Here’s a fresh thread for non-campaign discussion. I’m finding Mad Mondays in The Australian are a bit disrupted these days — instead of running weekly, Glenn Milne and David Burchell seem to have been alternating in recent weeks, while Milne is even popping up over at The Drum these days. But Burchell doesn’t disappoint today — and kudos to Larvatus Prodeo for declaring him the winner of the culture wars:
Judges were impressed with his ability to entirely ignore the irony of indulging in a bit of elite bashing while simultaneously displaying his great erudition and comprehensive knowledge of the plays of Aristophanes.
I can only add that it seems a touch ironic when one’s regularly-published opinion column in The Australian is the vehicle for an attack on:
that sundry assemblage of commentators, opinionists and all-round passers of wise judgments, who take it as their day job to do the electorate’s thinking for them
ABC Monday line-ups after the fold.
Australian Story is about Glenn Wheatley. Four Corners follows a woman who was sent from Congo to live in London as a young child — now 23 years old, she returns to the country of her birth and sees the state it is in. Then there’s Media Watch, of course, followed by a Q&A featuring Penny Wong, Malcolm Turnbull, Christine Milne, Graham Richardson and Tom Switzer.
And fresh episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should resume tomorrow. Oh, and The Goodies start on ABC2 tonight at 8pm (Kitten Kong!). Spoiled for choice, and that’s without even looking at the commercial networks.
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More leaks from Wikileaks, some 90 000 + Documents:
Get it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks
Hmmm, this will cause some embarrassment for our warmongering, chicken-hawk leaders….GOOD!
David Mitchell agues, in the Guardian, against the banning of the burqua in Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/david-mitchell-burqa-ban-tattoos
Here’s the Oz’s Most Read list as it currently stands:
White House backed Megrahi release
Coalition narrows the gap
Underdog Abbott defies doubters
Labor spin machine goes into overdrive
Tony looks like a PM, Julia wins on points
Gillard is just another phony
Millions tune in to Adam’s sweet victory
Citizens assembly has lost Labor support
Abbott comes out swinging after debate
Fortescue’s future in Meurs’ hands
What do you notice?
And the current headlines:
The Coalition Chronicler at work.
It ain’t called the Opposition Organ for nothing DeanL!
In reality the Oz has very low readership, and I’d argue the only people who do read it are rusted on Libs in the older age, and high income brackets, and people engaged in the political process. Disengaged voters get their political news from the 6pm commercial news stations. The Oz isn’t an opinion or vote changer in my view.
Dean @ 3
“Here’s the Oz’s Most Read list as it currently stands:”
~ my snip ~
“What do you notice?”
Unless I’m missing some weird, right-wing conspiracy… I notice those are the stories their readership found most interesting.
I also notice just a few of the bits you left out while highlighting the Oz’s other articles:
Coalition’s numbers don’t add up, Stephen Lunn
Tony Abbott’s new immigration policy fails on two counts, Paul Kelly
Apples and oranges that leave bitter taste, George Megalogenis
More populist pitch for votes than change, Michael Stutchbury
Anyway, the Age’s most-read at 3.25 this afternoon. Which, if I wanted to spin things, says The Thunderer’s readers are more interested in sex than being reassured Our Jools can hang on.
1. Sex: the Bible says go for it
2. Teen shot dead in hunting trip tragedy
3. Stampede at Love Parade kills 19
4. Gillard worms her way to points win
5. Labor still in front, but Gillard slips in polls
I see that Jabba the Hutt has been dumped as a Liberal candidate in Western Sydney. Amazing who they have running these days.
RobJ
Wikileaks have started putting the documents up here:
http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/
Rob (and Jules)
“Hmmm, this will cause some embarrassment for our warmongering, chicken-hawk leaders….GOOD!”
These leaders, I will have you know, include The Messiah and Our Jools!
How dare you! How absolutely DARE you!
RobJ @1
Dying to see how the hun and tele bloggers spin that. On the one hand, it’s that evil notorious leftist warmist wikileaks who leaked it. On the other hand, gosh … they say it’s not going well? That’s obama’s fault, then!
From
confessions @56 (backlinked)
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/07/23/weekend-talk-thread-july-23-25/comment-page-2/#comment-31917
Gosh – the rank and file left out? But I thought only labor did that!
