Roy Morgan’s latest face-to-face survey of 1799 voters has Labor’s lead up to 57-43 from 55-45 a fortnight ago. Labor is up 1.5 per cent on the primary vote to 47 per cent, and the Coalition down 2 per cent to 37.5 per cent.
Other stuff:
• I appeared yesterday before the Perth hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the federal election, where I argued the increasingly problematic STV Senate system should be replaced by good old-fashioned list system PR with seats allocated using the New Zealand-style Sainte-Laguë formula. Not a chance in hell of this happening of course, but as Homer Simpson would say, at least I’m out there doin’ stuff. Perhaps I would have done better to have fallen in behind the Greens’ Commonwealth Electoral (Above-the-Line Voting) Amendment Bill 2008, which I hadn’t given due consideration as I wrongly believed it required full numbering of above-the-line preferences. When told it was optional preferential, I instead argued it would amount to a New South Wales-style de facto “largest remainder” system, with the potential to produce disproportional results: for example, parties which get 1.5 and 0.6 quotas on the primary vote could win one seat each despite the former party having won well over twice as many votes (as Antony Green puts it, methods like Sainte-Laguë ensure that “each MP represents roughly the same number of voters”). However, I now see it requires that a minimum of four boxes be numbered, which might solve or at least alleviate this difficulty – although there remains the likely problem of a higher informal vote. I remain open to persuasion on any of these points, and might yet make a supplementary submission.
• The Electoral Commission of Queensland has finalised its boundaries for the state redistribution. The new electorates which were named Macrossan, Samsonvale and Dalby in the original proposal will instead be named Dalrymple, Pine Rivers and Condamine.
• Christian Kerr of The Australian reckons blogs, and “polling blogs” in particular, contain “paranoia about certain journalists, certain newspapers (and) certain pollsters”. What a thing to say …
339 Comments
1799 sample… thats quite a lot isn’t it?
A Coalition primary vote below 40% is absurd and should be disregarded. Face-to-face surveys also have dubious accuracy.
Must be why Gary Morgan sacked most of his staff!
A-C, of course had it been the other way around it would be the most accurate poll in the land.
Although I must be consistent here and say I don’t put a great deal of weight in Morgan polls, no matter which way they go.
“Christian Kerr of The Australian reckons blogs, and “polling blogs” in particular, contain “paranoia about certain journalists, certain newspapers (and) certain pollsters”. What a thing to say.”
Hey, Christian I think A-C and myself have just become exhibits a) and b) in your argument.
By all the MOEs!
Let’s face it. Christian Kerr is everything we bloggers are not. He has a broad appreciation of things, is nuanced, tolerant, wise, correct, balanced, factual, original, humble and not paranoid about anything. He is balanced about catholics, Zionists and US conspirators. He doesn’t repeat his assertions. He is not smug. He gathers evidence and analyzes it. He does not share space with others of similar views because that would be like living in an echo chamber. He is not righteously indignant, does not sneer and does not use the tone of an undergraduate.
Golly, maybe if we all try very hard to improve ourselves we could aspire to be just like Christian and write for a balanced and factual newspaper like the Australian.
Bags I write the next Australian editorial promoting the slaughterhouse invasion of some country or other that has definitely got WMDs and is going to wipe us all out. I’ll get the subbie to call it ‘Shock and Awe a Must!’ Plenty of fact, balance and nuance in that.
It’s not an argument, just an observation. Arguments require more thinking than that.
There is a salutary admonition to all who like weblogging (myself included), and it is contained in these sentences of Christian Kerr’s piece:
“Like minded people like to associate and engage with each other. Yet if they engage to celebrate ideas but scorn any notions contrary to their group think, what is the point of their activity”.
Thanks William for providing the link.
What is the point of engaging with people SIMPLY to argue for the sake of arguing?
Plus there are contrary voices who contribute to this blog, but they usually have very badly thought out arguments (such as ESJ’s “if I can think of something then it is true, and about to occur” theory of economics).
And of cause to get feedback Christian Kerr enabled comments.
ShowsOn (8) Perhaps but in my experience (not necessarily limited to PollBludger threads) there are always going to be greater and lesser minds than one’s own.
William
I do not hav access to all info & data re vote systems proposed , however initial thoughts on NZ system seem that efectively members ar elected based on quotient formula , (with members guaranteed intially of electon being those that actualty won an ‘electorate’)
This seems a basic change to our method where prefs hav a part
There 5% threshold seems critically linked to actualy winning an ‘electorate’
I’m not in favour of quotient method if as seems case in NZ , th quotiient calcs were based Nationally rather than by State , however if proposed quotient calc for ‘oz’ was based per each of 8 state/Teritories , then this queryof mine does not apply Believe esential we maintain ‘State’ criteria of Senate representation to protect smaller population States
Other disquiet with qotient method is it treats all ‘votes’ as ‘absolute numbers’ of a final voters one and only vote choise , for mathematical allocation of efectively all members election , but very particulaly in regard to ‘electing’ members from th residual votes left over (after allowing for those votes that actualy elected a member via member wining an ‘electorate’)
Rather I prefer curent pref system so that ‘democraticaly’ voters “overall prefered” choice gets last quota & th seat , however thats to say some fine tuning is not necessary
For these reasons as well I find optional pref system flawed at lower house level as it encourages a reasonable dominant Party to promote to its ‘voters ‘to vote ‘ONE only” , which efectively converts optional pref voting to ‘first past post ‘voting system at cynical discretion of pollies , and it creates a scambled eggs of conflicting votes by th same Partys voters from one area to another ( asper Antony’s analysis of 2006 NSW Electon , or alternatively encourages US style promotion to voters not to use optional options or to do so (togeether with ‘power’ of which Party hs financia reserves o so influence 9compulsory overcomes these disadvantages)
.
ps/ Also would not be in favor of any Senator being able to get elected below curent ‘oz’ thresholds (would otherwise turn our sysem into US ‘pork barrelling’ antics by pollies Mention this as not sure whether a reducton was separatly proposed
David Charles @ 7
Spot on.
Still, the odd bit of scornmongering is enjoyable.
Christian Kerr of The Australian reckons blogs, and “polling blogs” in particular, contain “paranoia about certain journalists, certain newspapers (and) certain pollsters”. What a thing to say.
Well, he is kinda right. One of the main functions of such blogs is providing an outlet for (legitimate) alternative views to those allowed in the MSM, and holding it to account for its failings and biases in political reporting and analysis. For example, their woeful election coverage in last year’s federal election.
Always found Mr Kerr a mixed bag. Sometimes he is quite insightful and unbiased, at other times just a knee-jerk ideologue.
I simply can’t believe that Brian Burke is back on the campaign trail!!!
http://theworstofperth.com/2008/08/22/i-know-a-bloke/
Kerr says:”Nuance is gone. Instead, you enter the echo chamber where assertions are endlessly repeated”
Growler thinks Ackerman on the Heiner matter, Bolt on Climate Change and Shanahan on Liberal the silver lining in every Newpoll.
Kerr says: “That’s what I find frustrating in the blogosphere. Too theoretical, little of no memory, little demonstrated experience. Plenty of self-righteousness though.”
Growler thinks Glenn Milne, Greg Sheridan and Christian Kerr.
Then I laugh and I laugh and I laugh.
Cookster, I have a WA election thread on the boil elsewhere.
William and Ron
One of the things that has always perplexed me is how minor parties can get a fair trot without all their voters being concentrated geographically. I suppose the recent classic is that the Greens often get the same or more votes than the Nats in the lower house and hardly ever get a proportionate representation in the lower house. The older example would have been the DLP which also did not get representation in lower houses.
On the other hand, having a politician tied to a single member electorate, with an electorate office, tends to mean that the politicians ‘work’ an electorate, listen to people, get complained to, try to do small things for them such as overcoming small bureaucratic hurdles, and so on. If internal communications in parties is working well, and the members are being involved in telling Cabinet what is happening in their electorates, I think that that this function is very valuable for democracies and good governance.
Ron, don’t worry about a quotient for the Senate being national. It would require a change to the constitution to do that. Any quotient adopted would have to be state based.
Antony, after briefly skimming through the transcript of your JSCEM appearance, am I right that you support the Greens’ bill? Do you have concerns about its impact on the informal vote?
These journos obviously consider that bloggers matter enough to write about…
Christian Kerr is right as far as he goes. He fails to acknowledge that the MSM is guilty of exactly the same sins, they just do it in front of a wider audience.
“These journos obviously consider that bloggers matter enough to write about…” And they obviously read the blogs.
Now the ANZ steps into line and goes one step further.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/anz-to-pass-on-any-rate-cut-20080822-4016.html
Credit where credit is due. I think we can thank Swan for this very welcome buckling by the banks. Even though he is all bluff.
No way! Everyone knows these interest rate cuts are all due to the brilliant managing of the economy by the Libs up until this year… unless we hit a recession, and then it’s all Rudd’s fault.
That bloody Swan, talking down interest rates again.
William, you might have noticed the Liberals on the committee were in favour of fully optional preferential voting, though perhaps others in the party are not aware that Mr Morrison is so firmly of that view.
There are ‘detail’ issues that have to be dealt with in introducing what the Greens are proposing. I made one recommendation on that in referring to minimum numbers of candidates being nominated, and also changing the formula for transfer value to exclude exhausted preferences first, as applies in NSW and the ACT. But I think it fairly clear that the Labor, Liberal, National and Green Parties have had enough of the current ticket voting system and are determined to find an alternative.
If the Upper House proposal has a minimum number of preferences, my immediate recommendation is the minimum number of preferences also be applied to the lower house or you will get problems with informal votes.
In theory, if you have optional preferential voting it should be fully optional. However, fully optional preferential voting in a 6 member Senate could produce a candidate elected well short of a quota, and the solution is to increase the number of preferences. Your balancing two principles, optionality and ensuring a candidate reaches a quota. A certain blogger on this site would recommend adopting the Meeks method, or his modified version of it, to overcome exhausted preferences, but I doubt the Committee would recommend such a radical departure.
I also wouldn’t use the NZ Saint-Laugue or any other divisor method. That would require ditching quotas and preferences altogether. The last time a divisor method was put up, the original pure D’Hondt system for the ACT, Senators displayed they could not understand an electoral system that did not have quotas or preferences, and this resulted in the dogs breakfast modified’D'Hondt system that was an adminstrative nightmare no one could understand.
Antony Green @ 27
‘dogs breakfast’. A clever play on words, but was it intended?
Hondt = ‘dog’ in Dutch.
So what you’re saying, Antony, is that the dog’s breakfast was a result of disregarding the rule that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
Antony
thanks for that , risls of me dashing off posts , however from that it does to me raise spectre of ‘quotients’ by State becoming a referndum by Party with excess
votes resilting in last seat (or last 2) per Teritory or State
Now whlst I do not hav access to computer modelling or necessary datsto run a series of ‘tests’ of varying Senate results resulting from varying (and often ‘quirky) voting numbers per Party by State , suspect with high Labor Greeens & Libs vote in a State that last seat could end up with a Party clearly not prefferred voters choise , indeed potentuialy th antitisus thereof
Another unintended efect could also be in a State like Q’ld where dominent ‘consevative Party’ is ‘Nats’ not Libss , where Labor Liberals Greens & Nats ar competing efectively for final seat (or 2)
Whilst all of above points would not make it a ‘first past post’ mehod , it could still hav some of adverse elements of that system , and am not in favor of qotients for these reasons (although would prefer some detailed modelling on many combinatons in my pocket to suport my views but don’t hav them)
As I’ve argued against even more firmly ‘optional pref’ system earlier0 , wondering wht some tinkering with curent system would not be more preferred , particuly as it does result in th most contensious spot/seat (th last one) being determined generally on will of people’s “leanings” at th worst
Sorry intended post TO William and Antony
J-D – The Modified D’Hondt system invented in the committee stage of the Senate debate was an utterly impossible counting method, and came about because the very simple D’Hondt method designed to elect 17 ACT MLAs at large did not have a quota and did not have preferences, and the Senators couldn’t make head nor tail of it as a result.
It produced a very funny carton by Geoff Pryor of the Canberra times. There is the old story about a camel being a horse designed by a committee. And then there is the biblical story about passing a camel through the eye of a needle. Pryor drew a cartoon of the Senate trying to shove a camel labelled ‘Modified D’Hondt’ through the slot of a ballot box.
Ron, can you re-read what you write before you post it. I really can’t understand you last post.
I’m surprised Christian Kerr has time to know whats even said on polling blogs about the media and his paper in particular. After all – isn’t he busy in his full time job doing investigative journalism? Unless of course he regards reading blogs like Poll Bludger as research and worth reporting on, in which case he seems to be paranoid about his own job??? What a confused man!
Seriously I would have thought the only thing Oz journalists should be afraid of is falling circulation, in the oft chance that people have realised there are many blogs on political and economic matter these days written by people better qualified on the topics than most journalists.
Also I noticed we’ve had a Victorian real estate agent jailed today and two ANZ executives sacked. Lets call it a good start. So with justice having a better than average day, I wish you all a happy weekend.
Yes, Antony, I know, my point was that a system without quotas and preferences is not intrinsically more complex–in fact, it’s intrinsically less complex–so the Senators’ problems with it were a result of their inability to come to grips with the unfamiliar.
Christian Kerr is of course right that many people at this blog and elsewhere have a phobic loathing of The Australian. Now I don’t say The Australian hasn’t earned that hatred by its shameless campaigning for Howard last year, and particularly for its deliberate misrepresentation of its own poll data, but Kerr is right that bloggers who go on and on and ON about it are being rather childish. The simple solution is to join the 99.36% of Australians who don’t bother reading it. (Aust pop = 21,370,000. The Aust circulation = 136,000, or 0.64%)
Adam,
Offtopic question:
What’s your take on the leaking of internal ALP polling currently being discussed in the latest WA Election thread ?
William, I wasn’t very much involved with putting the Greens proposal together (and would have suggested something very slightly different). However, I prefer it to D’Hondt.
D’ Hond’t may be fair within an election, but it allows no opportunity for parties to grow. Since there are no preferences, any party that is clearly not going to get someone up at that election will be seen, including by its supporters, as undermining their nearets allies. There is no capacity for a party to run once getting 2% of the vote, and then build up election after election until they win.
It’s true this has rarely happened in Australia, but I think it is important to leave the door open for it.
From a Greens perspective D’Hondt now looks fine. If my understanding is correct we’d have nine current senators (5 from 07, 4 from 04) if it had been applied in the last two elections and everyone had voted for the party they gave their first preference.
However, everywhere outside Tasmania (and maybe WA) we would have been seen as such spoilers for the Democrats and ALP in 93-01 that we would never have been able to establish ourselves as a party.
The Greens proposal, along with several alternatives, avoids this problem, allowing genuine parties to run while clearing out those who are just there to funnel preferences.
From now on I suspect the Greens would benefit from your proposal more than our own, but from the point of view of democracy I’m not keen to kick the ladder we have just climed away so no one else can get up it.
PS I still think your idea would probably be better than what we’ve got, but the net gain is small.
Antony is probably right that the modified D’Hondt disaster was a result of the senators not understanding D’Hondt, but its also possible it was an effort to avoid the problem I’ve described – which it pretty much did, at the cost of many other things.
BTW I used to work with someone who had been one of the bureaucrats responsible for the modified D’Hondt system. He took a certain pride in having created “the worst electoral system in the world”, and was quite dissappointed when I told him I had encountered a worse one.
Stephen, I am in fact advocating Sainte-Laguë rather than D’Hondt, and it sounds to me like that’s what your discussing – unless I’m doing it wrong, Bob Brown would have been the only Green elected under D’Hondt last year (and Nick Xenophon would have been the only other non-major member). It sounds to me though that I would have done better to have advocated the Greens option combined with a number-at-least-four-boxes form of OPV for the lower house to minimise informal voting, which I gather is Antony’s view (he must get sick of being right).
William, when I appeared before the Committee, I pointed out that a ‘1′ vote works in NSW because there are 21 members and even with a high exhausted rate, the end result is still relatively proportional. Certainly more proportional than a full preferential system, though a divisor system such as Sainte-Lague would be fairer than the de-facto highest remainder system that NSW has become.
But because the Senate only has 6 vacancies, applying the NSW system might deliver the last seat to someone with a very low vote if the race for the final seat is relatively close between several parties. That’s why deviating from the principal of optional preferences by specifying a minimum number of preferences may be valuable in that it ensures that there are more preferences around to resolve the final vacancies on preferences.
Advocating four preferences all round might be easy. Four preferences above the line, four preferences below the line, and four preferences in the lower house. It doesn’t have a principle behind it, like full optional or full compulsory, but it is a sytem that could be explained to voters, and wouldn’t result in there being no preferences at the end of a Senate count.
