i want my brain back

the Green's oppose the Malaysia solution - "a desperate attempt to appear as inhumane as Tony Abbott" -
and are for the mining super profits tax - "proposed under the former Rudd government [which is] no longer an option" -  but will do NOTHING about either. furthermore, when did the Fairfax media start publishing libel as opinion? why did the constitution give this girl six years? and can someone explain to her the difference between principle and politics? possibly Peter Garrett? also, surely it was a desperate attempt to appear as popular as Tony Abbott...?

my thoughts on: delusionists

the greens will go the way of the democrats when saint bob goes to that idyllic pasture in the sky/tasmania. awaiting the catfight between hanson-young and milne with baited breath.the winner, of course, will preside over the downfall of this one-policy amusement. my pick, hanson-young. she is to the greens what stott-despoja was to the democrats. wonder what gillard-mathieson would make of that?

my thoughts on: the real world OR australian terrorists

how is this issue of "community concern"? this would be the 11th approved comment, which indicates it is not. or for that matter, how does it "further the public good"? most members of the public are not hostile combatants for a terrorist organisation. back to chasing ambulances MBC

my thoughts on: God

i was made aware of the existence of this article at 13.47 today (june 2) via a tweet. I have just read it and refreshed the page. Still zero moderated comments as of 20:07. which suggests noone really cared for it all that much. do they pay you to write this schtuff? anyway, not sure if it was your good self or the diligent, well-meaning, left-leaning subbies the abc employs on such occasions, but i did particularly enjoy the allusion to paederasty and child sex abuse in the headline. which, of course, is solely the domain of catholic priests

my thoughts on: the real world

greetings from the real world,

i have waded through the 51 comments thus far and there seems to be very little mention of your premise; that this should have been the speech given on 12 september 2001...? (by the way, i like that nifty abbreviation you guys have for quantanamo bay) any american president of any political persuasion would have been looking for somewhere to unleash the dogs of war that day. that is what happens in the real world, where actions have consequences and force is met with force. not just a vague muttering that we "hope" it won't transpire again and, why can't we all just be our better selves?

secondly, obama does not need you on the campaign trail. he knows how to get (re-) elected. he will amass an obscene $1 billion to do so (the price of democracy, apparently). he will galvanise an enormous "get out the vote" movement in his key constituencies. it is not compulsory to vote in the US. he's borrowing cleft notes from clinton on dealing with a hostile congress. and style points from reagan on appealing to the centre ground. any serious contenders are sitting him out until 2016. and george w bush won two terms.

anyway. palin/trump 2012 for me. let's see if we can really break this world of ours.

regards

a chump

my thoughts on: australian conservatism

dude. the australian (voting) public is inherently conservative/right wing. the media is irrelevant. julia stands for nothing. the greens are a one-policy party who are in favour of everything ("free hugs" for example). before you can do anything, you have to get elected. rudd was and did nothing. hence was summarily dismissed. julia produced the next best result at last year's election for the ALP other than losing. now she is hamstrung by a parliament that could swing with a heart attack. the greens are dominating the agenda. conservative parties are polling at 45% of the primary vote. most of thosed polled presumably do not want policy directed by the greens. Labor's primary vote is at 30%, its lowest ever. Julia complains that Abbott opposes everything. He does. He's the leader of the opposition. But instead of opposing him with principled policy, she presents to the public a hopefully palatable/electable version of Labor that distinguishes itself from no way from those who sit across from her in the house of representatives. if Labor truly were a progressive party, why not be one? why not support gay marriage? why not propose an ETS because it is the right thing to do and supported by the science? Gillard has always been about what can be done. not what should be done. she is the ultimate consensus/compromise politician. she successfully negotiated government for her party. but she will not lead them to the next election. if she does, they will not win it. she is unelectable

my thoughts on: men for others

Xavier College, in Kew, was responsible for most of my secondary education. The (illegal) behaviour of a contingent of their students yet again today is nothing short of reprehensible and contemptible. While I hold no particular affinity for my old school, it does sadden me that the school itself is now inescapably described as “notorious” in your news article.