I can’t imagine how they thought this guy was going to keep his “extreme views” out of the public eye. They seem pretty important to him.
I’m “our jools” to everyone that matters (to me), and Bill Hicks died years ago so wtf are you talking about? Neither of us are responsible for the debacle in Afghanistan.
And its how very, very dare you, or its just not funny.
Indeed. Liberals beat Labor round the head with the ‘more democratic’ candidate selections angle. But they screwed up big time with this guy.
It looks to me like they were trying to run interference on the ALP candidate by trying to make his religion an issue. Typical Liberal party, they never learn.
Question:
If someone who denies the Sept 11 terrorist attacks by trotting out a range of conspiracy theories and false arguments is labelled a ‘truther’, isn’t it reasonable to also give the label to those who deny global warming by declaring the globe is cooling, and that it’s all a massive grant industry/quest for World Goverment/conspiracy to wreck economic growth/religion?
Global warming truthers. I’m claiming it, and ascribing it as and when I see fit.
Up until 2004 9/11 truthers were actually asking some interesting questions (among the bullshit about controlled demolitions and no arabs being involved).
People who claim there is no such thing as AGW or even any form of GW never even had that going for them.
Its probably more appropriate to call them “birthers”.
Confessions, Jules: what’s wrong with good old-fashioned “dickheads”?
Bolt is at it again. He sets up a comment intending it to be inflammatory, but doesn’t quite go over the line himself, then he sits back to reap the inevitable blog comments of howling and predictable outrage, and cherrypicks the ones to his liking to start the cycle all over again!
He’s back on Muslims and terrorism again with this comment…”if more people of this faith means also more people inclined to terrorism, what is an immigrant nation to do to protect its citizens? ” The story is originally about a man called Chesser in the US charged with attempting to travel to Somalia to met with undesirables.
He’s a white middle class American who played high-school football! What’s this got to do with immigration (unless it suggests we ban US people from migrating)?
monkeywrench, you can only say “dickhead” about someone so many times before it loses all meaning and grates on your tongue.
Does anyone know what happened to mulga mumblebrain? He hasn’t posted here in a while, at least that I’ve seen.
Trutherism is a lot closer to what the AGW denialists sprout than simple idiocy. Saying the earth is cooling when the evidence shows a clear warming trend, or the ice caps are growing when the evidence shows they are melting, or likening the acceptance of the rigours of modern scientific inquiry to religious belief shows a disturbing degree of delusion. Some of these people even go to extraordinary lengths to prove their case such as turning on every light and appliance in their home. What this proves, apart from wasting electricity and costing them money is anyone’s guess, but like children afraid of the dark, they seem to take comfort in having all the lights turned on.
No, trutherism is the only word that adequately describes the conspiracies these people envision.
No, it seems he hasn’t commented here for a while. I did remove a couple of comments that were clearly off-topic, but have no idea whether it’s related to that or whether he’s just away, busy or simply lost interest in the site.
Angra @16
It is an interesting story. What counts as a “terrorist” these days can be pretty underwhelming, but I’ve dug up a couple of the names on the list and there are some genuinely unpleasant individuals who’ve been rounded up recently.
34 isn’t a lot, it’s worth remembering. And it includes some pretty incompetent terrorists. The guy you mention is the one who threatened comedy central. And the list includes the moron who attempted to “bomb” times square with some fireworks and LPG bottles. It also includes the group who “planned” to blow up JFK by igniting underground fuel lines (which anyone with a clue will realize is not going to work even a tiny little bit).
But the list does include some genuinely nasty individuals – that “jihad jane” nut, for example.
“Trutherism is a lot closer to what the AGW denialists sprout than simple idiocy.”
The first references I ever heard to the ISI being hand in glove with the Taliban and Al Q were from truthers (egs include Atta being wired $100K through BCCI), the wikileaks thing the other day certainly confirms that there was something in it.
There’s nothing remotely like that in the AGW denialist camp.
Confessions, “trutherism” sounds a bit like Colbert’s “truthiness”.
{I’ll remove the question directed to me to prevent more comments going down that road — Tobby}
jules: you are totally missing my point. I’m talking about the nuttiness of the conspiracies advanced by AGW denialists, which are on the same level as the truthers who say that the Sept 11 attacks were orchestrated by the US government.