Yes, I also made the point to the committee that de facto largest remainder is fine for the NSW upper house but not for a half-Senate.
I preferred Christian when he was Hillary Bray.
His career as a political advisor was such a great success that Hill, Vanstone and Olsen all found diplomatic posts overseas to avoid him.
I told you the journos read us.
They reckon we don’t like Bolt! Well, if we don’t like Bolt, what about Milne and Akerman? At least Bolt is entertaining.
Ronster
Unless you are in a different time zone a few months ahead of me, Obama is not POTUS and didn’t let anyone do anything.
McCain is up to his armpits in the Georgia stuff-up.
With John McCain as Agent Provocateur?
Is Georgia 2008 a Repeat of Hungary 1956?
http://www.counterpunch.com/lichtman08212008.html
If you are going for OPV for the senate should it be a minimum of six boxes as people are electing 6 senators for their state, or 2 for the territories.
May be easier, six senators, tick 6 boxes?
I think Christian had his tongue firmly in cheek when he wrote the last line.
“two crucial elements missing from the world of the blogs. They are balance and fact.”
Greeting fellow players in the echo-chamber orchestra.
Apologies for being on topic, but can anyone grasp the logic of this statement on Morgan’s page:
“Kevin Rudd has enjoyed a bounce in support as the Beijing Olympics begin…”
Surely he’s not suggesting a link?
Frank, I have no idea, but cynics might observe that releasing “private polling” showing that you are not doing as well as everyone thinks you are is a good way of preventing complaceny and stopping your core vote leaking to the Greens. But of course I would never suggest that the WA ALP would do such a thing.
I don’t loathe it, I think it is hilarious, which makes it entertaining.
He may be, but he just can’t remember.
ShowsOn 8
Please dont verbal me.
Grog
Didn’t Rudd win more medals than our men’s swimming team?
I think your weak comments are enough for both of us to dine out on dont you ShowsOn?
LOL!
Oh no! Please don’t verbal me! Please don’t do it!
Wow, Morgan Poll makes it to the MSM.
http://news.smh.com.au/national/poll-shows-rudd-would-be-reelected-20080822-40cs.html
Silly headline though. Hasn’t every poll since the last election shown that Rudd would’ve been re-elected?
55 ShowsOn – Yeah, you wonder what is different about this one.
55 ShowsON – yep hold the front page: No Change!!!!
ShowsOn
You seem only to be able to react and not to propose. I guess there must always be more Indians than chiefs in this world.
I’d rather be an Indian, than a chief with a completely incoherent theory!
And plus I have proposed lots of things, some of which you agreed with!
So maybe you are verballing yourself.
ShowsOn, I appreciate ESJ isn’t Snow White, but he’s actually been in good form lately and your comment at #8 wasn’t terribly constructive. Same goes for the other person who took a potshot at him the other day for no particular reason, whoever it was.
On the Christian Kerr thing, I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s comment that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Kerr looks like Caroline O’s replacement as the resident lightweight colour writer.
If I remember rightly, every national poll since Latham’s resignation has shown Labor ahead.
On the naming of new Qld electorates, the ditching of ‘Macrossan’ (an nth generation legal family) is exquisitely timed. John Murtagh Macrossan, a typically (b)anal ex Chief Justice, died two weeks ago.
Halperin at Time has reported that Romney is McCain’s running mate.
http://thepage.time.com/2008/08/21/2-gop-sources-its-romney/
That locks in the polygamist millionaire vote.
Adam noted: ”The simple solution is to join the 99.36% of Australians who don’t bother reading it. (Aust pop = 21,370,000. The Aust circulation = 136,000, or 0.64%)”
The AFR this week published figures on the number of giveaways included in newspaper circulations (mostly to hotels, but presumably including tricks like The Aust being available to that underprivileged group – uni students and staff – for $20 a year). The Aust headed the list with over 6% of its pretty weak circulation being giveaways.
It’s a loss leader with declining pretensions to leading debate. Just a shame that as it declines, we are even less likely to get what we need, an alternative national daily.
Sorry about the link. Here’s the guts of it
Obama getting ready to announce his decision, with Democratic sources continuing to say “Watch Biden.”
2 Republican sources say McCain has apparently settled on Romney as his pick, but no offer has been made.
And/but: NY Times: “People close to the campaign also floated a wild-card choice, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.”
http://thepage.time.com/
“paranoia about certain journalists, certain newspapers (and) certain pollsters”
I think he needs to at least show that that it is “paranoia” and not valid criticism – after all the continual uproar may well have solid foundations. To make his point he needs to look at the journalists in question and reason if their work is consistently bias, inaccurate or misleading and if it seems to be a deliberate pattern.
Yes the bloggers probably do go overboard and get highly frustrated Because they are powerless to do anything. If you see people consistently lying or giving misleading information to the public with a view to influencing elections you are of course powerless unless you can buy an TV station or newspaper, and no doubt anger ensues.
McCain had to ask a staffer how many houses he owns. This is with something like 1.8 million empty houses, everybody subprime being turfed out of their houses, and the housing mortgage defaults moving up the scale.
Obama only owns one house, but the chap who was generous with the largesse in the financing of it is having a bit of difficulty indictment-wise.
America, America.
I think there have been a few ties since then.
What we need is an Australian equivalent of Real Clear Politics: a website linking to all the best in the daily press and the magazines, with some contributed articles, plus all the poll data. William, there’s a project for you.
Diogenes,
Bought The Age of Reagan 1974-2008
and
Nixonland
today.
http://www.breakfastpolitics.com/
Why did the age end this year? The U.S. budget is back in massive deficit, which is Reaganomics 101.
Bush adopts Obama’s Iraq policy:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-to-exit-iraq-in-2011/2008/08/22/1219262526938.html
ESJ
I’ve seen excellent reviews for Nixonland.
The Legacy of Ashes book was very good. Nixon really got done in by the CIA. I don’t think they enjoyed his quote “What do those clowns at Langley do all day?”
In terms of the misuse and abuse of the CIA, I was a bit surprised to find that the Kennedys (Robert more than John) and Johnson were truly revolting people, much more so than Nixon . Nixon really botched Chile unforgivably (and Kissinger was probably more to blame for that) but he was pretty tame compared to JFK, RFK and LBJ.
Diogenes as Mao was reputed to have said “I prefer dealing with rightists, they are more honest”.
ESJ, I think you’d find liberals, as in centrists, even more honest.
Graeme @ 66
I look forward to reading the AntiGG with my morning cuppa. Plenty of quality stuff in the AntiGG. True, the quality is diluted with a fair bit of rubbish. Still, even the rubbish gives me enjoyment. My favourite comedy sketches are by Shanahan and Sheridan. The really fun bit is to look at the headline and predict the main points. Not hard to do with Shanahan. I hope Costello does become opposition leader because it will be interesting to see Shanahan wet himself on paper. Sheridan is an active reader and thinker and occasionally surprises. He is also well-connected. The editorial pieces are so far up themselves that the writers must be wondering where all the daylight went. They are generally well worth a giggle or two.
ESJ That is a line from the opera “Nixon in China.” I’d like to see a source that Mao actually said it, although I don’t doubt that as an evil old cynic he admired other evil old cynics like Nixon and Kissinger.
A in C @ 62
Last time coalition lead Labor in Newspoll was August 2006. And I think Latham was long gone then.
ESJ
Mao may be right. If you lined up the Post WWII presidents by party it’s;
Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton vs Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.
IMHO, there’s not a lot to chose between those teams in honesty. Truman and Eisenhower cancel each other. LBJ and Nixon/Ford were on a par. Carter and Reagan were about the same. If you put Bill up against the Bushes, I think he was more dishonest than them (Bush II is saved by his stupidity).
When are the Libs going to get rid of Mich,he’s far right.get a decent opposition,they are rabble at the moment.(example Branda).
I am curious here: Is honesty here the degree of congruence between what folk say in public and what they know to be true? Or is it something else?
I got upset when channel 7 would not view protests in Tebit,where’s free of speech.Gone out the door?
I have better things to do in the morning than watch Denis Shanahan masturbate.
wow
what a result for the fibs
irrelevance leading to obscurity
actually re-reading aust prime mins by michelle g.
we are living in very interesting times and i think the GG would love a scullin type scenario.
ps loved keating on abc2- wonder how many fibs complained
Adam 79 -
not much of a quote but Page 625 of Nixonland there is a reference
” The chairman (Mao) …. discoursed about his preference for dealing with rightwingers”
Quoted here too Adam:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/books/review/Gaddis.t.html?pagewanted=print
Best quote I heard about Mao was when Gough visited him, Gough was told that Mao didn’t like small talk.
So Gough asked Mao, what do you think would have happened if Krushev was assassinated instead of Kennedy, after a slight pause Mao said “I don’t think that Mrs Krushek would have married Mr Onnassis.
Rod
my fav was when mao was asked how many troops in red army
answer:as many as the soil will carry!
numbers were irrelevant and still are methinks
89 rod, it is a good anecdote; me thinks Gough probably took some liberties in the telling, but still; it’s gold.
heh heh you said masturbate
Adam and ESJ
The transcripts you refer to are the Nixon-Mao conversation, Beijing Feb 21, 1972 in The Kissinger Transcripts.
Mao said to Nixon “I voted for you when your country was in havoc during your last electoral campaign… I am comparatively happy when those on the right come to power.”
Nixon replied “Those on the right can do what those on the left talk about.”
CHRIS KERR says in ‘oz’ :
“The sheer fact it’s mainstream, though, means it must offer two crucial elements missing from the world of the blogs. They are balance and fact.”
Chris Kerr ? Kerr’s Kerr’s junior Thats like saying th dominant food Supermarkets Coles and Woolworths ar mainstream , and therefore offer most value for money
Market dominance in any Industry including Media is an economic result of economic power , and ‘balance’ and ‘fact’ ar not only an irrelevant factor , but normally result in ‘imbalance’ and ’spin’ …th antithisus of ‘balance’ and ‘fact’
Pity Kerr’s Kerr’s junior is not up to th challenge of defending posters demolition of his sanctimonious assertiion
A war with the blogosphere can only be good for the blogosphere – keep em complaining.
68
Thomas Paine Says:
Yes the bloggers probably do go overboard and get highly frustrated Because they are powerless to do anything.
Oh, I don’t know. Seemed to me that certain denizens of the emerging blogworld managed to justifiably get right up the noses of Mr Shanahan and The Oz editorial writers over some serious issues during the federal election campaign. I think the MSM has learnt an important lesson in recent times, that the era when they can say anything they like and not get publicly called on it is well and truly over. They no longer have unchallenged control of the public debate like they did a decade ago, let alone a half century ago. And a damn good thing too.
Thomas
You ar quite correct , however would be quite happy to debate this guy on his claims , if my logics didn’t confuse him then my lingos might
Frankly i see Kerr’s Kerr’s junior article as th first stages of concesion of defeat by MSN of there total dominance of informing & influencing people
Lateline..(Virginia aside)
Hewson was on. And was his usual self. Informed, realistic, smart. Just as were Whitlam, Hawkey and Paul.
Hewson, Keating et al, had the brains and the smarts to work together towards resolving the odd problem. About the money, about the water. Esp. South Australia.
Sadly and hopelessly, it ain’t going to happen. If anyone in Fed Libs had the slightest idea, hands would be joined. Nelson or any Lib just won’t!
And, I am seriously annoyed with Kevin. Thanks for nuthin. The Coorong, you know. Not to mention the drinking water.
WD STEVIE HOOKER!!!
Oh Wow! Steve Hooker
ooooooh. left this bit out
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The district of Condamine doesn’t even contain the town of Condamine.
What was wrong with the name Dalby? (or for that matter, Darling Downs)
Crikey Whitey @ 98 -
And, I am seriously annoyed with Kevin. Thanks for nuthin. The Coorong, you know.
Nothing wrong with the Coorong that just opening the barrages wouldn’t almost instantly fix.
I’ve been reading about Charles Sturt’s trip down the Murray. Interesting fact – most know he was the first European to see the Murray Mouth, but what most don’t realise is that he never got close to what we call the mouth. He did explore the lakes and Coorong but to him they were as much part of the sea as the wet bit off Glenelg. His ‘mouth’ was about where Wellington is. Everything below he considered to be ocean.
Not to mention the drinking water.
All the water we get here in the Hills comes directly from Mannum, so I guess I should be even more annoyed than folks down on the plain, but, frankly, for quite some time the liquid that’s been coming out of the taps has only born a passing resemblance to water. Anyone foolish enough to drink the stuff deserves the lingering pitiful death that would probably result.
Dennis is under my skin; I itch and itch but I can’t get rid of him.
Dennis is in my walls, under my floor and in my ceiling.
Dennis is everywhere.
Dennis is watching me… and you.
Obama VP gossip
MSNBC claims Bayh and Kaine “Not It”
That leaves Biden, Clinton, Richardson and Sebelius.
NBC: Bayh, Kaine out of Obama’s veep race
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26336195/
Parkes doesn’t include the town of Parkes.
Werriwa is named after Lake George, which hasn’t been in the seat since 1906.
MayoFeral @ 103
Spot on about opening the barrages. The pollies are maintaining the worst of all worlds at the moment just to keep a few interested parties in palliative care for a while.
Very interesting stuff about Sturt – did the accounts mention whether the MDB was in drought at the time?
#105, If Obama really wants to be the POTUS, then he will have to pick Hillary. If not, he can pick anyone he likes, it does not matter as it will be then a 50-50 with McCain.
Finns
It’s looking a lot like Biden. He’d be good with oodles of foreign policy experience. I don’t think the rest of the world would be unhappy with him as VP. McCain looks stuck with Romney as Obama is so far ahead in Minnesota that choosing Pawlenty wouldn’t help.
Finns
CNN says Hillary has been told “No”.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama has ruled out Senator Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, a senior Democratic official told CNN on Friday night.
Clinton — Obama’s main rival during the primary season — has been informed by Obama’s campaign that she is not his choice to be his vice presidential candidate, the source said.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/22/source-clinton-has-been-told-shes-not-the-vp-pick/
I am surprised at the size of the Australians readership, they are actually irrelevant. Has anyone any idea about the number of hits on these blog sites that they rightly fear so much.
When you look 5-10 years down the road, the crickey model is bound to grow, and if marketers get their head around the tightness of many of the demographics you could have a ready made income stream william. I would suggest that if I ran readings/dymocks bookstore, I’d be interested in advertising costellos upcoming book in a side banner. Who know william you could become the next William Hearst. Go for it I say, don’t let the rich bastards do what they normally do and thats watch for innovation then copy and steal it. Get the rewards for your efforts.
FTP, William has already been the victim of intellectual property theft once!
Finns, Yes pride cometh before a fall – dumb move passing on Hilary.
The size of the readership may not actually be that important. I suggest that The Australian is like AM. Its power is that it helps set and frame the agenda. As a corollary, the size of the Possum/Bowe blog readership was not all that important. I have no idea of its size. But what was important about the blogs was that it was able to undermine the credibility of the Australian’s interpretation of polling statistics, and hence call into question The Australian’s preferred way of framing the agenda. Given that this was fundamentally about the death of Howard/Costello Government, the stakes were high.
I haven’t articulated this before, but I will now. I feel profoundly grateful for Possum’s and William’s contribution to democracy in Australia.
Dio @ 109,
Good to see the US Secret Service is so good at keeping secrets that they’ve just let the VP secret out of the bag!
Finns @ 108,
What you say is possibly true.
However I suspect Obama thinks it’s not worth having the job if that means he has to have the Clintons as VP.
He’s right, too.
Tiptoe for Veep, he’s had oodles of experience at it.
Diogenes at 110 i know its off topic but Obama has chosen joe biden
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/23/biden.democrat.vp.candidate/index.html
Boerwar Says: @ 113,
{I feel profoundly grateful for Possum’s and William’s contribution to democracy in Australia.}
Whole heartedly agree with that observation Boerwar.
The opportunity to put forward individual analysis of current and past events and they they interact with the political decision making processes and potential ramifications for the populace and future direction of the country is I agree, a very important contribution to keeping democracy and accountability alive in Australia.
Appreciation should be extended to the informed and thoughtful posters who make this process so worthwhile. It’s great to often be confronted with soundly based opinions which sometimes result in a reappraisal of one’s own feelings and assumptions on various matters which can often broaden our own opinion.
There are of course, any number of similar sites which fulfill a similar function and allow a wider span of subject matter and issues to be discussed than are possible on an individual blog site and I would suggest that is why the MSM seem to be responding to a perceived but very real threat to their relevance in the world of information analysis and dissemination.
