Let’s kick off the weekend nice and early with a fresh open thread. Here’s some recommended reading — PBS NewsHour, courtesy of the Mark Twain Foundation, have unveiled a previously unpublished essay; or at least, the fragment of an essay. The topic: “Concerning the Interview”, five paragraphs of genius that modern journalists and interviewees could learn from.
Here’s what we can look forward to on our TV screens (via Leigh Sales and Mike Bowers):
- Tonight’s Lateline (ABC1 at 10:35) has Jonathan Alter, the author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One”.
- Sunday’s Insiders has Barrie interviewing Stephen Smith, the panel is Misha Schubert, Karen Middleton and Gerard Henderson, and Talking Pictures has Fiona Katauskas.
Have at it.
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btw, I think Matthew of Canberra was being humorous, and may well have seen me bandying Welshisms with RobJ , another of our kind……
Bolt apologises for not being as prolific as usual. After all, one has to take time off occasionally from being the Voice of the Ordinary Man, when one is shopping for Persian fetta, and goat-curds. Nothing elitist there at all.
Oh, for pete’s sake. AB’s jumping on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAhmYKlsWW4
Actually, in the situation the US currently finds herself, I think she’s probably right. The US unemployment benefit is (I think) about 1200$ a month. That’s not a great deal, and isn’t going to be enough for most people to live on long-term. But if you’re going to evaluate short-term economic stimulus tactics, it’s perfect – all of that money will be spent straight away, and (sniggering aside) it’ll be spent productively – i.e. on what the spender actually needs most, from the most competitive available sources. There is no bureaucracy, no lead-time, no overheads. It’s straight back into the economy.
That, IMHO, was one of the smartest parts of our own economic stimulus – the direct payments back to tax-payers. But in the case of the long-term unemployed, that money isn’t going to be spent on luxury goods, and it’s not going to be banked. It’ll go straight back into rent, food, transport, clothing, utilities – i.e. local jobs.
So actually, in the context that Pelosi is speaking about, she’s dead right.
On the other hand, the sniggering about the US’ high unemployment rate and the benefits of not paying benefits sort of implies that the 9.8% (or whatever it is right now) simply doesn’t WANT to work. That suggestion is ridiculous. Nobody who has experienced and accepted the vastly superior benefits of professional employment is going to freely choose unemployment instead. Get a grip, people.
monkeywrench @52
I find it fascinating when he rattles off his menus to his readers. Notice that he’s never just cooking some macaroni and cheese? Or a nice bit of pie? It’s always along the lines of “hand-reared aragula with south-south-eastern persian chevre, dusted with a sprinkling of granite-ground pepper from the western sliopes of … … to be served with a reserve riesling vintage, hand-picked from the 5th and 9th rows of jim barry’s private Clare plantings”
What do you suppose he’s saying?
monkeywrench @51
Actually, I was trying to be humorous. But I was probably just talking tish.
MoC @53
It occurs to me that the reps could be making a mistake in opposing that measure. Sure, it’s probably marginal, but surely a lot of people who have never been unemployed before, who would probably usually vote republican, must be watching this and asking why the party that claims to support them is quibbling over a few thousand bucks and throwing them to the wolves.
There’s that old saying that “a liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested” … I wonder if a liberal, if only temporary, can also be a conservative who’s been chucked out of his job along with the rest of his town, through no fault of his own, and watched his local MP imply that he’s a lazy sod who doesn’t deserve any help from the government that takes his income taxes.
MoC@54
He’s just showing off, and not for his regular readership either. I’ve said it before, I believe he would actually be distinctly uncomfortable with his core support base in the blog, which is ever the problem with the populist who despises the populace. “I speak for the common man, but my tastes are far superior to his.”
Daft article by David Mitchell, a British journalist with the Observer and a very bad hairstyle ( here published in The Guardian). He plays devil’s advocate for Murdoch’s paywall experiment. The only thing he overlooks is that the British (and ourselves) pay a government-controlled broadcaster very large amounts to provide an outstanding service that Murdoch can only envy, and wishes to destroy.