Global warming is a conspiracy by greenies to send us all back to living in caves? Total whackjob territory, but there are people who truly believe this, and we’ve even seen MSM column space dedicated to advancing such absurdities. Same with those who claim it’s all a communist conspiracy. Nick Minchin went on national TV to declare this, presumably moved to because of the strength of his convictions. And we’ve seen commenters here use the phrase ‘warming religion’, as if the acceptance of modern scientific inquiry is akin to religious belief. This stuff is straight out of pre-Enlightenment times, it’s sheer lunacy.
Still no comment from AB about the afghanistan war wikileaks. No hits on the FOX news web site either. Coincidence?
Aah – I’ve got the perfect spin. I just heard an interview with Assange saying “this is the equivalent of the opening of the STASI archives”. Ok, he explains why (not that I’m sure I agree it’s “the equivalent”), but that soundbite should be enough to be going on with.
I’ve only just begun trawling through these latest leaked documents from Wikileaks and haven’t scratched the surface yet, but in answer to the 4 bullet points in the Guardian article — which I assume are bullet pointed because the author thinks they are somehow significant and which I have pasted below:
“1 How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.
2 How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.
3 How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.
4 How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.”
I would say:
1. Nothing new or controversial in this — militaries have attempted to kill or capture enemy leaders in virtually every war throughout history. (Incidentally, from my experience the term “kill or capture” means capture if possible or kill if not).
2. So what ? Show me a war in which the combattants haven’t attempted to acquire new and better weapons, I’d suggest the reason the US has ‘covered up’ this evidence is because they don’t want the Taliban to be able to advertise its new technology to attract new recruits.
3. Once again, nothing new here — unmanned weapons have been used by the US military, (and others), to minimise their own losses for decades.
4. Terrorists indiscriminately plant roadside bombs that kill civilians, because they know they can’t match the Allied forces in conventional combat plus it has the added bonus of sowing terror amongst any civilians who might be contemplating collaborating with the Allied effort — quelle surprise.
To sum up, unless there’s evidence that’s a hell of a lot more damning than this stuff in these documents, there’s not going to be much for any of our “chickenhawk” leaders to worry about.
As an aside, can anyone here tell me the difference between the publishing of the illegally obtained emails from East Anglia CRU and the publishing of the equally illegal acquisition and publishing of these documents ?
Bolt likes bashing the ABC regularly and is at it again today.
“So, have the ABC’s new taxpayer-funded websites – The Drum and Unleashed – turned out to be more balanced than the usual ABC fare? Silly question… the ABC online opinion websites are running two negative comments for every positive comment about Julia Gillard, and 24 to one against Tony Abbott. How can the ABC possibly justify funding this Leftist group-think?”
He later goes on to condemn comments by Kellie Tranter “to have evil global warming sceptics sued into silence”…This is a plan only a totalitarian could love.”
Even a cursory glance at The Drum suggests that this is nonsense. They even had a series of articles the other month about global warming that gave equal time to a ‘pro’ and an ‘anti’. Seems to me that denialist nonsense should be shown up to be pseudo-scientific claptrap that it is, and this is not just about left or right politics.
Are journalists supposed to be measured now by how much weight they give to ‘left’ or ‘right’ positions? So now I suppose the Pentagon Papers and the Afghanistan War Logs are all to be seen as part of a wicked lefty conspiracy, not about getting at the truth, no matter how embarrassing.
There’s no particular difference in the “morality” or “ethics” of it, IMHO. There are some specific differences in the sort of information, though (I’m guessing). On the one hand, the leaks were of off-the-record emails of personal conversations – whereas the other is (I’m also guessing) mostly official reports, intended to for (at least restricted) distribution (and potential eventual declassification). So I’m guessing the second sort will lend itself to a bit less of the breathlessly wild interpretation of the former. But both sorts are notionally publicly-funded activities.
I can think of two other important differences, too – a different group of people will consider each to be either very, very good or very, very bad. And a HECK of a lot more effort will go into finding the person who leaked the military stuff
The thing that worries (though doesn’t surprise) me GavinM is that they have covered up civilian deaths. Isn’t that damning enough for you?
Out of the leaders who chose to invade Afghanistan which would you describes as a warrior? Bush? Blair? Howard??? I think Chicken-hawk is a great description for pricks who put others at risk of death for their own political ends.