The country and it’s concerned citizenry are benefiting by the the MSM being held accountable by people such as yourself, Bushfire etc who are articulate, intelligent and well informed and able to put forward competent analysis and dissection of much of the misinformation and spin issuing forth from the MSM.
Boerwar @ 107 –
did the accounts mention whether the MDB was in drought at the time?
No, but it could have been. The reason Sturt never saw the real mouth is that he was blocked by sand bars and what he describes as “quicksands” though I’ve not heard of recent experiences of the latter. It was by now means the first time during the journey that the party spent more time dragging the boat than rowing it.
However, he wrote about a year after the expedition down the Darling-Murray:
To the extent this view was coloured by his experiences at the lower lakes, it may suggest he regarded conditions as being normal. Of course as the first white man to the area he had nothing to compare it with.
People can argue about the financial implications of flooding the lower lakes with seawater all they like. It will damage agriculture, and especially viticulture, for a long time. But the hand wringing about it “killing” the lakes and Coorong is utter nonsense. The complete opposite of the truth.
It is the forced freshwater regime of the last 68 years that is unnatural. If the eco system is allowed to ‘die’ because of the bleatings of ignorant then it’s they who will have done the deed and not the farmers upstream getting the blame. Not that the latter don’t have cases to answer for many other of the ills of the rivers. As do many others.
{and they they interact }
and the way they interact! Dammn…..
Agree with others’ comments about the beauty of sites such as this keeping the MSM on its toes.
The great thing about PB is, even though I can go through a day’s worth and find that I disagree with 90% of the comments, they make you think. Not much in the MSM does that.
OK Ron, GG and Finns
With Biden the official Obama running mate, it’s time to vent some spleen about Hillary being squelched under the bus by Obi.
MayoFeral @ 119
Thank you. Again, interesting. I heard from a CSIRO water person that if we look at the inland waterways today and assume that that is roughly what they looked like 200 years ago, we would almost certainly be significantly wrong. The point he was making to me was the inland rivers used to be much broader than they are now, more slow moving and were far more likely to be flowing through large reed beds.
The new stream beds are narrower, the banks steeper and the beds more likely to be silted by sand slugs mobilized by clearing and overgrazing. (They are more like a combination of irrigation ditch and open drain). Interestingly, salinity would have been also have been highly variable in the olden days but generally lower because coming off a lighter salt base load.
The CSIRO chap’s description of the older streams sounds fairly consistent with what Sturt was saying, and it is certainly consistent with having to drag the boats a fair way, (probably even in good years). I suspect that this would also have meant that even in good years the mouths were unnavigable for much of the time, except when flood peaks hit the beaches. These floods were also part of the dynamics which ripped open new watercourses for the rivers. The old courses then tended to become sets of billabongs, with water in them only after big floodes. These archetypical Australian billabongs of the inland water ways are now silting up and are not being replaced by new floods because the water is tightly controlled. They will soon live only in folk songs like Waltzing Matilda.
As for the commercial interests around the lower lakes, my view is that governments are going to have to bite some bullets and people are going to have to be helped to make transitions. There are real choices about what and where, but no choice about if.
My preference would be that this is done in an orderly basis, but the fact that governments allowed a crisis to develop to the extent it has means that some groups of people will suffer disproportionately. I would like to see a Royal Commission into the big Australian water management bugger-up but I am not hopeful.
Excellent decision by Obama in not selecting Hillary. Picking Hillary would have been like Rudd picking Latham lol.
Obama is a strong candidate and is his own man. He dosen’t need Hillary.
Biden is a good choice I reckon.
121 Dyno – not that I want you to go anywhere else but have you tried “the blog that shall remain nameless”? You may find you can agree with 100% of that.
William
“I remain open to persuasion on any of these points , and might yet make a supplementary submission.”
I’d like to persuade you to maintain two key beneficial elements of Sainte-Laguë but as amended per my proposal, whilst recognizing our major Politcal Parties will not take that whole system as is , in place of a preference based voting system
It is suggested as a multi level concept to hav a 5% threshold for electability , a ‘quota’ system , a compulsory above line ticking of ALL boxes , an initial exclusion of th allocation of preferences from Parties gaining less than 5% of vote , a selective use of Sainte-Laguë system to break gridlock where a Party meets a ‘leanings of people’ threshold from preferencing , a propertionality aspect over preferencing aspect at that ‘leanings threshold , and lastly final allocation of preferences from ‘minor majority Parties’(defined as getting less than 5% Primary) as final resort process , should all other preceding steps fail to create a full quota
I will start off trying to justify threshold for electability , then Greens submission which think is fataly flawed , then optional pref voting system’s disadvantage general , then my favoured compulsory pref method , then proportionality benefits , and then I’m going to try to put abov concepts all into some sort of order of allocating votes for Senate , as am thinking many variations ar possible
THRESHHOLD generally , as a prefase to supporting inclusion of th Sainte-Laguë 5% threshhold factor , I would argue that as we already include a total ‘compulsory voting’element already into our ‘oz’ voting system , we therefore already hav one of most “representative democratic” voting systems in world regarding participation Therefore including a threshold is only a minor drawback to deny below 5 % partys from electability from that compulsory voting system is minor , comparative to non compulsory voting systems elsewhere
I support threshold principal (example NZ 5% base) to exclude a “minor minority” Party (defined as winning less than 5 % Primary vote) from being capable of winning a Senate seat (which IS presently possible) over a “major minority” Party (defined as winning over 5% Primary vote)
One has to draw line in sand somewhere and if that means a “minor minority” Party winning getting less than that 5 % (say gets 4.9%Primary) is excluded from being capable of winning a Senate seat , whereas a “major minority” Party (say getting 5.1%) then so beit
(In a DD perhaps this 5% could be reduced to 3.5% , perhaps not , open to points plus & minus there)
Th above incorporates Sainte Lague threshold principal and its benefits of uncluttering system of small party preferences and also adverse possiblity consequence of such Party getting a Senator elected
Different METHODS of preference voting systems I’d assess
OPTIONAL PREF voting methods first I elieve any form of optional prefs voting is flawed and will create unnecessary informal votes I think Greens Party hav cleverley come up with an Greens format of optional pref voting with requirement to tick 4 boxes rather than one box to camouflage th consequential effect that there still be increased informal votes under there optional prefs system proposal Whilst I believe this Greens proposal will maximise there “quota’s” at expense of other Partys particularlly Labor , there is no queston this Greens Part proposal method will increase ‘informal votes’ compared to compulsory ticking all boxes , and so there proposal should be oposed
Furthermore , any form of optional prefs voting even with 4 boxes , still allows ‘manipulaton’ of system by State and/or by geographgic area in a State via issuing vs not issuing HTV’s , or issuing differing HTV’s in different States or in geographic areas as occurred in NSW electon Such HTV ‘misuse’ of optional pref voting system is an ‘abuse against democratic principals’ that should not be allowed
Furthermore multi varied HTV usage with optional pref method even with 4 boxes ticked , would still produce by State and/or by geographic area area an absolute mess of conflicting voting patterns by same Partys supporters between electorates or regions with a State , as occurred in NSW 2006 Electon This would get replicated by State or by Region within a State in a Senate Electon , in addition to producing th higher informal votes adverse effect
Greens Party submmission , whilst it is clearly designed for there politcal advantage , has objectively abov flaws and potential ‘abuses’
COMPULSORY PREF voting methods Our system of compulsorily requiring all above line boxes is both fair and representative enabling a true preferense flow of voters intentions to be reflected , and so I support curent compulsion of all boxes to be ticked above th line This principal has a sounder democratic base than supporters of any optional preference voting systems arguments that there system forces Partys to ‘work’ for there preferences or that it dimishs Partys doing ‘pref deals’ So what , higher voter ‘representation’ via compulsion of all above line boxes being ticked clearly outweighs those arguments/issues on ‘democratic representation principals grounds
PROCESS of order of preferencing allocation , and use of “Quota’s” :
One , any Party member gaining a full ‘quota’ from primary votes has that member automatically elected to Senate , as now
Second , allocation of any preferences from any “minor minority” Party (defined as winning less than 5 % Primary vote) will be initially excluded altogether and left to th ‘last step’ listed , and then only allocated if “needed” as th final option to make up a full ‘quota’
Third , preferences by ‘major minority’ Parties (defined as winning more than 5 % Primary vote) to any ‘minor minority’ Party ar not (never) counted at all
Four , all prefs from ‘major majority‘ Partys , defined as getting more than 5% Primery vote ( ie excluding all “minor minority” Partys defined as getting less than 5% primary vote) get allocated* progressively as now , and using existing ‘quota’ system , and then as a Party gains a full ‘quota’ that Party’s member gets elected to th Senate
*( presume one includes both above line and below line , but one may or may not exclude votes from “major minority” Parties (gaining over 5% primary vote) who voted below th line)
If as a result of these 4 steps , all Senate seats in a State hav been ‘allocated’ , then following steps ar not required
Five , IF however as a result of points 1/ to 4/ , all State Senate spots hav NOT been created or filled , meaning there ar parts of a quota still shared between Partys which collectively add up to th last Senate seat , THEN a variation of Sainte-Laguë system kicks in
Six , th Party who is th most under represented in Senate seats under calculations using Sainte-Laguë system for that State is ‘allocated’ remaining Senate seat
(a) One could argue make this be a fixed rule that automatically applys , irrespective of what % of a ‘quota’ that Party had by then gained from allocation of preferences , OR my favored option of
(b) instead requires that such Party to hav had to hav gained a specified minimum % of a ‘quotas say 0.75% BEFORE they gain benefit of getting that last seat under of Sainte-Laguë system , which is favoured because it guarantees th ‘leaning’ of most voters under preference principals)
Seven , IF however , more than one Party is equally under prepresented after step 4/ (when looking at making Sainte-Laguë calculations in step 6) , then in that improbable circumstanse ONLY , th Sainte-Laguë system usage for last Senate seat becomes inoperable , and instead then either:
(a) actually commence allocation of “minor minority” Partys (defined as winning less than 5% Primary vote) vote preferences (which todate hav NOT been allocated ) , which of course will result in a Party getting a full “Quota” if all previous options hav not achieved this result , OR alternitively
(b) Do NOT at all allocate any “minor minority” Partys (gaining less than 5% Primary) vote preferences at all , and instead simply ‘allocate remaining Senate seat to th Party who had th highest % of th remaining unfilled ‘quota’(at end of step 4/ ie from prefs fully allocated from major minority” Partys (defined as winning over 5% Primary vote )
…ie as a resort should step 7 Sainte-Laguë method not resolve a full ‘quota’
Summary , there is no simple voting system that also delivers fairness Multi level concepts to get fairness mean soe complexity I’ve tried to accept political reality meaning a form of prefs system remains What has resulted is a selective form of Preference system is maintained here , benefits of full ticking compulsion ar maintained , and also supplys th equity of recognising that a Senator does reflect ‘political leanings’ via prefferencing usage , but at point also reflects Sainte-Laguë principal of proportionality as well , whilst removing under 5% Partys because as our ‘oz’ method is compulsory voting its already more democratic than other countrys , and above proposal also minimises informal vote levels
GB,
Nah … happy here, thanks.
Ron @ 126
Looks OK to me, as long as your aim is to have two parties taking turns at hugging the ‘centre’.
No Boewar , Senate result would be similar to now , with balance of power likely to be other than Libs/Nats or Labor
It is no point proposing to make Senate either another HoR , nor proposing something that Partys will never accept
The Biden pick is an admission of Obama’s weaknesses. He’s far better qualified to be president than Obama is (not hard), and would have been a serious candidate if he weren’t so dull. He’s a political pro who can help prevent Obama saying too many dumb things, and will be careful not to upstage the candidate (as Clinton would have done). He can find the Caucasus on a map. He has some appeal to traditional Dems (white male from a Border state, solid liberal on domestic issues, hawkish on security issues). On the other hand his maleness will leave the hardcore Clinton women unappeased.
Diog & Dyno, I hope and wish that Obama can win. But i have my doubt as events, so far, have proven that Obama is not feeling their pain and the elephant is still in the room. Happy to be proven wrong.
My favourite Joe Biden quotes (expect to read these many times between now and November):
“We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake.”
“We must be clear with the American people that we are committing to Iraq for the long haul; not just the day after, but the decade after.”
Obama and Biden and Iraq
That like Kevin rudd selecting Howard as deputy PM to manage dismantaling of Work Choices
Iraq s most fundamentel US FA policy , ranks no 1 or 2 with voters
Obama wants out in 16 months , whereas Biden supports Mccain policy to ’stay th course
Another example of Obama’s phoney policy convictions There ar numerous qualified senor Democrats who DO favor out of Iraq ASAP (including nut not only Clinton
‘conviction’ on anything polcy , and Obama ar opposites
Finns
Obama has made a lot of concessions to the Clintons re the convention. I hope Hillary’s speech includes a fairly concrete idea of how she would be part of an Obama team, eg as Secretary for Health.
Off topic (again), I just read that it was Kurt Vonnegut’s brother, Bernard, who invented cloud seeding to produce rain. Kurt later used the same phenomenon, called nucleation, in his book Cat’s Cradle in which Ice-9 is released and freezes all the water in the world.
Well Ron he’s trying to win an election, you know, and he’s realised that he’s not an electable product himself, so he’s trying to shore himself up by picking a running-mate who actually is an electable product, but who won’t show him up too badly.
No matter what else he achieves in life, I will forever associate Joe Biden with his plagiarism of a Neil Kinnock speech during his campaign for the nomination in 1988, and the following passage from PJ O’Rourke:
BTW everybody, I’m getting real close to exceeding my monthly bandwidth limit, so apologies if I go offline for a while overnight.
Are you in need of funds again Wm?
Well that’s just great. I was watching Fox News earlier and they were saying that Biden voted against going to war in Iraq and he supports the foreign policies of Obama?
And I haven’t had anything to drink yet!
William
Plagiarism is probably forgiveable but Neil Kinnock is way beyond the pale.
Mostly I’m in need of greater vigilance regarding where I’m at with my bandwidth usage. They used to send me warning emails but they don’t seem to do it anymore. That said, I have just had to pay $25 to tide me over till the end of the month due to increased traffic from the WA election. If that tugs at anyone’s heart strings, then by all means throw some money in the tin.
No, Biden voted in favour of going into Iraq.
William, can you email me with your postal address so I can send you some, and if Obama wins I’ll send you another serving.
Ron @ 129
Just testing. Happy to take your word for it. Too complicated for me.
think you summed it up perfectly Adam , and your first phrase of “Well Ron he’s trying to win an election” sums up my perseption of this phoney , win at any cost with any policy and with zero convicton and committement….meaning hi Presidency would be just as expedient
Always an OUTSIDE danger of a Obama pollie with no “ticker” AND no “conviction” is they can unwittingly lead you into a terrible war , especialy with a thugish Empire hungry poker player like Putin
Obama picking Biden for VP is very like Latham appointing Beazley as shadow defence minister in 2004. “I know I’m incompetent in this area but if you vote for me I’ll put this competent guy in charge.” It didn’t work for Latham.
I’m in favour of war with Putin, and the sooner the better, before he annexes the Sudetenland, if you catch my drift.
Well, if Obama was already President instead of Dubya the whole Iraq catastrophe would have been avoided.
What kind of an idiot truly believed that Hussein was such a threat that Hans Blix could not be given another couple of weeks to finish his job and prove Hussein disarmed?
In my opinion, the US new there were no WMD’s and if they did not act when they did, they would have lost their chance.
They got it so wrong that Obama is far more qualified to be President than anybody who voted to go to war!
If the presidential election is about foreign policy, then Obama wins hands down.
You can’t send your country to war on a mistake. Those who voted in favour of the Iraq war have proved their incompetence and should have resigned, let alone be presidential candidates.
That’l be a nuclear war, AiC
Adam in Canberra @ 146 -
I’m in favour of war with Putin,
And will you be lined up outside the recruiting office the day after it breaks out? Assuming there is a day after!
While I agree that he needs to be reigned in before he rebuilds the Soviet Union, this isn’t going to be easy. The West can hardly argue from the moral high ground given its complicity and/or acquiescence on Iraq and its willingness to create new states for disgruntled minorities who choose to secede. Then there is the ’small’ matter of Putin having much of Western Europe’s nuts firmly grasped because of their reliance on Russian oil and gas. And with winter fast approaching!
.
Centre @ 148 –
You can’t send your country to war on a mistake.
There is growing evidence that McCain’s belligerence, both overt and covert, had much to do with sending another country, Georgia, to war.
As I recently posted in another thread, now might be a good time to price nuke shelters!