My contemporaries are now lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, senior treasury officials. While these professional outcomes would certainly have been encouraged and desired when we were all at school, I do not believe the environment there was particularly conducive to producing them. This is because the archetypal Xavier student – the sporting jock – is recognised by the school as its and rewarded as such. These leaders go on to espouse the Ignatian ethos of being “men for others”. Unfortunately, these men are the said same who fail to realise that before you can call yourself a man for others you must first earn the title of a man.

And so to my sadness; I hold a great affection and gratitude towards my teachers. The Jesuits are deservedly recognised as renowned educators. They truly do instil in their students (or, at least, the ones who are responsive to it) a capacity to think for themselves. They do not deserve to be repaid for their endeavours by the bad press created because of the criminal behaviour of some of their charges. Sadder still is that, if this letter is published, I will be disowned and pilloried by the school, at least privately and that this will cause them further controversy. But what about this controversy is not deserved? What have I said that is not true? Surely something needs to change. It is a rotten state of affairs.

Malcolm Thomas, Class of 1997

my thoughts on: criticism

i myself have only got around to immersing myself if the festival in the last few days (and it ends on Sunday!). in that time i have seen amongst others two shows which i particularly enjoyed; they were deanne smith's about freakin' time and eddie perfect's misanthropology. as you would know deanne has been nominated for the Barry and is playing a quite small, poorly ventilated room in the basement of the vic hotel. i felt her show suffered from the critical acclaim (and her nomination) as the audience was (much) older than I and, i think, she expected. they were not prepared for the profanity/confrontational element to the show disguised, as it was, by the quirky/cutesie delivery. of course these comedic devices are the currency in which the performers trade. and hardened festival veterans are accustomed to such subject matter. the problem with a particularly favourable review is that it attracts a crowd who otherwise would not consider or even know of the existence of the show reviewed. it's the curse of popularity; as the number of people who know you increases, so too does the number who don't like you.

eddie acknowledged this also at the spiegeltent noting this was his first show since the success of offspring on channel ten and informing his newfound audience upon the conclusion of the musical number "daddy's tits" that he had always been this obscene, he "had to tone it back for television." the comedy festival is a strange beast or for the last decade, at least in my recollection, a stridently independent and creative one. in that time it has never embraced traditional forms. and it has been a wild ride.

daniel kitson, whom i have seen every year since his debut in 2002, finally won the Barry in 2007(ish?) for "its the fireworks talking." of course, he should have won is '03 for "something" (the show had won the perrier in edinburgh the year before). and 06 for "weltanschauung." he has, since his profile has risen, endeavoured to shun popularity/the mainstream. his sold out run of a 10pm theatre piece at the arts centre this year may act as commentary on the success or otherwise of his approach.

the herald sun is a populist, tabloid paper. they don't get it. and, understandably, as the media sponsor of the festival they struggled to appreciate and embrace the tenor and unpredictable nature of it. unfortunately for them, there is no other city in australia that could hold such an event. it is intrinsically and undeniably a melbourne institution. how the herald sun would wish it could say the same of itself.

the curse of the career politician

sarah,

i like you. not yet 30, right? young by name and young by nature.

anyway;

1. sweden; http://bit.ly/eSjzX2. ratified kyoto, seemingly. did we do that?

2. norway; http://nyti.ms/e0Dnuk. 43% increase in emissions per capita since the introduction of the tax.