There’s going to be plenty, our leaders have been telling us porkies and covering up civilian deaths to justify the deployment.
Yeah, the CRU release turned out to be not so damning! The covering up of civilian deaths is by far a bigger crime than anybody at the CRU committed.
From here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-us-marines
I reckon you’re on the money there MW and sorry for the typo in my question — realised after I hit Post that I’d put in one too many “the publishing ofs”….Must remember to use Preview
Sorry, last bit:
As I said Rob, I’ve only just started reading the reports — I didn’t say there’s nothing to them, I said there’ll have to be more than what the author of that initial article bullet-pointed. I have no doubt the juiciest bits will be pulled out by publications such as the Guardian, so I won’t have to read the whole 90,000 documents.
I think this boils down to the training of the soldiers deployed over there, like the incident with the gunship in Iraq, these troops just don’t seem to be sufficiently trained to handle the type of warfare that they are involved in.
“Out of the leaders who chose to invade Afghanistan which would you describes as a warrior? Bush? Blair? Howard???’
I’m not going to defend those 3, but how many politicians who have got involved in wars throughout recent times have been warriors Rob — I’d suggest not many, its not their role so its an irrelevant question.
“There’s going to be plenty, our leaders have been telling us porkies and covering up civilian deaths to justify the deployment.”
I think you’ll find that’s nothing new either.
“Yeah, the CRU release turned out to be not so damning! The covering up of civilian deaths is by far a bigger crime than anybody at the CRU committed.”
Both acts were still illegal Rob, regardless of the content of the documents.
Wow, my comment made it through! Maybe because no one knew what I was talking about …
Confessions @ 24, Ridiculously unbalanced as usual.
Are you actually saying that a person that takes the view that the complex climate patterns of the planet may be changing because of something other than man’s interference are the same as someone who believes that the US Government was actually responsible for the mass-murder of thousands of its own citizens?
Who are these people that truly believe that AGW is a green conspiracy to move us back into caves? Which paper was it published in? When did Nick Minchin say that AGW was a communist conspiracy?
Hyperbole. All of it.
Just for my own interest, now that we’re moving on from the denialist tag to this newer, cleverer one, will I still be likened to someone who believes the holocaust was a fantasy?
Please stop making things up.
No. Read my comment again.
Go through the archives of this site. You’ll find the articles.
On an ABC 4Corners doco last year.
You can call yourself whatever you like, it’s none of my business how you choose to be perceived.
I realise this, I was being a smart arse
I take exception to the likes of Bush starting wars of adventure and choice when they don’t have to go anywhere near the pointy end, for that matter none of their relos either, he’s a chicken-hawk in my book, Blair and Howard, they’re worse, they’re sychophantic poodles.
“jules: you are totally missing my point. I’m talking about the nuttiness of the conspiracies advanced by AGW denialists, which are on the same level as the truthers who say that the Sept 11 attacks were orchestrated by the US government.”
Fair enough. (Actually the first time I heard the term “truthiness” was from a former 9/11 truther who was disgusted with “9/11 truth”. Satirists….)
Gav
Task Farce 373 has been implicated in a shitload of civilian deaths that had nothing to do with their actual targets. We all know wartime assassination of enemy leaders is a valid, and more humane tactic than letting the plebs blow the living hell out of each other.
Whats unacceptable is when these missions target innocent people.
And thats what they appear to have done.
Thats just one example of the incompetence that these documents will reveal. That the war in Afghanistan has been mismanaged from day one by incompetent buffoons with no idea what they are sposed to be doing.
Where did the Taliban acquire their newfangled weapons?
Thats been covered up too.
Its the reports of soldiers or contractors being stopped at roadblocks by hundreds of armed Afghans, (not Taliban tho, soldiers of an allied warlord, demanding money to use the road.)
Said warlord is apparently an opiate exporter and also on the US payroll.
(Now I need to find a reference don’t I.)
The basic narrative of these reports appears to be that the war is totally out of control and we are pushing shit uphill.
I notice there are reports this afternoon a Baptist Church bus driver has been arrested for sexually molesting children. Applying Bolts logic on Muslims and terrorism I think its fair to say that we should now prohibit Baptists from coming to this country. Actually looking at Catholic Priest child abuse figures we have to exclude them as well.
Pretty soon it will be only people of the Muslim faith that we can trust with our children.