112
Edward StJohn Says:
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Do you mean this
http://pollbludger.cn/
Possibly I exaggerate slightly. But the analogy between South Ossetia and the Sudetenland is a compelling one. The Ossets have some legitimate grievances against Georgia, just as the Sudentendeutsch had against Czechoslovakia. These are being exploited by an outside power which is using them as a pretext to conquer its neighbours. In this analogy Bush is Chamberlain and McCain is Churchill. I’m not sure who Obama is. The pacifist wing of the Labour Party perhaps.
It seems to me that we are seeing the beginnings of future conflicts, both within countries and between countries. The water conflict in Australia between the States, and even within States such as Victoria; internationally, the oil and gas control conflict, e.g., Iraq and Georgia (though I think Georgia is also about regional control of “their’ turf from Russia’s perspective). Perhaps the continued polling in favour of Fed. Labor is as much a hope that someone’s got some idea about what to do? Going for evidence, as much as it is my preferred method of operating, I’m not sure is going to help us.
If the MDB’s current condition is a combination of State and Fed. gov’t neglect and incompetence (though my understanding is that Victoria did actually do what was required to change irrigation practice and allocations), farming practices, and the real and permanent effect of climate change, then perhaps we need to be thinking about shifting populations and food production, as well as how we use water.
I must say I’m not heartened by the Brumby gov’t. on the Eddington Report’s proposal for another road tunnel across Melbourne. Unless your road transport is fuelled by low emissions fuel, all you’re going to do is add to the CO2 emissions. Even if you are using low emissions fuel, it just adds to the traffic congestion.
Adam in Canberra @ 152, speaking as someone who would rather that people not actually get killed or maimed or vaporised in any conflict, like Mayoferal, I ask, are you going to put you’re a**e on the line? Or do you expect some one other than you to do so?
Harry, on that line of argument no-one over 25 is allowed to have an opinion on matters of war and peace. “My fellow Americans, the Japanese have just attacked Pearl Harbour, but as your president I have no moral right to respond, since I’m 62 and have never worn a uniform.” This is not how the world works.
The Churchill/Chamberlain/appeasement analogy looks superficially attractive but:
1. The Czechs did not launch an artillery bombardment against the Sudeten Germans. The Georgians without warning launched an artillery bombardment against their own citizens. The fact that Russian ‘peacekeeping’ troops and Russians citizens with mixed up with Georgian citizens probably made it impossible for the Russians not to act. Of course, they wanted to act.
2. Neither Germany nor Czechoslovakia had nuclear weapons.
3. The US has used up all its conventional chips in Iraq and Afghanistan and is fully stretched. It has had to fiddle around with troop deployment rotations in order to keep barely enough troops on the ground now. The US military went public on opposing a mooted strike on Iran. Imagine what they said in private on Russia! It would have been the big ‘nyet’ to Bush and Condi.
4. The conventional weakness of the US meant that conventional defeat at the most, or a protracted war of attrition in Georgia was likely. In either case, the impetus to using their little cans of instant sunshine would become more and more compelling. Conversely, if the US did succeed in trashing the Russians, then the Russians would be reaching for their little cans of instant sunshine.
5. The Europeans are simply not going to go in for the slaughter of another generation v the Russians because the Americans couldn’t manage one of their clients properly.
6. McCain, a warfighter in a losers’ war (that cost, what? one million Vietnamese casualties?), and strong supporter of the slaughterhouse invasion of Iraq which was based on the big lie about WMD, looks like he wants to do it all again. He must be a slow learner. His sabre rattling apparently helped get Saakashvili’s juices flowing. I have serious doubts about whether Obama can cut it as Prez. I have no doubts at all about McCain. He is a dangerous warmonger.
Adam
A better question is whether you would have gone to war when you were 20, say in Vietnam. Even if you wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam, I agree it doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion on going to war.
155 Adam – now let’s actually answer HSO’s question shall we. I don’t think you are in any danger of being the president or PM.
“Even if you wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam, I agree it doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion on going to war.”
But surely if someone is advocating war you would at least expect them to say something like, “If I was young enough I’d go.” Not, “No you wouldn’t catch me going.”
What’s it tell you about a person who advocates war but would avoid it like the plague themselves? I don’t think I’d be happy with say generals in the army that had that point of view, would you?
I refuse to be led down the path of debating what I personally would or would not have done at any point in the past or what I would or would not do today. This is always a cheap diversionary tactic in debates of this kind. In the context of World War II, neither Roosevelt nor Curtin volunteered to serve in World War I – Curtin was a draft resister – but no-one to my knowledge questioned their right to command their armed forces in World War II. Both the US and Australia have professional, volunteer armed services who sign up in the full knowledge that their elected government may send them into a war.
Adam in Canberra @ 160
Not that you appear to need it, but supported.
Adam
what are your thoughts on the “Bradley Effect”?
I have to agree with Adam. I’d be really useless in a war. I’m not cut out for it. I’d be much more useful looking after the wounded (Plastic Surgery was actually born after WWI to look after the maimed veterans). I’m pretty much a pacifist but that doesn’t mean I don’t advocate war in some circumstances.
I’m sure Adam would be much more useful to Oz as a diplomat or foreign affairs adviser rather than in the front lines. It doesn’t mean he can’t advocate war IMHO.
Obama’s campaign so far has been like the syncronised swimming:
* Artistic Impression – 9.5 * Technical Impression: 9.4 and with lot of beautiful legs thrashing around. But even the wife has to ask, what is it all about?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4582920.ece
ESJ, if you can recall, I said from the beginning this election will be a referendum about Obama.
#146 Adam in Canberra
Stock markets around the world are already in a parlous state, recession is threatening in the US, oil prices are at record highs and still rising, $80 billion a year is being wasted on the war in Irag, climate change needs our urgent attention – and the best you can suggest is a war with Russia. WTF are you thinking of man?
Russia aren’t easy beats you know, as Hitler found out during WW2. I’m hoping you were just pulling our legs and I tuned a little bit too late to get the joke.
Diogenese @ 162
I wouldn’t give up hope about the possibility of being useful in a war.
Really, there is plenty of scope for everyone to be useful in a war. In many wars, most of the actual killing is probably done by a minority of the fighters. Naturally, this varies a bit, war by war.
So, in some wars, and for most participants, the main use is actually to be around to get killed by the minority. Nothing to it. As an example, in world war 1, I believe it was artillery that did most of the slaughter and artillerymen were definitely in a minority of the participants.
Diogenes 162 -
I would want to work in the public information department in war time.
Finns 163 -
Of that there can be no doubt. It would seem the referendum verdict is going badly for him.
ESJ
I think Biden will add more to Obama’s ticket than Romney or Pawlenty will to McCains. Biden was the last person McCain wants to go up against on foreign affairs coz he’ll lose.
If you look at a electoral-votes map for McCain and give him VA it becomes a tie. That puts the following states marginal:
Repub- VA, ND, SD, NC, OH, FL, MT, CO
Dem- NH, NV
Obama’s got eight states he can take to win (most being medium or large) and McCain has only got two small states he can take and hold his marginal eight. Obama has to be favourite.
Diogenes,
Look at this Republican ad
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/
in an objective sense the Republicans are just very very good at campaigning.
I think virginia and the carolinas are lost to the Democrats as is Indiana
Ultimately the election will be decided in
Nevada
Colorado
New Hampshire
Ohio
McCain must win Colorado and Ohio and one of the other 2. Tough but definitely doable!
McCain’s problem may be a possible lack of interest in Republican voters to get out and vote and, the possibility of many more Democrat voters being stimulated to go out and vote. Has there been any poll on this?
“Tough but definitely doable!”
ESJ, I thought it sounded like the Opals at $4.40.
TP
Registration is the best way to measure that and Obama is way ahead in registrations. He did the same with Hillary. Most of the polls use “likely voters” to weed out the uninterested. Voluntary voting really makes the US polls much less reliable than ours. The Youth Vote is notoriously unreliable for actually turning up.
as a long time lurker, but VERY rare contributor, it sickens me to read posts that advocate the use of violence in such a casual manner. it makes me want to vomit to read A in C advocating the use of war to resolve international disputes and at the same time excuse himself from haivng to do any of the killing( or being killed) because it is not his thing! how many soldiers in any modern war have been killing andf being killed because it is?! to suggest that it is ok for soldiers to fight and die because they volunteered to join the defense forces is risible. did most of those mainly poorly educated, low socio economic background people really make an informed choice in joining the armed forces- one based on the idea that they were joining to actually fight and die- and kill? really, a lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Adam
I agree with your (and my) right to comment, though I disagree with your Sudetenland analogy. It seems Georgia would have been far better off if Bush had been a Chamberlain type, urging restraint.
Nevertheless, assuming you were just being hyperbolic with your comment on war with Putin, I must ask you and others, what can realistically be done to stop Russia in Georgia at present? To me the answer is nothing effective, which was why it was so stupid to initiate conflict. The options to me seem as follows:
1. Diplomatic pressure – this has less weight in a world shiftign towards unilateral action. Russia already feels sidelined from intnernational forums, so I don’t think this will work from the US or its allies.
2. Economic pressure – this has more potential, but eastern Europe badly needs Russian gas and oil, so many western countries will not want to push this.
3. Military pressure – well what forces does the US have spare to do this with? Not much, I’d say. Like others I don’t want to see an actual war. They tend to work out badly for all concerned and not as expected (like the “easy” invasion of Iraq to teach Sadam a lesson). Military pressure short of war sounds tough and sensible, but in reality such brinkmanship has ended in actual wars many times in the past. Its a big risk. Letting Georgia and Ukraine enter Nato would be putting Europe in exactly the same position as it was before World War One.
Overall it seems to me that the west can’t do squat in Georgia, and should try to make peace ASAP, not continue with stupid inflamatory rhetoric.
Adam in Canberra @ 155. This is rubbish. People of a certain age, or prior experience, can’t lead a nation at times of war/danger? Not what I was pointing to in any way. Let me spell it out for you. You seem to be very keen for any number of people to let loose the dogs of war in a number of places in the world. It would not be you, or indeed I, who would suffer from such action, in the first instance. But you seem to me to be extraordinarily bellicose, and it would not be you who took the bullet.
jaimie @ 172. Good on you for raising your voice. I am challenging Adam on this. I say put up your argument.
Sorry, I got a bit cranky about all of this stuff about how war was such a good idea, which was what I gleaned from Adam’s posts. About which I thought him/you all too enthusiastic.
Again, I would refer you to my previous post about the beginnings of the environmental wars- within countries, within States, between countries.
I, personally, think war is an inherently bad thing. People killed, maimed, traumatised, sums it up.
Do you think this is the only option, Adam in Canberra?
I also agree with you Jaimie. I was trying to explain that war with Putin would be stupid, on the assumption that those who advocate war as a solution are not interested in morality. But of course, it is quite immoral, and that alone sould be a good enough reason not to do it.
Adam in Canberra @ 152 -
and McCain is Churchill.
No. He’s just a silly old fart who shot he’s fool mouth off making promises neither he or his country could keep.
About his only claim to fame is that he was a POW who ‘bravely’ endured nearly 6 years of torture when he could have gone home. Without that there is precious little in his military or political career to recommend him.
Near last in his graduating class at the academy (a far worse record than GWB!). Crashed 3 aircraft in accidents. Was a senior officer on a carrier where procedures were so lax that an air to air missile fired while aircraft were being readied on the flight deck (incidentally, hitting McCain’s plane and nearly killing him). The resulting explosions and fires killed 132 and nearly sunk the ship. And somehow in less than 20 combat hours he managed to rack up 28 medals. Thats nearly 1.5 per sortie! Yeah, right!
Nor has his political career been spectacular. I personally find it interesting that he is almost universally disliked by the veterans community.
Churchill won his war. So far McCain is batting 0-3 by my count.
I’m not sure who Obama is. The pacifist wing of the Labour Party perhaps.
Or a realist who knows his country’s military is in no shape to finish anything a fool in the Whitehouse might start. I am aware you have a low opinion of the Russian military. Both Napolean and Hitler would disagree with you.
174 Harry “Snapper” Organs – spot on.
That’s silly Mayo Feral.
Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by General Winter. IN hitlers case by the recklessness with which the russian generals and stalin treated soldiers lives – 28 million russian dead in WW2.
Well I’ve put my name up to go to war for ‘oz , Aussies die , a soldier does not decide if he wants to go to war he just goes , so do not understand some comments against Adam at all
He could hav said I’d go , and negated further comment Instead he frankly said that was/is hypothethical for him so that was an irrelvant point , and more importantly said those that decide to go to war actualy do not fight
As to DEMOCRATIC Georgia , USA was lame and stood hav stood up Russia immediately , made them a provisional member of Nato immediately thereby activating Nato & Putin would hav blinked preventing russian troops at minimum moving past Ossettia soil , and threatened G8 membership and WTA application should they enter Ossettia AND demanded UN peace troops immediately enter Ossettia
USA also could hav signalled carriers were on way as a Nato training excercise
All messages you can not invade ademocratic Country Both bush and Obama initially were p.ssweak hesitiant and then gallingly lame
Do not doubt another DEMOCRACY Ukraine is on Putin’s gaze , nor that Ukraine saw shaky USA response
Edward StJohn @ 180 -
Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by General Winter.
No. Bad planning. Anyway, despite global warming the General will still have a say.
IN hitlers case by the recklessness with which the russian generals and stalin treated soldiers lives – 28 million russian dead in WW2.
So? Do you believe Putin, the current General Staff, or the Russian people, would be any less ruthless in defence of the Rodina?
Can anyone explain how the selection of Biden as VP is a “Change I can believe in”? 30 odd years in the Senate does not equal a change to me, just more of the old style polititics.
Obama’s rhetorical flourishes in the Primaries are coming back to humiliate him.
Oh, and here is something for the Obama supporters to choke on this bright Sunday morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVUPqoowf8
The attacks on Obabma here border on the hysterical and personal and have me perplexed. Did he actually personally insult some people here? You would think so.
It looks like sulking children lashing out and, I gather it is because their personal preferance didn’t get up or they are waving the McCain flag.
I thought there was another forum somewhere were people could go an insult each other and the candidates they might support in American politics.
Good to see some of the other bloggers get stuck into the idea that war is a wonderful way of solving problems. I would support a very strong military and a neutral position (say, like along the Swedish model).
Hitler was beaten in Russia by the big battalions. He ran out of Germans before Stalin ran out of Russians. Stalin must have had God on his side. (The British, Australian and United States historical misrepresentations about the second war are extensive (about ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’). It was the world’s foulest despotic tyranny which did the ‘heavy lifting’. And this despotic tyranny proceeded to enslave half of Europe for half a century as its war prize.
Napoleon was beaten in Russia because the French army had virtually no system of logistics and depended on looting and plundering the countryside for food. Rape was a common side-benefit. (The other armies, including the English army had a similar pre-disposition to looting, plundering, foraging and rape. The English were also rather more famours for getting totally plastered as part of work conditions of the soldiery).
Anyway, the Russians knew all this and scorched the earth in front of the french army. The Russian Cossacks helped sort out smaller french foraging parties, and the Russian roads and the Russian Winter then made garnering food from the countryside even more difficult. When they ran out of food, the french retreated and mostly died of starvation, starvation-related diseases (such as typhus) or froze to death. There were also some large battles, which the Russians mostly won. It is a matter of judgment whether they or the conditions were the deciding factor.
In both invasions, the Russian peasantry paid a monstrously huge price. In both cases this price was made worse by Russian war fighting policies. Warmongers rarely bother themselves too much about what is going to happen to civilians before a war. Too messy.
Thomas Payne @ 185
I don’t think you have to be hysterical to be concerned about Obama, although he is certainly making some of the neocon ultra rightists in the US wet their pants.
I wouldn’t support McCain because he is a warmonger.
My concerns about Obama are: lack of managerial experience, the suspicion of corruption surrounding the purchase of his house, lack of policy substance and some of the mad buggers he used to hang around with but has thankfully since ditched.
In the circumstances, and given the job he is applying for, I think these are reasonably valid concerns.
On the positive side, he is able to generate hope and is not stuck in the grooves that have led the US to the subprime credit crisis and the $3 trillion war in Iraq.
GG
As Obama said “Biden changed Washington but Washington didn’t change Biden.”
It sounds good but it’s a little lame. It’s hard to argue that Biden wouldn’t be a good VP (and POTUS if the worst happens).
McCain has the same problem as Obama. His “I’m a maverick and my own man” routine is going to look pretty stupid if he picks Romney due to overwhelming pressure from Wall St and the neocons. Romney is now 2/1 on with the bookies and the rest are 5/1 or more.
I think the Dems will be happy with a Biden vs Romney match-up.
