns in just as mean and censorious a way as their forebears were fixated on sex and nudity. They are on a sacred mission to save the decadent self-indulgent masses from destroying themselves with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and global warming. They seize every opportunity to wag a finger and tut a tongue at people's remaining pleasures.

All very well and good, and absolutely nothing there I don't agree with. And her later criticism of Bob "The Designated Driver" Carr's campaign against the demon drink is especially appreciated, given that her employers ran a two-day puff series about the awful role alcohol plays in Australian life earlier this week in anticipation of the State Leader's coming campaign to make this an even drier continent.

The problem is that Miranda Devine is, on certain issues, something of a wowser herself: Back in 2002, she wrote a column (one of many on the subject) saying that SUVs, or four-wheel-drives, or whatever you wish to call them should be forever banned - using the ultimate cop-out of the soft authoritarian, Won't somebody think of the children?. Furthermore, if you take your pleasure in members of the same sex, well, don't even think of getting married, lest you horn in - so to speak - on her view of moral institutions. (Better, presumably, that gays be promiscuous and anonymous rather than open and monogamous members of one of the most conservatizing institutions around, namely marriage).

According to Devine, I suppose, we're all supposed to enjoy our vices - so long as she gets to approve them first. I don't drive anything more complex than a golf buggy, and I certainly don't bat from the Paddington end (not that there's anything wrong with that), so I guess I'm safe.

In the meantime, Bob Carr can have my martini when he pries it out of my cold, dead, Montecristo-stained fingers.

2003-08-21T08:09:00.000+10:00

THE BIG BANANA REPUBLIC? I'm no Pauline Hanson fan (her politics were far more left-wing than the inner-city types who hated her so much would ever admit), and I'm sure she did some shonky stuff - but did she really deserve three years in a maximum-security lockup? Things may be different in Queensland, but here in NSW, it seems you can barely get thrown in jail for anything any more.

UPDATE: Bernard Slattery has more. Read it - especially if you're not from Australia and don't know what the fuss is about.

2003-08-20T23:29:00.000+10:00

A BIG THANKS TO EVILPUNDIT for directing me to a fix for a scrolling problem I didn't even realize I had.

2003-08-20T19:22:00.000+10:00

THE LEFT COAST NO MORE, OR, WHY ARNIE CAN WIN. Remember when Michael Moore got booed off the stage at the Oscars? Here's more proof that the zeitgeist is changing in California - at least among television audiences.

On Dr. Phil today, the subject was pet peeves, and one of the guests was a woman who was annoyed that her husband couldn't stop voicing his opinions (the good doctor ignored the most obvious solution, namely, that the guy needs a blog) on any and everything under the sun. As Dr. Phil was ticking off a partial list of the fellow's bigotries and prejudices, he came to the item, "All Republicans are stupid."

Predictably, this garnered some applause and woo-hoos from a few in the audience - who were quickly outnumbered by full-throated boo-ers. And no, they weren't shouting "Boo-urns."

Granted, this wasn't the sort of audience that normally goes to the Oscars, but the show is still taped in Hollywood.

The times, they are a-changin'.

2003-08-20T18:23:00.000+10:00

ESPECIALLY THE "PEACEFUL" ONES, RIGHT? Check out this howler in the New York Times' "news analysis" (read "front-page editorial") on the bombing of the UN building in Baghdad. After endless paragraphs designed to build the case that the attack was, in fact, a three-corner billiards shot against the Americans, we are told that

Car and truck bombings are a signature tactic of religious-based Middle Eastern terrorism. The technique was used by Hezbollah in its fight against Israel and spread around the world over the last two decades, including the attacks against two American embassies in East Africa that intelligence agencies attribute to Al Qaeda.

Gee, I wonder which religions they mean?

There are other great lines that suggest the ghost of Howell Raines is still stalking the halls of West 43rd Street, including "Ansar [al-Islam] is a small fundamentalist group accused of having links to Al Qaeda" (I guess the Times' editors missed the 16,000 words in the New Yorker detailing those connections which might inconveniently suggest that Bush was right about anything), but you'll have to read the whole piece to catch others.

2003-08-20T13:02:00.000+10:00

THE SEVEN GREAT INTERNET CAFÉS OF THE WORLD. Aussie backpacker travel agency STA Travel is at the moment running a print ad campaign urging young people to stop saving for a house and get out and see the world. Their slogan runs something like, "live adventures that will make your grandkids proud."