Would you want a Catholic or Baptist church built in your suburb?
Jules – here’s your reference…
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=154
And this was written in 2003!
“In a series of extraordinary reports, the latest published in July, Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities “committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001″ and who have “essentially hijacked the country”. The report describes army and police troops controlled by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery and arbitrary murder. Girls’ schools are burned down. “Because the soldiers are targeting women and girls,” the report says, “many are staying indoors, making it impossible for them to attend school [or] go to work.”
“The basic narrative of these reports appears to be that the war is totally out of control and we are pushing shit uphill.”
Spot on Jules — and it really shouldn’t come as any surprise, various empires have tried to subdue Afghanistan over the centuries, none have succeeded due, in large part, to the terrain of the country which lends itself to the type of guerilla warfare that conventional armies simply can’t cope with and which we are seeing again now.
You’d think politicians would learn from history.
“Applying Bolts logic on Muslims and terrorism I think its fair to say that we should now prohibit Baptists from coming to this country. ”
Angra. While you are busy finding references for people, please do find one where the Baptist minister you mentioned committed the offence in the name of his religion.
Pedro –
It was in Chatswood. That’s precisely the point. Bolt’s comment is that home-grown terrorism poses a threat (re the Chesser case – story title US Threatened by Enemy Within). Because he alleges Islam promotes terrorism, and then by a magnificent leap of logic he applies this to immigration and says “if more people of this faith means also more people inclined to terrorism, what is an immigrant nation to do to protect its citizens?”
I simply applied his own logic to child abuse. If home grown child abusers are predominantly Christian it appears that their faith means that more Christians are inclined to child abuse. So what is an immigrant nation to do o protect its citizens?
Angra. “If home grown child abusers are predominantly Christian…
How about applying some just plain 3rd grade logic instead?
We, like the US, live in a country that is predominately “Christian”. I think there’s a very good chance about 95% of the people in jail in Australia are… Christian. Whatever their crime.
Confessions @ 38, I don’t doubt that making up people and then making up fun names to describe those made up people is not a rich and fulfilling way to occupy yourself. It clearly is. I just hoped that there’d be a little more realism around it. You know – to make it more believable and stuff.
I’ve looked for those articles and was unable to find anything remotely close to what you claimed. Funnily enough though, I found an old comment by you from a couple of years ago stating that the average temperature of the atmosphere would increase by five degrees centigrade by the year 2015. That’s less than five years away and the ALP don’t intend to act on AGW until at least 2012, leaving them just three years to enact Australia’s tiny contribution.
Who’s in the wrong then – the scientists or the ALP!
Well apply the exact same logic to Muslims from say Afghanistan or Iraq. Except there they have the excuse of fighting for their freedom against foreign powers that have bombed their homes, killed their children and tortured their friends. While there is no excuse for terrorism Ithink this may be a damn sight more justifiable than child abuse by so-called Christians.
Were the Maquis or the Yugoslav, Polish, Norwegian, Greek or Dutch resistance during the war terrorists? They bombed, murdered, tortured in the name of their homelands.
BTW in 2004, the John Jay report tabulated a total of 4,392 priests and deacons in the U.S. alone against whom allegations of sexual abuse have been made.
Pedro @47
“I think there’s a very good chance about 95% of the people in jail in Australia are… Christian”
If so, then they’re over-represented. A bit over 60% of the population nominated themselves as catholic, anglican or “other christian” in the last census. So I’d be a bit surprised if 95% of jailbirds were christian.
Getting reliable figures on religion and incarceration are actually pretty hard to do.
All of that said, it’s worth keeping in context the 34 “terrorists” being touted as proof that america’s going down the tubes. Some of them are just violent creeps who happen to be linked to terrorist groups – otherwise they’d have just been some other sort of violent creep. There are many times more violent creeps who don’t have that distinction – but they’re just as violent. Some of them are also incompetent losers. A few might have actually one day gone on to do something unpleasant (and they also might not have). It’s not like that’s unique to islam. But because of 9/11 we put anything that looks even a little bit muslimy into one category, stir up a panic about it and then use that to hammer the vast majority of muslims who don’t pose anybody any threat at all.
I’d like to see a bit more perspective. But I don’t expect to. Certain folk just really seem to like whipping up this particular form of hysteria.
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