On Insiders today, Barnaby Joyce called for evidence- and science-based decision making. He the proceeded to model the Murray Darling Basin for the information of all the ignorant viewers: The MDB is like a carpet with a lady on one side (Adelaide) and another lady on the other side (Queensland). In terms of the hydrology, if you tip a bucket of water on the Queensland side it won’t make any difference to the Adelaide lady unless the carpet is saturated which it isn’t right now. *says to self, crikey, at last I can understand the MDB*
Moral of Mr Joyce’s MDB model? It was OK for Queensland irrigators to do what they did this year because it wouldn’t have made any difference to Adelaide. *cynical guffaw*
Xenophon called on the feds and the states to stop procrastinating and for the feds to use their corporation powers to take the MDB over and run it as a single system.*applauds loudly, but doesn’t hold breath*
But this will collide with Rudd’s ‘cooperative federalism’, least common denominator, model of governance which is generating all the delays? *hmmmm*
Both of them thought the feds should stop talking and do something. *thinks: where were you and yours Sen Joyce for the last 11 years?*
Xenophon also indicated that he was co-sponsoring with the Greens a proposal to hold a Senate Enquiry. Mr Joyce then thought (live on TV) he would co-sponsor it as well. *thinks: bring it on Nick, but don’t let the libnats strangle the TOR because they have such a lot to hide.*
The Labour senators would back the libnats on a restricted TOR to protect their colleagues in the state labour governments who also have a lot to hide.*sigh*
Good morning bludgers
Thanks for your comments last night. I said I wasn’t going to be drawn into ad hominem arguments about wars and I meant it, so there. I know this blog is full of lefty/hippy/pacificist nongs, and their approbrium doesn’t bother me. They enjoy their freedom of speech here, in part, because one old lefty pacifist, John Curtin, was willing to become a war leader, and to introduce conscription to do so, despite being attacked in exactly these terms. Talk about history repeating itself as farce.
Mayo Feral amused me by saying, of my comparison of McCain with Churchill re South Ossetia: “No. He’s just a silly old fart who shot he’s [sic] fool mouth off making promises neither he or his country could keep.” Which was of course exactly what both the appeasers and the left said about Churchill in the 1930s when he made his warnings about Hitler. And indeed Churchill was in many ways a silly old fart – but he was right about Hitler, and right to warn that war would be an inevitable necessity unless the western powers stood up to him. And we know what happened. (Or at least some of us know what happened. Possibly our feral friends do not.)
“..and more importantly said those that decide to go to war actualy do not fight.”
I wonder how many wars we’d have if they had to fight, and that’s the point Ron. It’s ok to come up with promoting starting a war against a country not attacking your land but are those that do prepared to live and die by their convictions? Surely a fair enough question.
Hi Off topic, but does anyone who were to find the list of Liberal Candidates preselected in the 2010 SA Election.
Or does anyone who has been preselected in Morialta.
Thanks
“I know this blog is full of lefty/hippy/pacificist nongs, and their approbrium doesn’t bother me.” Nice one Adam, just categorise everyone that disagrees with you under the same banner and all is well eh? I for one am not part of that group but still disagree with you.
You keep bringing up Curtin. Curtin didn’t advocate going to war on a countries not immediately threatening his country. He also became PM after we were rightly committed to the war by Menzies. No comaprison.
Felicity, you don’t generally get published list until a few months out from the election (if that), but I’ve been able to ascertain the following:
MORIALTA: John Gardner
MOUNT GAMBIER: Steve Perryman
HARTLEY: Joe Scalzi
FROME: Terry Boylan
NORWOOD: Steven Marshall
NEWLAND: Trish Draper
FISHER: Christopher Moriarty
MAWSON: Kym Richardson
STUART: Dan van Holst Pellekaan
Quite a few familiar names there. The upper house ticket is 1. David Ridgway; 2. Stephen Wade; 3. Terry Stephens; 4. Jing Lee; 5. Rita Bouras.
Adam
Are you from the von Clausewitz school of thought that war is a logical extension of politics?
I thought Trash has had her snout in the public trough long enough? Isn’t it time she got a job in the private sector?
ShowsOn
You have to be semi-competent to survive in the private sector which probably explains her return to the public trough.
Perhaps we can come to a compromise. How about – it’s ok for old men (and women), who don’t have to put their own bodies on the line, to send young men off to be slaughtered, as long as those young men have the right not to participate, if they choose.
If “my body my choice” is a good enough argument to justify abortion on demand, it is certainly good enough to justify not wanting to end your life blown to pieces on a battlefield, or suffering mental and physical trauma for years after if you’re “lucky” enough to survive.
Who knows, a policy like that might even force the decision makers to properly look after the soldiers coming home from war, instead of abandoning them to their own devices, or grossly underfunding the services they need to rebuild their lives. (as happened in the US after Vietnam). If there was a general perception that you’re not going to be looked after when/if you get back, a lot of young men would have second thoughts about wanting to become involved.
With such a policy, wars would still continue to happen, for those who believe in them – and those who don’t would be left alone to live their lives, safe from the whims of gung ho leaders who wouldn’t give a toss if they lived or died. (and some like George Bush, who made sure he dodged the Vietnam draft when he had the chance to put his own body on the line).
Newland takes in most of her old seat. She would’ve lost the seat at the last election if she didn’t ‘retire’.
We don’t have conscription anymore. So the State can’t force anyone to go to war if they don’t want to.
If someone joins the Army, Navy, Air Force, then they have waived their right not to participate.
It doesn’t. “My body my choice” simply means that it ISN’T the Government’s choice, and it ISN’T the Drs choice, and it ISN’T the man’s choice. It is the choice of the person who is pregnant.
I don’t think the abortion debate is a good analogy anyway. Because a moral compromise has formed without the need to define when life actually starts. Plus, people who think a zygote has the same rights and moral worth as a 50 year old adult are never going to approach the debate logically.
It is pretty obvious to tell when a member of the military is dead or alive, so it’s a different issue that can’t be argued for by analogy.
This just shows that all the talk about being mentally active protecting you from dementia isn’t a guarantee.
Margaret Thatcher’s struggle with dementia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24232802-601,00.html
152
Adam in Canberra Says:
McCain is Churchill
That is a hell of a stretch.
And war with Russia? Not smart. Though I certainly agree that Russia (especially Putin) needs to be contained somehow.
186
Thomas Paine
I agree. There does seem to be a solid streak of deeply irrational hostility to Obama among many on this site.
I know the discussion has moved on, but let me admit William that I was meaning Sainte-Lague, not D’Hondt. I’ve forgotten how to calculate elections on D’Hondt, and haven’t looked it up to see how many we would have got using it. I got distracted by the discussion of D’Hond’t in ACT. My point stands on Sainte-Lague.
I’m pleased to see however, that reform is being discussed so seriously, and there are lots of options on the table, and particularly encouraged by Antony’s view that Labor and Liberal want change.
Boerwar
#188
“On the positive side (Obama) is not stuck in the grooves that have led the US to the SUBPRIME credit crisis”
Austan Goolsbee , his senior economic adviser, is a former Harvard mate & friend from Chicago , he published an article in The New York Times n 2007 in pointing out the VIRTUES of subprime mortgages
Goolsbee said “These innovations mainly served to give people power to make their own decisions about housing, and they ended up being quite sensible with their newfound access to capital.”
Another phony perseption of Obama that contradicts reality , Obama & his economic team were up to there neck in 100% gung go for subprime financing
Worse still , that guy & rest of his econamic team believe in a brand of economic theory that no bludger here would support & is th reverse of Edwards Gore or a Rudd economic model philosophy
Boerwar , your preceding comments in that post were very inciteful , so you’ve corectly understood some of Obama’s questionable background & polcy weakness’s , far more than others here & none of it is good Unfortunateley enormous further research is needed about each & every policy & background area to separate th phoney myth perseption from reality (which people naturaly do not hav time to spend) , and each time I hav its been horrifyingly shallow , murky or contradictory
It would be informal vote for both for me on principal seeing McCain for different reasons causes me great disquiet
For those you rely simply on MSN & TV grabs of Obama , without doing extensive research (most) , I can reely understand they see both a stark choice contrast & for some a hope thrust , and misrepresent hostility for facts I possess they don’t , which lead me to contempt for a phoney & super con man Voters and USA deserve than that Pity is most people at least on this site actualy share th general same hopes of what a Pres needs to be & should domesticaly stand for , Gore Clinton & Edwards were fine (even Biden less his curent Iraq policy)
“McCain is Churchill”
Rubbish.
Russia is now a little country smaller than Spain, and there recent little carry on isn’t really that important. trying to turn things back to a cold war is a serious stretch of reality. Fortunately this is Europe’s problem and not the problem of the nutters in the USA, and anyway the USA has a couple of wars to pay off before they start another.
Exciting announcement plus amusing YouTube clip from Possum.
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/major-announcement/
‘Appeasement’ is an interesting problem to consider. It sort of depends on who is doing the perceiving.
There was no way that the Russians, from their perspective, were going to ‘appease’ Saakashvili and his sometime, (or is it erstwhile?), protector the US.
The Iranians probably hold the view that the US appeased Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran.
Some folk would have the view that most of the rest of the world appeased the US when it fought in Vietnam. Others have the view that in allowing Russia and China to support North Vietnam, it was the Americans who were appeasing them.
Some people would have the view that the world appeased the US and its allies when they invaded Iraq on the basis of a lie.
Some of the ‘lefty/hippy/pacifist; persons to whom Adam was referring in his post probably think the rest of the world engaged (and engages) in appeasement when China captured Tibet.
Many would have the view that west is appeasing China in its efforts to support the regimes in Zimbabwe, Burma and the Sudan.
Most arab states would have a view that the US is a routine appeaser of Israeli aggression. The Isaelis have a view that the rest of the world is a routine appeaser of arab states when they engage in, or support, some act of bastardry or other.
‘Appeasement’ also depends on hindsight and ‘alternative’ history. A post hoc condemnation of appeasement in a particular circumstance depends on the history that actually followed the ‘appeasement’. It cannot consider as a counter argument if, instead of ‘appeasement’ the path to all-out war was followed immediately. There is always only one set of ‘facts’.
‘Appeasement’ also tends to imply that there are really only two policy settings in a particular circumstance: war or peace.
Because circumstances of international conflict vary so much, argument by analogy regarding appeasement may not be all that useful.
Using the word ‘appeasement’ so as to imply that there is only one sort of appeasement, that appeasement or war is the only choice in town, that it is only pro-Hitlerian, Chamberlainitic softies who support appeasement, regardless of context, is arguing by definition, and not very useful – apart from, perhaps, when you want to go to war.
Ron @ 204
Interesting. Is there a source for your stuff on Obama’s approach to subprime?
Ron @ 204
Disappointing. Is there a source for your stuff on Obama’s approach to subprime?
Boerwar
I also have a problem with the term “appeasement”. Firstly, its become a perjorative term used in a sneering fashion when it may well be the best policy.
And the definition is “The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.” The US etc have not granted concessions to Russia or China. They haven’t intervened militarily. There is a difference. Appeasement would be if they said “That’s fine Russia, you can invade Georgia. We’re happy for you to take it coz it’ll keep the peace” .
Hmmm, Churchill and McCain, some spooky parallels there already…
Churchill’s positives:
(1) spotted Hitler as a threat early, but because of his constant disloyalty to political parties, and his failures in WW1, had no credibility and no influence to do anything about it.
(2) was a good war leader, was an inept personal combatant and a hopeless fiddler-arounder with strategy and even tactics.
(3) towards the end of the war, correctly warned the US about the Russians (cf eastern europe and northern persia) but was disbelieved because they regarded as someone who was only interested in using US lives to support the British Empire.
Negatives:
(1) had a tendency to think of war as spiffing stuff; he loved to play boys’ own soldiers (the Sudan and the Boer War)
(2) stuffed up Gallipoli
(3) stuffed up in supporting the invasion of the made-for-defence Italian peninsula. Turned that bit of the war into a meat-grinder for the allies.
(4) appreciated Canadians, South Africans, Indians, Australians and New Zealanders fighting and dying in WW2, as long as they were fighting and dying for No 1. (Not a stuff-up from an English point of view, I suppose).
(5) completely failed to realize that the gig was up with the British Empire.
Now, would we want McCain, if he gets in, to be another Churchill?
Gary
You make a very fair point and my answer to your queston would probably be few would occur , especialy Despots
However I was suggesting a variation that Adam was corect in practise , almost all Leaders these days who deside to go to war , also do not end up on th battlefield , instead they’re ‘directing’ it from afar , example Abraham Lincoln
ADDRESSING other posters views on War , I do not hav disagreement with people advocting war , even if there life is not on th line , my queston instead would be hav ALL other reasonable alternitives been exhausted AND if so is war still justified & why
IF my view is NOT flawed , then th ultimate invasion of Iraq in first Iraq war was justified as all other avenues had been exhausted & Saddam would not leave Kuwait that he invade , which is why Bob Hawke agreed to send our military against Saddam
Goolsbee’s article was published in New York Times in 2007 , he is Obama’s chief economic campaign advisor His proposed equivalent Treasuer here , publicly said Wal Mart workers wanting inrease on there $7
Most Aussies vocally supported Hawke’s Iraq war , yet NONE of those Aussies had there lives on th line
A Country & its peoples hav to be “prepared” to fight and go to war A Country also should ensure its potential enemys know you will not hesitate to do so , if “certain boundaries ar crossed” , and after certain other alternitive meassures (diplomatic cultural econamic etc then potential military ’signals’) hav already been taken and failed
USA’s gross ‘mistake’ with democratic Georgia was it failed to do any of these things , and thats when one ends up wiith appeasement & a ‘lost’ democracy
.
ps/ Definition of appeasement is quite simple for Democratic countrys , when by inaction & weakness & poor prior econamic & diplomatic polcy , you allow a democratic country to be invaded by Russian thugs Unfortunately USA double standards in some places has tarnished th word , but principal is still intarnished and lets not allow examples of thoise double standards to disippate a fair principal…otherwise we may be a casuality
War , thats why ‘oz’ do hav an Army , Airforce & Navy , when circumstances justify its use
Ron
To start off with, just because a country is a democracy it doesn’t mean other countries have to go to war to keep it that way.
The US has never had much time for democracies unless it can control the outcome of the elections. The US has overthrown more democracies and installed dictators than vice versa.
And there are various degrees of democracy. I suggest that Georgia’s is on the lower end.
Hollow Victory
Georgia’s riots may be over, but for President Saakashvili it’s also the end of his stint as the darling of the West.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/69464
Diogenes
#213
“Ron
To start off with, just because a country is a democracy it doesn’t mean other countries have to go to war to keep it that way.”
So if Indonesian invades us , USA can quote your words , and leave us in tatters
Once people ar selective , they can hardly whinge if that selectivity comes back to bite them
I am not yet convinced it wasn’t Georgia that started this conflict by attacking South Ossentia and bombing it’s Capital City. Was Russia supposed to appease Georgia because maybe USA supported Georgia?
In protecting Ossentia they had to invade Georgia and stay for a short period of time to insure that Georgia got the message to leave South Ossentia alone.
I understand the major hostilities has ceased and Georgia got the message to leave South Ossentia alone.
Tense Standoff in South Ossetia After Bombardment
Ron
That’s a straw man argument. I did not say that the US (for eg) should never go to war to save a democracy. I said that the US should not go to war purely to save a democracy.
There are nuances in the argument. It’s not a Manichean world.
Muskiemp
I thought everyone knew that Georgia started the conflict by “invading” South Ossetia which it had agreed NOT to send troops and tanks into. The Russians called their bluff and used it as an excuse for a huge overreaction and invaded as well.
Diogenes
“I did not say that the US (for eg) should never go to war to save a democracy. I said that the US should not go to war purely to save a democracy.
There are NUANCES in the argument”
and i’ve said
“So if Indonesian invades us , USA can quote your words , and leave us in tatters Once people ar selective , they can hardly whinge if that selectivity comes back to bite them”
Lets hope Indonesians as they attack , and th USA , understand those ‘nuances’ , whtever they ar
William
Are the bludgers going to be part of Possum’s new supersite? We should support his endeavour as much as possible.
I enjoy annabel Crabb’s jottings in the SMH. This got a real chuckle.
“In the state of NSW we were ensnared in the ethical question of when is the right time to euthanase a wallowing, stricken, directionless behemoth whose pitiful death throes are too upsetting to watch.
And, if NSW politics alone weren’t enough of a distraction, there was also Colin the whale”.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/annabel-crabb/harvest-the-fruit-of-labors-conversion/2008/08/22/1219262526765.html
We already hav a super site here , and most would not like it to be ‘weakened’
Diogenes , now Gilligans were recently looking at setting up a ‘oz’ site rather than posting here , you’re a clever man Diogenes be careful for what you wish (or assume)
Yes, I predicted the very end of the print media in a decade or two. Possum came out and said it will happen within the next 3 or 4 years (from memory). Go getum Possum.
