Glenn Greenwald has been running a series of posts about what should be a scandal in the USA, but isn’t. It should be a scandal because it reveals how the media’s whole coverage of the Iraq invasion and occupaton - not just the opinion pieces but the so-called news as well - has been heavily shaped and dominated by the US military as part of a calculated and sustained campaign of misinformation. It isn’t a scandal because the self-same media has largely ignored the story. Read more »
The President of the Most Powerful Nation the World Has Ever Known has sent (by videotape) a farewell message to our late Prime Minister:
“You’re a digger who is simple, direct and tough. And you have never let this cobber down,” he said. Read more »
No matter how carefully they craft their official rhetoric, politicians occasionally reveal their true ideas in off-the-cuff exchanges. John McCain just had one of those moments, suggesting that the attack on Iraq and subsequent occupation was, ummmm, about the oil. Gosh, could those crazy lefties have been right after all? Read more »
Another few dozen people blown up in Iraq yesterday … still it’s all going very well according to the armchair warriors. Oops, better STFU about endless death and destruction or I’ll sound angry and bitter again. Let’s talk about puppies or something.
Here’s a nice happy song about people being killed. Sorry if it breaks up - go here for the original. Read more »
There are two ways of thinking about the Iranian nuclear programme.
The first is that the Iranians are developing nuclear power for the same reasons that John Howard wanted to develop nuclear power: because we need alternative energy sources. It’s quite entitled to do it under international law. Read more »
After more than seven years in office, George W Bush is determined to prove to the world that rumours of his impenetrable stupidity are false.
After months of intensive coaching in economics by a team of academics from Yale, Harvard and MIT, the president was finally encouraged to go public and demonstrate his new expertise: Read more »
The possible next president of the United States once again displays either his astonishing ignorance or stunning mendacity, albeit this time through the mouth of an adviser:
McCain adviser Steve Schmidt told CNN’s Dana Bash that the Hamas view was “a fair issue for the American people to ponder should he be the Democratic nominee for president.” Read more »
Thanks to the people skills for which he is well known, Tony Abbott is the shadow minister for family and community services. But it appears he thinks he has a treasurer’s baton in his knapsack and keeps making public statements about things that are not quite within his portfolio.
Swan to blame for rates rise: Abbott Read more »
It takes a brave band to try to cover Led Zep, but O.A.R. & Robert Randolph almost pull it off, mainly by sounding as much like the original as they can … even down to not knowing when to stop (does anybody still listen to those appalling live Led Zep albums? They gave new meaning to ’self-indulgent’).
Download audio file (01%20Fool%20In%20The%20Rain.mp3) Read more »
The Olympic torch relay has provided so much innocent fun for students of the irony of modern life that it’s difficult to know how to describe it all. Read more »
While I don’t normally see any point in criticising other blog posts, this effort by Sinclair Davidson is so absurd it can’t be allowed to pass without some comment. If people want to pass as public intellectuals - and get paid by the taxpayer - they should surely comply with the basic standards of critical evaluation that are required of undergraduate assignments. Read more »
You know how much we love to laugh at the commies for keeping old heroes like Lenin and Mao on permanent display? Talk about your backward medieaval peasants.
We in the good old tradition of the European Enlightenment are sooooo much more sophisticated. That’s why the Roman Catholics, when they descend upon Sydney in a few months, are going to bring an 83 year old corpse with them. Read more »
It’s been obvious almost from the beginning of the first Bush Administration that neither Bush nor his kitchen cabinet had much interest in or knowledge of the world outside the USA. They blundered from one embarrassment to another, screwing up or forgetting funny foreign names, confusing Sunnis and Shiites (that’s after the penny finally dropped that the Middle East wasn’t populated by homogeneous Muslim terrorists), expressing child-like amazement at the size of Brazil on a map and so on. Read more »
Yep, we all know that’s what it boils down to: we are fighting to preserve our way of life and therefore by definition anyone who opposes the war hates America and wants evil to triumph. We’ve long since passed the time when we were at war with a specified enemy, and had old-fashioned things like war objectives and a war strategy. They are such 20th century concepts. Read more »
Funny post at Catallaxy about the perils of teacakes and the British VAT (BTW am I the only one who finds it mildly ironic that Catallaxy is one of the few sites where you have to register before you can comment? I refuse to have my liberty restricted in this abominable fashion). Read more »
After more than five years of incoherent actions in Iraq, the most incompetent president in living memory has decided to lock the door and tiptoe quietly away, leaving the incoming president to deal with the mess.
He has, however, graciously decided that members of the US military will henceforth only have to spend 12 months out of every 24 on the Eastern Front. I’m sure they’ll be over the moon.
The symbolism is instructive: Read more »
How cool is this?
Florida lawmakers pass “take your guns to work” law
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Most Florida residents would be allowed to take guns to work under a measure passed by Florida lawmakers on Wednesday.