Now I've encountered a lot of backpackers (Aussie and otherwise) around the world, and for the most part, when they talk about travelling to meet people from other cultures, they mean meeting fellow backpackers from around the world in the internet café districts of the world's capitals.

I'm not sure what STA Travel has in mind is for, many decades hence, little tykes to be saying, "Hey, Nana Ashleigh, tell us again about getting really high and banging that Dutch dude at the Kathmandu youth hostel!"

(Speaking of advertising and saving for a house, there is no clearer sign to me that the much-discussed Sydney real estate boom is about to crash like it was being driven by Ted Kennedy than the number of storefront mortgage brokerage joints that are springing up all over the place. Having been involved at the front and back ends of the dot.com boom - though sadly not the middle bit where everyone was making scads of dough - I think I'm pretty well-equipped to know when a cycle has hit its "last suckers trying to make a buck" phase.)

2003-08-20T07:05:00.000+10:00

STILL LOOKING FOR THE REAL TERRORISTS. Check out the juxtaposition of these two headlines on the Sydney Morning-Herald's website:

20 killed, 105 hurt in suicide attack on bus...
Israeli vigilantes threaten peace plan

See a coupla posts below for the whole story on the "Israeli vigilantes". But, of course, it's all the same to the Herald.

2003-08-19T22:06:00.000+10:00

FOR ONCE, SOME ANTI-AMERICANISM that I can fully, 100% agree with - from Tim Dunlop, no less.

2003-08-19T21:52:00.000+10:00

BECAUSE RADICAL LEFTISM HAS WORKED SO WELL BEFORE. The Washington Post reports that Joe Lieberman is making a shot at becoming an electable Democratic candidate for president:

Lieberman, whose lead in national polls belies his precarious political standing, is increasingly taking aim at the other eight Democratic contenders and throngs of activists who want to repeal future tax cuts, limit global trade and provide expensive health care coverage to millions of Americans.

The Connecticut senator also is ripping into opponents of the war in Iraq, hitting Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for showing "ambivalence" about the conflict and calling former Vermont governor Howard Dean unelectable for opposing it outright.

Predictably, more orthodox members of the party - who believe in diversity of everything but ideas - are upset:

Lieberman, whose lead in national polls belies his precarious political standing, is increasingly taking aim at the other eight Democratic contenders and throngs of activists who want to repeal future tax cuts, limit global trade and provide expensive health care coverage to millions of Americans.

The Connecticut senator also is ripping into opponents of the war in Iraq, hitting Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for showing "ambivalence" about the conflict and calling former Vermont governor Howard Dean unelectable for opposing it outright.

Lemme tell you, when you're on Donna Brazile's bad side, you're doing something right. Hell, I might even vote for him (if for no other reason than it would drive the Islamists even nuttier than they are). More importantly, so would a lot of other people who aren't thrilled with Bush but see the rest of the Democratic field as positively dangerous.

2003-08-19T11:50:00.000+10:00

BLAMING THE (RIGHT WING) JOOOOOOS. If you're a faithful New York Times reader, you already know a few basic things - like, "right wing" is simply shorthand for "right wing death beast", and that Israel carries at least as much guilt as the Palestinians for the situation in the Middle East. (How dare they take little sliver of desert and turn it into a prosperous democracy! The nerve!)

But these truths are normally considered by the Times' editors to be self-evident - no need to spell it out and give the game away. Until now. As I type, the paper's web site features the following story from tomorrow's paper:

Israelis Worry About Terror, by Jews Against Palestinians: At the faltering start of a peace effort opposed by many right-wing Israelis, worry about terror attacks by Jews is growing.

Got that? The real danger to peace is not Yasser Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, or the huge number of Palestinians who would happily erase Israel tomorrow for the sake of some ancient wounded pride. Nope, it's Israelis - and right-wing ones, to boot.

The article goes on to detail fears about a "Jewish underground group who were aiming to carry out attacks on Palestinians" and claims that "at the faltering start of a peace effort opposed by many right-wing Israelis, worry about terror attacks by Jews is growing." This is because an unnamed "security official" (hasn't the Times learned its lesson about unnamed sources?) says that seven Palestinians have been killed in shootings attributed to Israelis in the past two years.