Taking on the MSM should be little more difficult than having a nice workout at the gym. Take the comment from a journo who works for The Oz on Insiders this morning (fish face looking bloke with glasses who sat where Akerman usually sits) “the ETS will cost people more than the GST”. Obviously, wishful thinking on his part.
You can’t let comments like that go unchallenged!
Centre @ 222
Not sure, but I think it was Tim Blair. His journalistic ‘balance’ consisted of one sneer after another directed at the Rudd Government. But I think he Might be the the Telegraph and not the Oz? I could be wrong.
You are right on both counts, Boerwar (i.e. Tim Blair and Daily Telegraph, though he actually made his name as an independent blogger, ironically in light of Centre’s comment).
Boerwar, you could be right. I stopped buying those rags years ago. Especially now that you can get the formguides on the net.
Matt Price’s spirit works in mysterious ways…
There’s been very little of a political nature from the Olympians in China. Here is a good story about Usain Bolt, who has been the best athlete IMO. He was criticised by the IOC chairman Rogge but shows he is a class act by visiting the Sichuan earthquake victims. I think Phelps celebrated with Ms Rice from memory.
Usain Bolt visits Sichuan earthquake victims, urges them to look forward
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/beijing_olympics/story/0,27313,24232838-5014124,00.html
There is a good articule in the Sunday Age about how Peter Kavanagh DLP is performing in the Victorian Upper House, and the effect for the good he is having on the Parliment.
I recommend it to all who are interested in the future of the DLP.
Support for the DLP is growing and membershi is increasing.
Interesting to see how if that support is reflected in the Mayo or Lyne by-elections
Link
http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-order-in-the-house-20080823-40y3.html#
“the ETS will cost people more than the GST”.
But, but Howard and the libs told us no-one would be worse off under the GST, or was that Work Choices, or the new medicare levy, or their housing policy or just generally under the libs.
I know this blog is full of lefty/hippy/pacificist nongs
You’re right. There seem to be a lot of us cretins about. And not just here. You can find us in the oddest places.
When the Ruskies started taking over most of eastern Europe after WW2 you’d think Truman would have gone to war to protect those countries, wouldn’t you? But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to put him straight, eh, Adam?
And when the Ruskies invaded Hungary in 1956 you would have thought Eisenhower would have kicked their sorry arses into the next week, wouldn’t you? But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to lay it on the line for him, eh, Adam?
And when they began building that wall to imprison the East Germans you’d think Kennedy would have gone for their jugular, wouldn’t you? But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Just stood in its shadow and proclaimed himself a sausage. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to put some steel in his spine, eh, Adam?
And when the Ruskies gave Dubcek what for in 1968 you would have thought Johnson would have had a go, wouldn’t you? But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to explain the error of his ways, eh, Adam?
And when the Ruskies gace aid and comfort to those damn Vietnamese terrorists killing good ol’ American boys you would have thought Nixon would have blown the mother-f***ers all the way to Hell and back. But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to lay out the big picture for him, eh, Adam?
And when the Ruskies invaded Afghanistan and began murdering its peace loving peoples, you would have thought Reagan would have given them what for, wouldn’t you? But, nope. Never ordered even a single shot to be fired in anger. Bloody lefty, hippy, pacificist nong! Pity you weren’t around to give Ronnie the benefit of your vast military/diplomatic experience, eh, Adam?
Oh, and I almost forgot. Even your hero, Winnie seems to have gone to water in the face of the unbearable Ruskie hoards when he regained the Prime Ministership in 1951. Perhaps age turns even mighty farsighted men like Churchill into lefty, hippy, pacificist nongs, eh?
Maybe that’s what happened to me, for if you’re to be believed, after more than 3 decades of being a warmongering, baby murdering 30,000ft coward, I’ve apparently become a lefty, hippy, pacificist nong, too. If only the blokes at the RSL who called me those other names when I first set foot in one could see me now, eh, Adam?
But hey, at least McCain won’t waiver if he becomes Prez, because there’ll be no more excuses now that you’re finally around to put him and the world to rights, eh, Adam? Bet you’ve already booked a ticket to Washington and they’re setting up a room next to the Oval Office for you.
Or have you decided to cut out the middleman and doing the job yourself by offering your services as
cannon foddera general in the Georgian army? If so, give ‘em Hell, Adam! With a right-wing warmonger like you leading the charge I’m sure the Ruskies will be running a white flag up the Kremlin flagpole in no time. Why I bet they nearly cracked when that pullover chappie tried it in the Crimea, but he was probably a lefty, hippy, pacificist nong, too!Following on from a reasonably critical article of journalistic standards by Mark Day I sent him an e-mail. His reply though was somewhat surprising in that he seemed to be offering a soft defence of it. My e-mail & his reply follow. Well worth a read.
{Where have you been for the last 2 years. A copy of this article should be placed on the desk of every Juornalist & Editor of every publication in your stable as well as the others.
I have expressed similar thoughts to yours on numerous occasions to Editors & Journalists for the past 12 months or so & don’t even receive any acknowledgement or response.
{editing with a bit of maturity would be a step in the right direction. Introducing more long-form copy and resisting populism and cheap shots would add greatly to their credibility}
{As newspapers are buffeted by the winds of change, it makes sense to protect existing audiences}
You should also have added that media commentators who base the content of their articles on personal opinion (which in many cases is totally conflicting with mainstream experience) or political ideology is not only a major reason for readers rejecting the abismal offerings dished up adnausium, but Australian society is all the poorer for it.
Media commentators attempting to prop up a failed political Opposition just doesn’t cut it out in the real world. A thoughtful and incisive examination of Government & Opposition competence & policies is what is expected & is vitally important in the standard of govenence of the country & the wellbeing of its society.
Basing the content of articles on ones personal political leanings or spin provided adnausium by party hacks is one of the major reasons why so many people are turning to the internet for their information.
For 38 years, I was a daily reader of The Australian & the Courier Mail. I no longer purchase those products & there would have to be a remarkable change around in the culture & standard of reporting for that to change.
I know from comments around the “blogosphere” that I am far from alone in this regard. Sites like LP have run specific threads on media groupthink etc and the subject of media bias & personal opinion slanting as well as consistent reporting of “spin” is a constant refrain on many other sites such as Poll Bludger & Tim Dunlop’s.
You would be doing your industry a big favour by following on from this article and doing some research on the many blogs which identify the many shortcomings of the current print, electronic & on-line media.
Hoping to see more quality evaluation on this from you in the near future & hopefully media operatives with just a modicum of intelligence will take notice and give the traditional forms of media a chance to survive & contribute to a just, fair & intelligent contribution to our society & way of life.
By the way. Great article & long overdue.}
and the reply
{Thanks for your note.
I must say, in defence of columnists, their primary role is to put an
opinion in order to get readers to think through a subject and decide
whether they agree or disagree. Therefore, you’ll often see opinion that
runs counter to the mainstream – it’s a device to get a reaction. The
columnists would be happy that they managed to provoke a response.
Having said that – yes, I agree some of them are ready to be put out to
pasture.}
As the Games are closing down.
http://simon.forsyth.net/olympics.html
Ron @ 214 -
So if Indonesian invades us , USA can quote your words , and leave us in tatters
Ron, the TNI has as much chance of successfully invading us as you have of being the next President of the USA.
Why? Well a number of reasons, but the most pertinent was witnessed by those sitting on one of the small hills to the east of Dili watching the last Indonesia troopship leave. They sat…and watched….and watched…and sat…and sat….and watched for most of the morning as the bucket of rust struggled to clear the harbour and sail out of sight. I only have one (reasonably) functional lung but I would wheeze and cough less after running a marathon than it did trying to pull away from the wharf.
The only country with the means to successfully invade us is America. No one else currently has the military capability mix to pull it off. China may eventually, but not anytime soon. Not only is the hardware expensive, the expertise takes many decades and many wars to acquire.
The real danger Indonesia presents is economic because most of our imports and exports traverse its waters or airspace.
MayoFeral @ 230
A series of direct hits, and all the more powerful for coming from direct experience and the heart.
and @ 233
Agree on Indonesia’s competence. It is what happens remarkably often when the main function of your armed forces is to suppress your own population. I also agree with your view that the problem is that they sit across our trade routes. I suspect their best hope to cause us a military nuisance would be to start a small, running ‘proxy war’ across the PNG border.
Apart from that, I would question the assumption that seemed to be implied in some of the posts above that the US would support us automatically against Indonesia. The Dutch were US allies when Indonesia under Suharto invaded what is now West Irian. The Dutch, with the support of the locals, quickly despatched the Indonesian paras and the few Indonesian naval units that came their way.
Kennedy of Camelot fame, (frightened that Suharto was getting into bed with Kruschev (sp?), and by the way, yet another another US appeasement) then told the Dutch to get out, or no Marshall Plan for you. The plebiscite was handed over to the UN to handle, the Indonesians with the passive connivance of the UN, fixed the vote and Bob’s your Uncle.
Two main messages here: Don’t trust the UN and don’t trust the Americans to be your friends when you really need them.
Yeah, well … the 57:43 result is quite gratifying given that the intervals between parliament sittings are generally quiet and politics is the furthest thing from most people’s minds.
Maybe with the resumption of parliament the perception will set in of the Opposition as spoilers and hole-blowers of the budget.
If they don’t soon resolve their leadership “issues” they will be seen as non only mischevious, but directionless. Costello’s party-pooping game is paying off handsomely.
Boerwar, the Dutch dont speak English and it was a colony not a homeland. I cant believe I’m biting on an Indonesia invasion scenario, what is this 1977? ’sit across our trade routes’ thats funny.
{If they don’t soon resolve their leadership “issues” they will be seen as non only mischevious, but directionless.}
RX, do you mean to say that they aren’t mischievous and direction less now!
Boy, I would hate to think what they would be like under your scenario.
MayoFeral
For momnt I agree completelty , however we do not know what technologial advances in wicked weaponary will occur in future , thereafter available to Indonesia or any country to look our way
In any event , it was an example to demonstate a point whether applicable cyurently or applicable in longer future , ie. being ’selective’ about which democracy to defend is not wise let alone unprincipalled , as we may be a furture casuality of such ’selectiveness’ Perhaps you may hav a european example that is more realistic currently , but I wished to indicate ours or our kids living rooms cann’t be guaranteed to be attack proof for ever , and we ought to be consistent & not selective , even if bigger Powers ar not always
You got that right, Scorpio!
Ron
There are many considerations other than whether the country is democratic. Regional balance, historical treaties, wishes of the population, prospect of success, viable alternatives and the one that the US uses above all, to protect economic interests.
Mayoferal, @ 230. Thank you so very much for that. Do you suppose Adam in Canberra will deign to reply? I’ve certainly been dismissed via not bothering to think about what I was saying.
Possum unmasked.
Diogenes
#240
I realise there ar alot of other considerations , all used by diplomats and politicans , and none of them worth anything if we were being attacked
There ar intrinsic values and freedoms in ‘democracys’ , united you stand and divided powerful despots sooner or later will devour you History shoes that
There is sometimes a lazy view in ‘oz’ of how fragile a Countrys freedoms and independance is compared to Europe , where Nato (made up of essentially democratic Countries) guarantees those freedoms by being united Also people’s feelings about USA morality should not colour this aspect
And incidently if one Nato country is externally attacked , NONE of your considerations apply whatsoever Had Georgia been part of Nato (it was in ‘process’ of joining which Russia did not want & were provocking Georgia for months) , Russia would never hav had courage to attack a Nato country , and instead th grievances of Ossettians some of which probably ar valid , would hav been addrssed peacefully by negotiation
Relevance deprived Libs accuse Labor of impotence. Pots and Kettles prepare to blacken themselves.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/24/2344882.htm
Ron
I’m not sure if the NATO treaty ensures a military response if a member nation is attacked. Lots of the treaties are secret with quite a few caveats and some are non-binding. The book “Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman about the outbreak of WWI follows how the treaties unfolded in determining who fought and on what side. I was amazed how nervous each country was about whether an ally would honour the treaty.
Having a debate about whether war is about supporting democracies – remind me about the election that should have decided the issue in Vietnam in 1954, whether govts we supported in southern Vietnam were democratic. Remind me about interventions or support for insurrections in Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Congo, Angola…….. All sorts of governments have had slim claims to be democracies and yet we have supported them or not supported them with little connection to how democratic they were. It doesn’t sound like the right question to be asking.
“All sorts of governments have had slim claims to be democracies”
So what relevance has that got to Georgia , no such claim has ever been made about Georgia and th rose revolution , and in fact there hav been unrresticted UN observers at there electons
You point is valid for claimed democratic countries that were not , and for those Countries that did not even pretend to be , all those examples do is to allow people to disengenuously use past USA errors , to then argue to do nothing for pacifism or other reasons , when a valid case arises
247 – and do we doubt that the people of South Ossetia and Abkarsia would/have democratically vote to support some form of independence and Russian alliance. And given democratic principles and UN Charter on self determination where does that leave us.
Enemy Marsupial is on Chris Kerr of ‘oz’ , abit late posters here slayed him a few days ago I for one wrote
Ron 94 Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
CHRIS KERR says in ‘oz’ :
“The sheer fact it’s mainstream, though, means it must offer two crucial elements missing from the world of the blogs. They are balance and fact.”
Chris Kerr ? Kerr’s Kerr’s junior Thats like saying th dominant food Supermarkets Coles and Woolworths ar mainstream , and therefore offer most value for money !
Market dominance in any Industry including Media is an economic result of economic power , and ‘balance’ and ‘fact’ ar not only an irrelevant factor , but normally result in ‘imbalance’ and ’spin’ …th antithisus of ‘balance’ and ‘fact’
Pity Kerr’s Kerr’s junior is not up to th challenge of defending posters demolition of his sanctimonious assertion
AT LEAST 30 bloggers here could debate that Chris Kerr closet Liberal echo into being simply a ‘rodents’ pen pal His article proves he is a sensitive little fellow to any criticism , and reads some blogers posts proving he actauly thinks they ar important , offer a non ‘oz’ view to people and may alter peoples views He is th one who has now made such an acknowledgement , but as usual ‘oz’ is 2 years too late understanding
Wakefield,
I have a penchant for law and order. Players of both sides are hypocrites. Probably why no one takes any notice of your despairing entreaties.
#248 “South Ossetia and Abkarsia would/have democratically vote to support some form of independence and Russian alliance”
as opposed to some form of independence , but within Nato ?
.
ps / they were actualy autominous provinces already , what we do know is Russian incursions & mischief for past 4 months to stir Ossettian unrest & provoke Georgia designed to actualy prevent there Nato membership What we do not know for sure because news & truth becomes a casuality in ‘war’ , is what set off hostiliteies & what degree of non Russian caused unrest there was in Ossettia & what was extent , obviously there were some grievances which I’m suggesting would hav been more fairly addressed under Nato protocols and more fairly then enforsed
nath @ 236
Sorry, my post was not meant to bait you or stir up a debate about whether Indonesia would invade Australia.
My point wasn’t that I thought that the Indonesians are at all likely invade Australia. I don’t think it has any such intention, even if General Benny Murdani did have a map on his wall with ‘South Irian’ written across Australia. I trust he enjoyed his little joke.
Actually, most of the Dutch do speak English and the Dutch were allies with the US at the time, and had fought with the US as allies in the same general area in WW2. The Dutch had, and still do, a tremendous admiration for the role of the US in liberating them in WW2 and in protecting them from Russia during the Cold War. When there was a minute of silence for the victims of September 11 in Holland, the whole country, all vehicles, all pedestrians and all workers came to a complete stop. US flags hung from every third or fourth building. It was an astonishing thing to witness.
The point is that the US did not support the Dutch in the fighting; they did not even just leave the Dutch to their own devices; they actively forced the Dutch out, virtually forced West Irian into Indonesian hands and ensured generations of suffering for the Irianese.
The main point I was trying to make is that we cannot simply assume that when it comes to a crunch there is an automatic guarantee that the US would side with us.
In the very highly unlikely event that Indonesia and Australia engage in a shooting war, the US should consider that Indonesia is the most populous muslim country in the world. And, as they should in their own best interests, the US should think twice about getting into a shooting war with them on our behalf. Apart from anything else, even the US is probably beginning to understand that it would not pay them to generate yet another whole new bunch of anti-US jihadis.
The US should also consider that Indonesia would be in a position to stop, disrupt or delay, the flow of mid-east oil to China and Japan, and what the consequences would be for the world’s economy. Again, my main point is that none of this is at all likely to happen, but if it did, we could not take for granted that the US would automatically come to our assistance.