I guess it might be a bit of a challenge to the OH&S committee though. Read more »
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
I hope Tim’s OK. Read more »
Nearly two thirds of historians polled by the Pew Organisation rank George W Bush as the worst president ever: Read more »
Some people liked my Buddy Holly cover so I’ll push my luck …
Meet Tragedy.
Exodus! screams this newspaper article.
Official figures released yesterday showed 66.4% of the nation’s 3.4 million full-time students were at government schools last year, falling from 66.8% a year earlier and 70% in 1997.
In Victoria, which has the second highest proportion of students in non-government schools after the ACT, just over 35% of students, or 297,970, now go to non-government schools, compared to 262,948 a decade ago. Read more »
This is as good an example as any of the problems that are bound to bedevil the 2020 summit:
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has been excluded from the list of 1,000 delegates selected to generate ideas about the nation’s future, despite requesting a place at the summit.
AMA president Rosanna Capolingua has expressed concerns that organisers may have been frightened of what the body has to say about the quality of patient care. Read more »
G’day Surfdomaniacs,
Some upgrading of the software that runs the site is underway. Most functionality is restored already. Things should work as normal for the most part. a few final checks and tweaks going on so, if you find any strangeness or odd behavior occurs. Hold your emails for now.
Audio uploader
Download audio file (blue_grass_ozzie.mp3)
Bluegrass version of “Paranoid” Artist Unknown
Comments now include Gravatar support! Read more »
The headline is all you need.
Not many bands cover Status Quo songs. Haha the person who snarked “You mean they wrote more than one?” You are showing your ignorance … before the Quo became an electric oompah band they actually wrote some interesting songs, one of which has been covered by Camper van Beethoven. Read more »
David Kay was the guy President Bush put in charge of finding Saddam’s WMD once the dictator was removed from power. Kay headed the Iraq Survey Group but quit before it finished its work. Read more »
Buddy Holly’s recordings are still great, because the songs are great, so the primitive sound quality doesn’t matter (unlike, say, the early Beatles material which was pretty dire. Does anybody still listen to Please Please Me except for reasons of nostalgia or historical research?). Read more »
Of the three remaining serious candidates for the presidency, Barack Obama seems to me to be the only one who might give the USA a new sense of identity and a new role in the world - one that treats others nations as deserving of respect and steps back from the strident exceptionalism and belligerence that has marked the last eight years. Read more »
Tom Towle, Father of the Year 2007, speeds down a highway near Mildura one dark night at speeds in excess of 120 KPH; drunk, with his four year old son on his lap (it has not been completely established whether the infant was, in fact, steering). Read more »
Interesting insight into the mind of the Canberra press gallery from one of its members: Read more »
It’s past time for Kevin Rudd to make a clear statement of the government’s attitude towards the occupation of Iraq. Read more »
I came across excerpts from this piece while browsing Obsidian Wings. I assumed Hilzoy was summarising an exquisite bit of piss-taking but I was wrong; the piece in question is dead serious. Please go and read it if you can find time, it’s seriously funny and proves once again how pointless it is trying to write satire when the genuine article exceeds in its sheer exhuberant lunacy anything I could dream up. Read more »
Both his music and his thoughts on the digital age.
I don’t require musicians I like to be rational, sane, compassionate, intelligent, thought provoking and in general good people. But it’s awfully nice when one of them turns out to be so. The superb singer/songwriter Richard Shindell has some thoughts here and more here on being an artist in the age of illegal downloading. He speaks sense. Read more »
Hehe we got another one ma!
U.S. air strike kills al Qaeda boss in Somalia
Bring ‘em on! BRING THEM ON!!!
Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, has faced court on charges of genocide.
An Austrian dad has been arrested and charged with keeping his own daughter in the cellar for twenty-four years and repeatedly raping her, fathering seven children, three of whom were also incarcerated.
The controversy continues over John Yoo and his involvement in torture at Guantanamo. Read more »
On the one hand, the economy is like a finely-tuned Ferrari. Or at least that was Tip ‘go away I’m still sulking’ Costello’s metaphor; and needless to say he was the only one capable of driving it.
This is borne out by Tony Abbott’s belief that Wayne Swan can creat inflation just by talking about it.
On the other hand, it seems that we are captive to the international economy after all: Read more »
Curious to know what those bastards in Iran are getting up to? Read more »
…. sitting on the wall
And if one al Qaeda boss
Should accidentally fall
There’ll be just as many al Qaeda bosses
Sitting on the wall.