Yeah he is. Nobody who knows that persian fetta and taleggio are things you can buy from any gourmet shop in Australia gives a shit that Andrew Bolt is eating it. He’s totally showing off for his readership: look how tolerant I am – I eat multicultural foods! And from the look of comments, they are all lapping up their all-knowing, all-eating, messiah.
Matthew @41, interesting interview between Robyn Williams and Stephen Schneider. The gist of which is how to judge credibility of people who are quoted with regard to AGW.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2943480.htm#transcript
I”m hoping there’ll be a thread about this tomorrow, but check out this AB post for sheer mind-bending insanity from the respondents:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/teaching_children_that_fear_of_terrorism_is_racist/desc/P20/
This, for example:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/teaching_children_that_fear_of_terrorism_is_racist/desc/P20/#3517888
What part of “xenophobe” does bh not quite understand? What exactly is he/she scared of? I think he/she would be surprised by how much kosher/halal stuff there is … if he bothered to check the labels. How about this one …
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/teaching_children_that_fear_of_terrorism_is_racist/desc/P20/#3517851
I’m sure parlirama will be astonished to find himself not being prosecuted. Laughed at, ridiculed, potentially even pitied. But not prosecuted.
Then there’s this ripper:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/teaching_children_that_fear_of_terrorism_is_racist/desc/P40/#3517808
Answering his no doubt earnest question … I suggest Turkey and Indonesia. But that’s just gravy – the rest of that post is pure gold. I particularly like the claim “I’m not being prejudiced.”
Now, you’re probably thinking “oh, Matthew – you’re just picking the worst ones to make Andrew’s friends look bad”. No, I think somebody got rid of those before I even spotted the thread – as this post suggests:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/teaching_children_that_fear_of_terrorism_is_racist/desc/#3518387
So the stuff I’ve been quoting is apparently what’s left AFTER somebody did a clean-up.
I’ve been reading more of comments on that thread, and I discover that the ones I quoted here don’t even begin to represent the collective madness – and (apparently) that’s after somebody did a cull of the worst. Andrew lifted a rock with that post, and there were some nasty little creatures under it.
Have I missed something, or is there a concerted campaign to push Bolt onto more of the unsuspecting public by increasing his reach? He now has a column on Mondays in the Northern Territory News and regular slot on Channel 9′s Today.
Jon Stewart is an American comedian who has a satirical commentary on the week’s news (The Daily Show) on Comedy Central. His style of comedy is not really to my taste (Media Watch meets Mr Bean) but he has had a recent put-down of anti-Muslim phobia in the main-stream media which is pretty good which you can see here –
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/07/jon-stewart-takes-on-the-anti-muslim-discourse-in-the-media/
“Whats next? Should we allow the Irish to vote?”
MoC61/62
Doesn’t surprise me one whit. The moron who threw away his kebab after finding it was halal takes the prize. These are the people Bolt likes to impress with his swordfish steaks and Persian fetta. One presumes the “Persian” fetta was halal also.
Wow, what a gross and grubby bunch of neanderthals.
“his talent for real science has been debunked repeatedly, yet dills like the Cap keep dragging the dead horse out”
That’s a bit tasteless, isn’t it?
But seriously, if Crichton’s so smart, how come he’s dead?
LOL well I was referring directly to the man’s rather loose interpretation of science, not so much his own mortal state…frankly I forgot he was dead.
I am concerned about eating Halal (or Kosher) killed meat, basically because there is an increase risk that the animal will suffer while being dispatched. Remember the rules for this religious slaughter were written down long before stunning or captive bolt ‘sticking’ were invented. Both Kosker and Halal (as far as I can work out) involves going ‘straight for the jugular’, so the animal is conscience as the skin on the neck is cut and the blood vessels severed. So given the choice, I would go for Western Enlightened killed meat.
PeeBee, I genuinely applaud your concern for any increased humane treatment of animals, and let’s face it, if they’re going to be slaughtered its a slippery slope…but I think you are quite confused if you think thats why cretins like that gross ignoramus are throwing their halaal kebab’s away..in fact, i think the humane treatment of ANYONE is the last their on their minds…if there’s any to BE on those minds apart from vomiting wacky talkback gibberish.
anything to BE
http://www.abbottshospitalcuts.com/
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