Apart from what happened to the Dutch, the best relevant precedent for this bit of caution is what the Brits did in WW2. England first, and the defence of Australia as a strategic priority? 8th or 9th, or something like that, as I seem to recall. The hard reality is that Churchill was quite prepared to defend India before defending Australia. Quite rightly too, from the English point of view.
GG
Why would any peoples chose some form of independence and Russian alliance , over having an autonimous province within a Nato alliance Its th trojan horse Amigo one always needs to look for
Boerwar @ 234 -
I would question the assumption that seemed to be implied in some of the posts above that the US would support us automatically against Indonesia.
Agreed. The only certainty is that should push come to shove the Americans will support whichever side they believe best serves their interests. If they decide it’s to their advantage to support the Indonesians, or indeed to studiously ignore the bun fight then we’ll be up poop creek without a paddle, Anzus Treaty or not.
That is not a criticism, BTW. If only our governments would adopt the same policy!
Ron,
You are, as always correct. However, it is the trojan Wakefields of which I am most wary.
GG , had in mind bigger fish , did you see Laurie Oakes imploring Cossie to take on th Liberals leadership , almost like a deciple or a Journo itching to write about some reel (alleged) contest with Rudd
Here is a classic example of just how inflated the egos are of main-stream commentators and the fantasy world they live in, thinking that they alone are the movers and shakers in the political system and how they can manipulate the political process.
{Christian Kerr from Crikey writes:
Who are the people in politics and the media who will really decide the outcome of this year’s election?
There are the obvious big names of the Gallery and the frontbenchers, their advisers and their backroom teams – but what about the people with more diffuse or more localised power?}
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/03/18/guest-post-by-christian-kerr-power-with-or-without-glory/#comment-354905
When we have the media deciding elections we might as well all give it away as a bad joke. The Libs would be in power forever.
Boerwar & MayoFeral
Every PM & defense Minister since 1951 hav intepretated ANZUS as an attack on ‘oz’ triggers USA defence , including there subsequent autobiographers Whitlam , Keating & Hawke
Treaty has to be read in full context and then take up Articles 3 and 4
In any event , NO Country looking at that ANZUS treaty could imply USAwould noyt do so anyway , and so no country would dare take th risk , so further tightening of th words is therefore academic
MayoFeral ”
If only our governments would adopt the same policy”
Not sure which policy you ar refferring to , if us following USA into Iraq I agree with you , and Kim Beasley did oppose that
Gary Bruce
258
“When we have the media deciding elections we might as well all give it away as a bad joke. The Libs would be in power forever”
Gary I agree with you However I think they over ratee there importance because ‘oz’ ran hard against Kevin07 for all of 2007 with weekly very biased slants on political newsa pro Howard , and it did NOT alter Polls at all for last 6 months
Just maybe , they ar writing to themselves only trying to convince themselves they’re influencing , especialy when there circulation hits 0.50% approx of population
With the employment of Kerr, the Australian now has more Tools than Bunnings….
(Christian Kerr from Crikey writes: Who are the people in………….the media who will really decide the outcome of this year’s election? ….. )
Let me see. If the media is in the business of deciding elections how on earth can they then claim neutrality and honesty in reporting and analysis?
I wonder if they really believe they are not bias or, that consistent reporting and analysis to favour the Liberal party is somehow the natural order of things and nobody should be criticising them for it.
I think what they can’t stand is that they now know there are people out their who can see through them and know much of their work is low quality rubbish and if not rubbish simply promotional material for the Liberal party.
It is a sign of the simplistic minds that they think this only exists in blogs and that in earlier days people didn’t have any problem with them. What they should understand is that blogs is just giving voice to what people have been thinking for years.
260 Ron – I agree with you on the power of the media. I don’t think they determine elections either but if/when they do …….
You know, just maybe there’s a tiny little something in some of what Christian Kerr was saying .. (runs and ducks).
It’s not the tiny bit we’re criticising, William, it’s the other 99.9%!
Tiny little something is right, William. Sheesh!
MayoFeral @ 254
Agreed. They should consider their best national interests. So should we.
Ron @ 260
I am sure that every Australian PM and Foreign Affairs Minister has interpreted the ANZUS Treaty to mean just that. In the same way that every Australian PM and Foreign Affairs Minister before WW2 genuinely believed that the British would give Australia a high priority. Just as I am sure that the Dutch would have had a warm and comforting glow from NATO. (As a matter of side interest, Dutch F16s are protecting Aussie troops in Afghanistan and Aussie troops have been protecting Dutch reconstruction teams on the ground… but I think the Dutch may have seen the light. Not sure about that.)
A shooting issue, in the unlikely event that it arises, would almost certainly not be black and white and could easily give the US wriggle room it would need. Here are a couple of scenarios:
If the Indonesians armed a few Indigenous groups (PNG or Northern Australia), kept them supplied with weapons and money and then came to their assistance when the Indigenous groups were attacked by wicked Australia? (Not all that dissimilar to the West Irian model).
Now, if the Indonesians said, ‘Hang on, Ashmore Reef is ours by rights and by tradition since time immemorial’, and plants a few soldiers there, and waits for Australia to evict them with armed force, who starts the shooting? (Similar to the Konfrontasi model).
If Indonesia had decided to fight the Australians when we invaded ‘their holdings’ in East Timor would the US have started the shooting war on our behalf?
It is good to see that the Australian is following Kerr’s advice on balance, nuance and fact.
The balance bit:
There are five letters about global warming published in the main letters section of today’s OO. Four are from global warming sceptics. This more than reverses the weight of scientific opinion, but serves the basic disinformation purpose of keeping alive the notion of a ‘debate’.
The nuance bit:
The sceptic letters were all in hot praise of an article published by the Australian ‘Case of the warm and fuzzy’ by Jennifer Marohasy which used ’statistics’ and not words to present the sceptic case. Turns out she bodgied the presentation of the stats to cook up the ‘case’.
The fact bit:
On the opposite page, there is one article on global warming, heading: ‘Job loss the hot issue in climate policy’. They don’t mean job losses as a result of a cooked planet. That fact is missing.
William,
I have read the link you porovided to the Sainte-Lague proportional allocation method, and I am not at all sure that it is a good system. Not that the one we have is much better, but I was unimpressed to note that in the hypothetical run-through, Parties C and D each got one seat, despite the fact that Party C got nearly 3 times the votes of Party D.
As regards Mr. Kerr, plainly he’s never read Pollbludger, the toad.
Bill: You know, just maybe there’s a tiny little something in some of what Christian Kerr was saying .. (runs and ducks).
Me: Spot on, Bill. (Just ducks, too lazy to run.)
I thought the bit about LP being one of the smugger sites had merit.
Marohasy is from the Institute of Public Affairs. They are holding a lecture on the science and politics of CC by a Professor Aynsley Kellow, their resident expert on CC. He seems to know quite a lot about politics but nothing about science. Surprisingly, Kellow is not a scientist and his publication list doesn’t have a single reference to an article on the science of CC. So the best they can come up with is a non-scientist who hasn’t published on the science of CC as their “expert”.
They could have a look at this to strike off their sceptic arguments before they spout their sockpuppet arguments.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
My “sockpuppet” comment may have sounded a bit harsh, I’ve found something to back it up. There’s a familiar story here. Think-tank gets money from industry. Doesn’t disclose this to government as conflict of interest. Lobbies government. Advice to government results in favourable outcome to industry providing funds.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs
Fairfax papers have been reasonably balanced in the political reporting but I wonder if that might change should Turnbull become opposition leader given that it was he who sunk Kerry Packer’s bid to take over Fairfax back in the early 1990s?
.
Boerwar @ 268 -
If the Indonesians armed a few Indigenous groups (PNG or Northern Australia), kept them supplied with weapons and money and then came to their assistance when the Indigenous groups were attacked by wicked Australia? (Not all that dissimilar to the West Irian model).
Or the South Ossetia model! Or Kosova!
>i>Now, if the Indonesians said, ‘Hang on, Ashmore Reef is ours by rights and by tradition since time immemorial’,
You have sort of hit I what I see as the main external threat and that is the use of historical association to establish property rights, what I call as the Israeli model. There is evidence that the people of our region have had long standing trading relations with northern Aboriginal tribes which may have involved them setting up shop there for extended periods.
I don’t believe Indonesia has, or ever had, any desire to invade us provided we leave them alone. However, climate change could well change that in the future. Most thinking on the subject is that as CC worsens people will tend to migrate to higher latitudes and when it comes to SE Asia the only dry bits nearer the South Pole is what we’re sitting on. The fact that Australia is hardly going to be a Garden of Eden is probably irrelevant. If this isn’t causing sleepless nights at Defence, it bloody well should be.
As for the Anzus Treaty, nowhere in the document does it state that the other parties are required to come to the aid of a member that is attacked. They are only required to consult with the victim. So if Indonesia, PNG, or Antarctica penguins were to invade us, all the Americans and New Zealanders have to do to fulfill their treaty obligations would be to phone the PM, ask him how things are going and wish us well, or a fond goodbye.
Well, well, well. Who provides donations to the Institute of Public Affairs? Given their climate change scepticism, I’m sure they would want to remain independent of the major polluters. Then again, maybe not. According to SourceWatch;
Major mining companies – BHP-Billiton and Western Mining Corporation;
Pesticides/Genetically modified organisms: Monsanto
Tobacco companies – Philip Morris and British American Tobacco
Oil and gas companies: Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon) and Shell and Woodside Petroleum; and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry
Forestry: Gunns
Murray Irrigation Ltd
Personally, as soon as I see that an organisation is taking money from Philip Morris and BAT there is very little more that needs to be said.
MayoFeral @ 274
Thank you. I didn’t know that point about the ‘requirement’ of the ANZUS treaty. The kiwis must be shaking in their boots. *grin*
Cf whether Defence is on its toes, I suspect that ‘red’ country or ‘blue’ country would sometimes be configured appropriately.
There was an interesting article in the SMH on Paul Keating’s speech on Saturday that highlighted the need for inclusion regaring the west dealing with China and Russia.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/template-for-peace-is-inclusion/2008/08/24/1219516251972.html
Keating expressed far better than I what I feel was the problem with Georgia. Yes the Russians have behaved badly, but that is the consequence of bad western policy towards them. This is not to defend Putin, but it explains how leaders like him can become popular in countries which have been belittled.
Democracy alone is not an adequate criteria for deciding who are the “good guys” and bad guys” on foreign policy. Democratic governments can do bad things; look at Bush. Likewise non-democratic governments can do good, as much as we would wish for them to become more democratic. Of course, non-democratic despots like Mugabe are worst of all, because you can’t get rid of them. Even so, overall I wish the west’s policy towards both China and Russia had been more constructive in recent years. I wonder how many members of the Bush administration would be in jail themselves if international law were applied to them.
China in particular is quite complex. People tend to focus on the central government and forget the importance of their provincial governments. There is a big difference between them; some of the more progressive provincial governments are quite reasonable.
Diogenes @ 272, 273 and 275
Excellent stuff. And I thought the stuff I was seeing in the Australian this morning was ‘random’. *Wry grin.*
I am sure that any day now we will see an article in The Australian by the balanced, factual and nuanced Christian Kerr exposing the rotten corruption at the heart of ‘right intellectual’ think tanks, their industry puppetmasters, their MSM parrots, and their corrupt lobbying practices.*Holds breath, waiting.*
It reinforces my view that the libnat senators will try to make sure that the enquiry TOR will be doctored to avoid such nastiness coming to the light of day. They will most likely be abetted by labour senators who will be seeking to protect their state labour counterparts.*thinks, should find out tomorrow when Mr X and the G’s put their proposal up*
My bet: the TOR will focus strongly on why the Rudd Government failed to maintain the lower lakes as freshwater lakes when there was water available in the system.
What is really needed is a Royal Commission into the whole rotten mess. *Commences waiting for porcine quadrupeds to fly.*
Oh yeah a Royal Commission so a couple of corpulent QC’s can add to their Rudd Government provided tax free superannuation plans.
ESJ @ 279
LOL. Good to see that you are back, and in good form.
“Rudd Government provided tax free superannuation plans.” And Howard government.
Since when was the Howard Government some gold standard of equity and fairness GB?
282 Edward – good point.
Kerr’s criticisms only go to show that sites like ‘Real Clear Politics’ are certainly needed in Australia – people need a way to by-pass the partisan nonsense and misinformation pumped out to support the political leanings of editors, journalists and media owners.
If anything the media needs to be held to account more strongly and criticised more robustly when there is reason.
The fact that Australia is hardly going to be a Garden of Eden is probably irrelevant.
Don’t agree. If anything it is one of our best defences. Australia is rich only because of our small population, and we already stress this environment quite a bit to get that wealth and lifestyle. Not to mention the hostile world opinion toward any invasion of Oz, and the long-term difficulties of controlling a strongly hostile occupied population the size of ours.
It is not really in Indonesia’s (or anybody’s) interest to invade us, the overall cost/benefit ratio is quite poor. We are worth far more to them as a good neighbour and trading partner.
Which is not to say we should not be prepared for such possibilities. Of course we should. But they are not possibilities I will be losing much sleep over.
The Indonesia invasion scenario brings to mind that great saying in the film Galipoli:
‘and they’re welcome to it’.
“If anything the media needs to be held to account more strongly and criticised more robustly when there is reason.” I agree and the “We were wrong” mechanism should be strengthened so that the “We were wrong” should appear on the same page number as the original article and in as prominent position and type.
Now that the Libs are in opposition Edward has discovered cheap populism – attack lawyers, attack the rich etc etc. I don’t think this will cut much ice for a party with a Malcolm Turnbull as shadow Treasurer.
Just Me @ 285 -
I could have explained it better.
Was watching a doco recently covering a number of our northern neighbours. One segment of the reporter asking locals about various aspects of their lives was interesting. I don’t remember the nationality of one bloke but his answer to a question about what he knew about surrounding countries has stuck. The only foreign land he’d ever heard of was Germany. Not any of the neighbouring countries, and not us. Only far off Germany. Knew bugger all about it, but at least he’d heard of it.
If, or probably when, changed climates make things too hot for some, or the monsoons fail and their land turns to dust, people will move. They’ll have to. Few of their governments have the means to insulate them from the harsh realities the way ours can with, for example, imported food or desal plants.
It won’t be an orderly migration, nor will they be deliberately heading for Australia, but just following the climate south until they inevitably land on our doorstep.
At least I hope that’s the way it happens as it does allow some planning. However, the ‘tipping point’ theory of CC suggests it may well be more dramatic than that. Most of these people rely totally on what they grow with little or no reserves of food or money to buy any. What happens if in a new climate state the rains totally fail across Asia this summer and don’t come back? Sure, next year the world would likely chip in to avoid disaster. But what about the year after, especially if North America, Europe and we are also gripped by drought? And the year after….and….?
Not an unlikely scenario. In fact we’ve been having a small taste of just this recently which is why people have been rioting over high grain prices, though admittedly things has been exacerbated by grain being diverted for bio-fuels.
The thing is no climate scientist can tell you what will really happen as the planet warms. Their models assume a gradual, graduated change which probably won’t be the way it will be. But even if it is, what does it mean for, say Filipinos, if in ten years time local temperatures are another 1 degrees warmer than today’s already global warming inflated averages? European temperatures during the ‘Little Ice Age’ were only about 1 degree less than the 20th Century norm, yet the effect was dramatic.
MayoFeral @ 289
Interesting.
Might we be the ones to have to ask them politely for somewhere to settle down? Perhaps the irrigators and dryland farmers who are being dislodged from the southern MDB could think about migrating to South-east Asia?
‘Paradise’ would be a little bit in the eyes of the beholder. There is a lot of grazing or ‘waste’ country in Northern Australia which could carry a lot more people than now if the people used traditional South-east Asian farming techniques rather than our beef raising techniques. I’m not sure how long-term it would be because the soils generally are not very robust. But that would not matter if you didn’t have any other choice.
That’s it.
I’ve heard everything now.
In an article by Samantha Maiden saying Turnbull has been given the nod by senior Lib power-brokers – if he stops losing his temper – Maiden writes:
I rest my case. They’ve gone start, staring bonkers at The Australian.
Cue question from journalist at Parliment House doorstop:
“Mr. Turnbull, convicted criminal, current jailbird and all-round arsehole Conrad Black has endorsed you for leadership of the Liberal Party from his prison cell in Florida. Would you care to comment?”
Sheesh…
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24237106-601,00.html
253 255 Ron and GG. A fairly high proportion of residents of S Ossetia and Abkasia currently have Russian citizenship. Small nations/autonomous regions are always getting pulled and pushed into bigger neighbours arms.
Bushfire Bill @ 291
Thank you for the link. Makes highly entertaining reading.