(I make that 84,459 they’ve taken out now, but I might have missed a few. It’s become like the way the Germans announced they’d sunk the Ark Royal about 54 times in WW2 … or the number of times the Iemma Government has announced a new public transport plan.) Read more »
I wrote a few days ago about the Roman Catholic church’s attempt to inspire the youth of the world by digging up a corpse and transporting it to Randwick racecourse. I have to say I was impressed with the maturity of commenters and glad I hadn’t written some of the things I was tempted to, like how they were going to put the corpse in a line up with selected Vatican dignitaries and give a prize to people who could tell the difference, and other juvenile stuff like that. Read more »
Our ABC TV was in form tonight in the 7 pm news, leading with a story about the 2020 Summit. Guess what took up most of the segment? Alexander Downer, giving another smug self-satisfied speech to explain why he’s a monarchist. Talk about cutting edge journalism.
Don’t tell me it’s all Janet Albrechtsen’s fault. I don’t buy it.
New York mayor Micael Bloomberg is looking forward to 2009 and anew president.
“Some of the things they will be in favor of I will agree with, some of the things they will be in favor of I won’t. But at least we’ll have an adult in office who can lead and can accomplish something.”
Hehehe. Read more »
On the eve of this momentous weekend in the history of our nation, let’s dedicate a song to our prime minister. It’s called ‘The two calls (of Dietrich Bonhoeffer)’ by The Oaks. They also sing songs about Afghanistan.
I wonder who they’ll come for first in the USA.
Download audio file (01%20The%20Two%20Calls%20(Of%20Dietrich%20Bonhoe.mp3) Read more »
Courtesy of Indonesia Matters:
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s boring speeches put people to sleep.
While giving a speech to provincial leaders on 9th April president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono noticed that a number of attendees had fallen asleep. He complained:
Wake up! Get out if you want to sleep. Read more »
The current Opposition leader yesterday:
I assure you I’m going nowhere.
Think that’s the whole problem, Brendan…
Ever wondered what Donovan would have sounded like if he had some decent sound equipment instead of that crappy 60s stuff?
Take it away My Morning Jacket.
Can somebody please advise Our ABC News department that when he describes himself as the ‘alternative prime minister’, Brendan Nelson is not describing a new system of governance in this country. He is not in fact the go-to guy for information about world affairs, yet Our ABC continues to report his utterances as if he is in a position of authority and has access to information that others don’t.
Relay might not make it to Canberra: Nelson Read more »
Another of the think tanks that infest the USA, the somewhat ironically named United States Institute for Peace, has released a report about the Iraq war occupation problem (Iraq risks becoming the US version of ‘the Irish question’ that bedevilled UK politics for a century or more). The report is notable for a couple of things.
First, it sets out the ‘five paramount interests’ that ‘U.S. policy in Iraq should aim to serve’: Read more »
Two US soldiers have been killed and 17 injured in attacks on the Baghdad Green Zone. Read more »
Great excitement in the right wing blogosphere about this story from Louise Yaxley of Our ABC(my emphasis):
Senator Clinton and Mr Rudd met for 40 minutes in Washington today, discussing the Australia-US relationship, health care, and engagement with Asia.
The Senator also updated him on the progress of the election campaign.
Mr Rudd offered to help if he could with her campaign and told her he understands how tough it is. Read more »
I know we read about the wisdom of crowds, and keep being told that the people never get it wrong for long. I’ve yet to be convinced. I tend to be a Gustave Le Bon kind of guy when it comes to the mob:
“The unreal has about as much influence on them as the real…”
In support, I give you this example. Read more »
According to Kevin Rudd, he’s not due to speak to Barack Obama until tomorrow.
However, I’m afraid the prime minister is being less than frank. It’s clear that the two men have already spoken, and that the 21st century Kennedy has been convinced by Kevin’s brilliant electoral tactics, at least if Obama spokesman Josh Earnest is any guide: Read more »
Remember when the Brits withdrew from Basra? Read more »
I was trying to be positive about the 2020 envisioning thing, I really was.
Until I read that Miranda Devine is a member of the mob considering ‘Future of Australian Governance’.
Miranda Devine!!!!!
You remember the justification for Teh Surge? Read more »
At last the opposition has shaken off its post-election tristesse and bounced back to the Great Policy Debate. And the inspiration, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, is PM-in-waiting Malcolm Turnbull*. Read more »
John McCain has floated a few weird ideas over the last few years, since he decided the way to succeed George W Bush was to stop this half-hearted warmongering and get in boots and all, but the weirdest has been this ‘league of democracies’ he keeps talking about. Read more »
Supporters of the Bush Administration sneer at claims that their sock puppet took the nation to war on the basis of lies. “Name a single lie,” they demand, carefully marshalling all their rhetorical tricks. Read more »
Has the Iraq invasion made the world safer, as George W suggests? Read more »
A man should know his limitations, as Dirty Harry used to say, and I don’t profess to be an economist. Maybe that’s why I puzzle over stories like these: Read more »
Here are two links to things which might not last. Get ‘em while they’re hot.
One of my favourite bloggers, Thirdcat, is blogging here while the Adelaide Festival’s on. An unexpected bounty of Thirdcatty writing! Go, read!* Read more »
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