Excuse me if I keep my panties unwadded for this one. Yeah, yeah, it's a terrible thing, ask not for whom the bell tolls, yada yada yada, but seven dead Palestinains over two years is nothing, especially when seven dead Israelis is considered a pretty good day's haul by most residents of the West Bank and Gaza. (Note, too, that Palestinians run around and fire off their weapons in celebrations of Israeli deaths; on the other side of the coin, dead Arabs lead to troubled handwringing by anonymous officials to the bureau chiefs of the Western media).

As Chris Rock once said about O.J. Simpson, "I ain't saying that what he did was right. What I'm saying is, I understand."

2003-08-19T08:03:00.000+10:00

BACK TO MY ROOTS? Went into a trendy Oxford Street record shop yesterday; since when is country music known as "roots music"? That was the heading they had smacked over their surprisingly comprehensive section of shitkicker tunes (Merle Haggard, etc). Is old-school country undergoing some sort of hip revival I am the last to know about, under the guise of some trendy vaguely pseudo-academic name?

I guess it's like the joke about Klanners playing "Roots" backwards so it has a happy ending: when you play "roots music" backwards, it has a happy ending, too. (You get your car back, you get your wife back...)

2003-08-19T03:28:00.000+10:00

YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF: WHY THE NEW NAME? One, I couldn't remember the password to start posting again on my old site. Two, I thought I might as well embrace the ABC's mistake some months ago when it pointed people, prematurely, in this direction.

2003-08-19T02:55:00.000+10:00

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. Via Slatts comes this bizarre tale of a blogger run over and killed by another (drunken) blogger.

Amazingly, the event didn't take place in the parking lot after a drunken blog bash.

2003-08-18T16:39:00.000+10:00

WHIP IT! Claire just got home from school where the campus Student Union and Student Associations - paid for with no-pay-no-play dues extracted from students (and their spouses) - are sponsoring something called "Sexuality Week".

This means that she was able to get a free helping of fairy floss (a.k.a. cotton candy) in return for listening to a woman who "looked like a brickie's labourer and talked like Martha Stewart" demonstrate that just because one is on a budget doesn't mean one can't come up with creative ways to inflict pain in the bedroom. Among the best tips were "wrap a piece of ironbark in leather" to make a great spanking device "that leaves a fantastic bruise" ; "visit a two-dollar shop, buy a sack of clothes peg, and put them on all the sensitive bits"; and, if your partner isn't sure how into pain they are, start dripping the candle from far away before bringing it closer.

I think it's painful enough knowing that we pay $190 a semester for this - why am I not turned on yet?

2003-08-18T11:06:00.000+10:00

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP. Staffers at newspapers and magazines are used to getting bizarre letters from cranks and schizophrenics, ripe with conspiracy theories and cramped handwriting that runs out to the end of the page. In my experience in journalism, recipients generally tack the best of these notes up on office doors or cubicle walls to give passers-by a chuckle.

Not so at the Herald, where they actually print the things!

Check out a smattering of what people who slept under the newspaper last night before thoughtfully recycling it into shoe-liner thought about the blackout in New York City. There is, of course, the moral equivalence:

Pity the poor New Yorkers. Having Americans live without electricity for one day, when a great majority of the world's population live without food and electricity for an indefinite period of time, is just unthinkable.

Perhaps one day the plight of those living in Third World conditions on a permanent basis can make the front page headlines.

Bobak Nanva, Burwood, August 16

And I'd like to hear about all those planes that land safely every day, instead of hand-wringing stories about the occaisional jumbo that smashes into a mountain. Sheesh!

Meanwhile, in the same vein, we hear from Gillian Scoular, who asks,

I wonder if the New York blackouts have generated empathy for those in Iraq who are still without power or clean water since the visitation of the "coalition of the willing" several months ago.

I'm not sure, but having a wife who is reliant on Bob Carr's state rail system to get to school makes me damn empathetic to those poor Italians whose train schedules went pear-shaped after Mussolini was hanged.

2003-08-18T10:39:00.000+10:00

THEY SAY THAT COCAINE is God's way of telling you you have too much money. I suppose blogging is His way of telling you you've got too much time on your hands. Nevertheless, here I am.