One person quoted in the article opines that Malcolm does not suffer fools gladly. Malcolm must be doing a lot of not suffering gladly at the moment.
The article looks like a bunch of people have figured out that Tiptoe is exiting stage right, that Nelson is dead and the water, and that maybe, maybe, Turnbull is their only hope, except that he has all these undesirable personal qualities: arrogance, bad temper, refusal to listen to others and so on.
As for quoting Conrad Black, lol, bizarro.
Bushfire Bill @ 291 –
Apparently, Four Corners are tonight outing Turnbull as the bloke who supplied the Broadcasting Tribunal with info that scuttled Kerry Packer’s Fairfax bid back in 1991 allowing Black to eventually take over the company, so of course he thinks Mal is a wonderful fellow.
Actually think Black was a bit unlucky. Sure he’s a thieving no good dirty rotten scoundrel, but that seems to be par for the course when it comes to media proprietors, especially in this country.
While that may be true, wars don’t tend to get started by the guy in the street…
#292 “A fairly high proportion of residents of S Ossetia and Abkasia currently have Russian citizenship.”
Yes because as part of Russian destabization Russia has FREELY offered it
Fact is when Georgia regained its independence , WITH Russian blessing , S Ossetia and Abkasia became part of Georgia So any argument it is somehow part of russia is false
I made add ethnicly they ar NOT Russian either
I must say I’m disappointed that in conversations with journalists after his arrest and release today, Chopper Read did not offer a judgement of Turnbull’s leadership credentials. (This would have been more reliable than Black’s, I would have thought; certainly more colourful.)
Socrates
Paul Keating did not mention Georgia , what he said was West had not handled either China or Russia well
Ar you or is ANY poster suggesting th Russian bear has th right to invade another soverign Country to protect that Country from committing alleged humanitarian abuses
(with such alleged human rights abuses as determined by Russia alone) ?
I am suggesting Russia’s own history gives it no such right whatsoever
Given that Talcum was General Counsel for Packer at the time of his “Deep Throating” of the Broadcast Tribunal. What does this say for his “loyalty” ?
He also has allegations to answer re HIH. Due around the next election.
Just how many skeletons can one person have?
On Four Corners tonite , sleezy Malcolm unclothed , but there is a quote of quotes to savour:
said by Tim Costello when working with his toffyiness on th Republic :
“Malcolm Turnbull was this utter force of nature , so when you’re on th wrong end of Malcolm its terrifying , th thunder in th face….Malcolm was th Grand Ayatollah”
Given Cossies lack of ‘ticker , it could hav been Cossies own words of his inner courage
Ron 298
Please don’t try to draw me into that game. In post 277 I said “This is not to defend Putin, but it explains how leaders like him can become popular in countries which have been belittled.”
I do not think it is correct to suggest that I endorsed invasion of anyone. I was against the immoral invasion of Iraq in 2003, and am now equally opposed to the immoral invasion of Georgia. I just think we need to understand why these thigns happen to avoid more in the future. We need to realise what we (the west) do which makes enemies in the first place, if we wish to avoid conflict.
In international relations, national integrity and rights of people to seek independence you either have principles, UN Charter etc or else you have the rule of the gun. Part of the problem with US and its Australian acolytes as its eager ally is that there is little weight of experience to suggest a positive balance of principles as opposed to self interest. In that case its not much good complaining when others use the same rules.
US propping up Pol Pot and supporting and funding opposition to Vietnam after its intervention to remove his clique after years of border aggression a reminder of the lack of principles. Blank cheque support for Israel annexing Palestinian land similar. Talking about democracy and evil regimes just avoids rational analysis.
Independent international policy for Australia is fundamental.
Boerwar @ 278
I think you will die waiting for any suggestion of impropriety from The Australian regarding the funding of the Institute of Public Affairs by Big Oil, Big Mining and Big Tobacco.
News Ltd also funds the Institute of Public Affairs according to SourceWatch.
The Libs will overplay their hand in the Senate. Rudd will have a great excuse for anything that plays out badly economically in Australia.
http://news.theage.com.au/national/rudd-govt-faces-budget-battle-in-senate-20080825-41j0.html
“Keating expressed far better than I what I feel was the problem with Georgia. Yes the Russians have behaved badly, but that is the consequence of bad western policy towards them”
I do not see a ‘consequence’ of whatever Western behavour there has been towards Russia , and any relationship to th invasion by Russia of Georgia That implys somehow th West is partly responsible for th invasion by Russia of Georgia , for which I believe Russia is wholly responsible & should wear th full odour Whether Putin is popular in Russia because he claims th West treats Russia poorly is not surprising as hecontrols th Press , but thats got nothing to do with a Georgian invasion justification
As an aside , Georgia , a democratic sovereign Nation ITSELF sought Nato & EU membership , and has wished this ever since its independence from Russia in 1991 Neither Nato or EU solicited Georgia , its other way around , so much so Nato & EU hav kept putting Georgia off with conditions that needed to be met So russia can not even blame th West for deliberately encircling it by soliciting Georgia
Whatever ar legitimate grievances of Ossettians , believe Georgia bears responsibility , requiring negotiation
As to Paul , his speech centred on th absence of a new world governing body to accomodate Russia & China to hav agreed principles etc , but given Russia’s veto record in UN Security Council would not hold my breath
The 7.30 Report was worth watching tonight. Kerry interviewed the three balance of power holders in the senate.
The class and experience of Bob Brown put those two novices of Fielding and Xenephon to shame.
Xenephon; will oppose fuelwatch for no reason given giving the impression he simply feels like it.
Fielding; will oppose alcopops tax because you will not be told by your mates that you have had enough to drink.
Brown; wants assurances that some restrictions will be placed such as less advertising of alcohol assiciated with sports, wants luxury cars to be environmentally friendly, and wants consumers to be informed of petrol prices.
Four Corners on that amatuer Allbull right now, Bludgers.
#302
Your argument relies on a 1970’s USA alleged propping up of Pol Pot as somehow explaining away Russia’s invasion of Georgia , as if 2 wrongs make a right….and as if Russia and USA hav same values for its own citizens
Russia is a thuggish Dictatorship whose long 1900’s history is completely filled with savagry
Th Wests record in comparison in 1900’s including USA has been fiilled with many positive assistence for other Countrys including ‘oz’ Of course USA has also conducted self interest & selective FA as well for which they ar criticised , but lets not compare th Russian solution of life & right to th Western solution of life & rights
Is it so hard to condemn Russia over Georgia , without slipping in USA , because when USA criticism on Iraq is mentioned , I do not hear compilmentary criticism of Russia
Ronster
I hesitate to post this but you are going to find out sooner or later.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCmoOlUXh.mM&refer=home
Ron,
I would take PK’s word on this before I take your prejudiced view on the situation on Russia, China and the USA.
Wow, the Fibs have got a real good candidate for the leadership in Turnbull. Like Latham who couldn’t run Liverpool City Council, how can Straightbull be trusted with the Australian economy, where he couldn’t even value FAI Insurance.
Turnbull, truly, all perception – no substance!
Diogenes
I missed 7.30 report but what do you think of the prospects of a DD? If the Libs and Independents overplay their hand they will soon give Rudd the trigger. If they back down after having taken a stand they will look weak. On current opinion polls I woudl imagine Xenephon is safe even with half his former vote, but Fielding would surely struggle to get relected even with the smaller quotas. Hence I hope Rud sticks ot his guns on the budget. The revenue measures were prudent in fighting inflation, and there seems no reason to back down on a luxury car tax or an alcopops tax that was realy just removing an anomaly. Or do you think the Libs would just back down and not give them the chance? That wouldn’t help whoever was their leader either of course.
Does anyone know on current numbers what change woudl happen in the Senate if there was a double dissolution?
Muskiemp
#309
“Ron,
I would take PK’s word on this before I take your prejudiced view on the situation on Russia, China and the USA.”
Why don’t you check facts before running that form a blog
I NEVER mentioned China at all
I simply mentioned Russia’s Security Council record , which IF you knew anything about PK ’s views you would hav known they ar same as mine !
What PK was broadly discusing was a new World gpverning body with agreed principals notwithstanding
Ar you also having a problem in condemning Russia , without slipping in USA somewhere
Has anyone done any research into the olympic effect?
For example, if tonights Newspoll level goes up 1% for the ALP, does that mean there is 1% of the electorate who change their vote whenever they feel OK about thier country and don’t give a sh!t about who is in power?
Diogenes
#308
“Ronster…followed by a quote of a Russian House vote
So ?
Mr Squiggle
I have no idea on any pol effect but I read a good economics paper some years ago showing that there was a quite clear (statisticaly significant) correlation between Australian sporting success and the Oz share market! Hopefully the voters aren’t as irrational and easily swayed as our finance “gurus”
Socrates
The Ruddster doesn’t seem like a DD kind of guy to me. None of the blocked legislation is worth going to a DD over IMO. He wouldn’t want to hang his hat on any of the fairly trivial policies that are on the table ATM. But I agree with GG that the carbon-trading scheme, which is still a long way from being legislated, would be a worthy casus belli.
The record of how a Government does in a DD isn’t all that flash. There have only been 5 or 6 and it’s about 50% whether you win or not. Hawkie did one over the Australia Card and won but still didn’t have the balance of power in the Senate.
William or Antony Green (and probably anyone you could hit throwing a dart out of a window randomly) could provide a much better analysis of the history of DDs than me.
But I would be willing to bet very big money that Mr X and a like-minded high-profile person or two would win at least two senate seats in a DD in SA.
Geez Ron, on Russia and Georgia you’re like a broken record. Do you think of anything else?
Me? I’m just an old-fashioned endless tape. “”Pot”, “Kettle”… that sort of thing.
The 4-Corners tonight reflected my feelings about Turnbull well. Part of me likes him and the other part loathes him. Someone interviewed during the program said, “You either love him or loathe him”. For myself, I’m having two-bob each way.
The opening voice over asked, “But does Turnbull have a fatal flaw?”.
In my opinion, yes he does.
If his recent diatribes in the Herald are anything to go by, Turnbull can’t resist the temptation to advertise himself as he smartest – and rudest – guy in the room. I think he would make a great Labor minister, a huge contributor… but as a Liberal PM, not in a thousand wet dreams. Turnbull has missed his vocation. He’s just too much of a smartarse to be popularly acclaimed as PM.
Within weeks he’d be up to his ears in shitfights with the “Liberal power brokers” and would therefore fail.
As we learned tonight: Malcolm’s too full of himself, too vain and much too treacherous.
Nelson with talent.
Many Packer Haters will see the revelation that Kerry lied through his teeth to the House Of Reps Inquiry as post facto justification for their distaste for the man; that Turnbull delivered him a well-deserved come-uppance. But The Lib Nasties won’t forget what he did to Packer. They’ll view it as “Once a rat, always a rat.”
Bye, bye, Malcolm.
You should’a joined the Labor Party. They know how to make use of a good head kicker.
Ron
The legislation for Russia to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent and sovereign nations now goes to Medvedev. If he agrees, the Russians would set up an embassy in both those “countries”, provide economic and possibly military aid to them, help organise elections etc etc. It could get very ugly.
Obviously I’m in minority here , but not with th Leaders of Europe about Russia
Sarkozy calls crisis EU summit on Georgia, Russia[fr][de]
Published: Monday 25 August 2008
European Union leaders will meet in Brussels on 1 September for an extraordinary summit to review their relationship with Moscow after the crisis in Georgia revived East-West tensions reminiscent of the Cold War era.
There won’t be a double dissolution under the current electoral system. Who knows who would win the 12th seat in each state under group ticket voting. Group ticket voting is bad enough electing six members, but it would become a farce electing 12 members.
If I was Allbull, I would be giving back my fees received to the HIH liquidator.
Diogenes, carbon trading may not be a good double dissolution bill. It would require delegated regulations that the Senate could disallow. The lesson of the Australia Card debate in 1987 is that even if you have the numbers to use the double dissolution path to pass legislation, it would be useless if the Senate would continue to be bloody-minded and simply disallow any regulations under the legislation. The legislation for carbon trading would be hard enough to draft, without drafting it to survive a double dissolution.
Diogenes 316.
Probably agree with you on the DD – none of the blocked bills were key election promises. As you say though, carbon trading would be sufficient reason for one – that was a key election promise hence Labor has a clear mandate to deliver it.
Interesting that the DD outcomes are so poor. I suppose that reinforces teh view that the voters don’t react well to them being called frivously in which case your comment is all the more correct. Didn’t Whitlam call one in 1974?
Though, on second thoughts, it depends on how complex the regulations are. The Senate can allow or disallow regulations, but it can’t disentangle the bits it doesn’t like. There was a case some time ago where the Senate tried to disallow certain changes to air traffic regulations, but the consequence would have been to disallow all regulation of air space and the Senate calmed down.
The Australia Card was stopped because the bill gave the minister the power to issue a regulation on when the use of the card was to come into force. That was a very easy regulation to disallow.
I’m sure if the carbon trading scheme does end up going through a double dissolution, they’ll make the regulations as intertwined as possible.
Antony
Thanks for that. Did the Australia Card really die based on a single phrase which made it unworkable and needing a rewrite or was that an excuse for Hawke to ditch it?
Newspoll 56-44
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24241895-601,00.html
Newspoll: ALP 56/ Libs 44
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24241895-601,00.html
Nelsons support surges to 14%
THE NARROWING!!!!!
Kevin07 would not give a DD a seconds thought , quota halves allowing chance of more minority Party(s) and therefore more potential dificult negotiations
I don’t have a link for this one yet but Dennis sent me the draft.
So who claims the “credit” for this result – Nelson, Turnbull or Costello?
Diogenes, the Hawke government did not control the Senate in 1987, and the Coalition and Democrats made it clear they would use the Senate’s ability to scrutinise regulations to disallow the implementation of the Australia Card. As the Card was only the excuse for the 1987 DD, I think the government was quite happy to drop it.
To be honest, I don’t think the Senate would use its regulations power to block carbon trading. The government is clearly angling to come to some arrangement with the opposition on the issue. Even if the next election gives the Greens the sole balance of power, I don’t think Labor will budge from its position. Labor will do a deal with the Coalition, or put the Greens in a pincer by saying vote for our bill or you get nothing, and then blame the Greens if the bill doesn’t go through.
Back in 1993, the 2 WA Greens did that to Labor on the Mabo bill. A bill had to go through to create a legal framework for Native Title, and the 2 WA Senators forced Labor to their position. The position is reversed on carbon trading, because there is no legal framework without the legislation. If Labor can’t do a deal with the Coalition, Labor can play hard ball with the Greens by saying its vote for Labor’s bill or you have nothing. That’s not to say the Greens aren’t justified in trying to toughen up the legislation when it eventually appears, and it is certainly in line with the mandate the Greens have received from the electorate, but even with the sole balance of power, they won’t have a strong bargaining position.
hahahahaha
Just to clarify what I meant by that, I mean that if push comes to shove, Labor could wear there being no carbon trading scheme if the only alternative was a scheme that the opposition could run a scare campaign on. Labor’s committment to carbon trading will not extend to signing what it believes to be a death warrant.
Latest Newpoll
BRENDAN Nelson has secured a modest improvement in fortunes as the nation’s alternative prime minister while Australians were distracted by the two-week Olympic carnival.
However, the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows the Opposition Leader continuing to flatline on an approval rating in the mid-teens.
And as the Coalition partyroom meets today after weeks of leadership speculation over the future of former treasurer Peter Costello, the poll also shows little change in support for the major parties or their leaders.
It reveals that Dr Nelson’s rating as preferred prime minister has improved slightly from 12 per cent to 14 per cent as Kevin Rudd slipped three points to 65 per cent. The shifts were within Newspoll’s margin of error.
“All we’ve got here is a slight erosion of Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister,” Newspoll chief executive Martin O’Shannessy told The Australian Online. “My gut tells me, the world’s been on hold for the Olympics and therefore nothing has changed.”
According to Newspoll, full details of which will be published in The Australian tomorrow, support for Labor fell by one percentage point on a two-party preferred basis, based on preference flows at the last election, from 57 per cent to 56 per cent. Support for the Coalition increased by from 43 per cent to 44 per cent – still below their support at the November election of 47.3 per cent.
Apart from halving of Quota’s , Kevin07 is not going to a DD election proposing to increase costs (efectively a tax) , no govt has ever done so Th ‘benefits’rewards’ side of ETS (TETM) ar not due for legislation till June 2009
It will be interesting to see how the conservatives react to the new senate structure too. No more hollow threats from Barnaby about crossing the floor, and if the Greens and Independents get too harrassed by the conservatives,the conservatives could find themselves effectively sidelined much of the time.
Newspoll – Yawn. No real change. Just background noise.
New thread.