3. the greek economy; http://bit.ly/bNBQIr

4. The poorer EC countries, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece, have maintained that the carbon tax would be a larger burden for them than for the other countries that are already more industrialized. In addition, the lesser-developed EC states have contributed less to the overall CO2 levels that presently exist. Higher energy prices would make further economic development much more expensive thus making it more difficult for the poorer states to close the economic gap that still exists within the EC (http://bit.ly/fFYBml)

5. the irish economy; http://bit.ly/gDG1Kf

i hope you enjoyed your tax payer funded junket. was it your first trip overseas? anyway i hope you were kept busy feeling very important. we're not in kansas anymore

PS thought about running for a seat in the house of reps? didn't think so

i'll take that as a comment

Hi, Penny. I heard you were on #qanda this week. I mean to submit a question but it turns out that I am now too late. It's ok though; I went to church and my priest forgave me. He told me it would be unAustralian to have submitted my question on time. And that the Prime Minister was a bit late at getting around to the holy sacrament of marriage. He asked me to ask you if you could pass that on. Thanks. Anyway, I read a newspaper this week. I think it was one of those big, intellectual ones that noone reads. They tend to like you guys. Myth of the liberal media or somesuch. Socially Progressive blah blah, etc. They had a news article in this newspaper that said the NBN was pushed backed two years. This, along with the four Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers my priest told me to say, made me feel much better. Also, just so you know, noone out here in the real world understands what the NBN is. Or why it is good really. But that's Conroy's job. Maybe you could pass that on. Thanks. Anyway, hey so you're the finance minister now. That must be fun. I did like your work when you were in charge of pollution though. You were much better at that than Peter Garrett. He used to stand for things. Now he's a politician and not an activist he doesn't anymore. I like politics. How do I become a politician? Anyway, finance is fun too. I mean you've got to decide whether to continue to fund medical research that could potentially help all of humankind. And also, like, whether to keep giving money to disabled people who do nothing for it. I mean, who even knows if they're disabled? As far as I'm concerned disability is a rort. They call be a disability skeptic but, you know, what with all the lack of medical research, we can just let the disabled die anyway. I mean there's no money in a cure. If people just get better then they'll go out and spend tax-payers dollars on whatever they want. One day I hope we have another GFC; it was less tasty that KFC but i did get a widescreen TV out of it. Anyway, I spend most days watching Kim Kardashian on TV. Despite the fact she is famous for pretty much nothing and has no particular wit, skill or intellect, it makes me less angry than Australian politics. Anyhow, Penny - I hope you don't mind me calling you Penny - its just that when the Prime Minister was on #qanda people got upset when other people called her Julia (apparently it was disrespectful). See the thing is noone ever called Kevin Kevin. We called him Krudd. It was a pun you see. A play on words. We cleverly took his first initial and then appended it to his entire surname so that it sounded like the word crud. It was the ultimate mark of respect. We had branded him with a nickname. People like him better before he was PM. Maybe you could pass that on. Thanks. Also, maybe people appeared at first to like him more than they actually did because he wasn't John Howard. Man that guy got old. Literally. People like Julia better before Shorten and Arbib arranged for her to be PM. But then again, noone knew who Shorten was before some miners in Tasmania died. I think miners would be better at workplace safety if you increased their taxes. And apparently a few years back Arbib had something to do with why the ALP is now irrelevant in NSW. Anyway, Penny - is that short for Penelope? So, Penny, your surname is Wong. I have also seen pictures of you around and about the place. Anyway, it appears you may be of Asian descent. Don't worry, I'm not racist. In fact noone in Australia is racist. We're a multicultural, tolerant, cosmopolitan society you see. We used to be racist. But then we abolished the White Australia policy sometime around 1973 and that cleared all that up. Thanks, Gough. By the way, East Timor thanks you too. Maybe you could pass that along. Plus, you know, even if we were racist, Asians have it much better in Australia than Aborigines anyway so you've got nothing to worry about. How's that carbon tax coming along? Or is it an ETS? I'm not really sure. Noone out here can explain it to me. Apparently its the right thing to do for the future. The greatest moral challenge of our time. Apparently Tony doesn't like it. He is running a furious scare campaign. Like the one Keating ran against the GST. Which Howard introduced after he said he never, ever would. But it's ok, that turned out to be a non-core promise. Beazley said Labor would rollback the GST if he were elected. But then he wasn't. But then Labor was. But they rolled back Work Choices instead. Man that GST sucks. Mostly for you, being the finance minister and all. I mean, you have to give all of that money to the states. Federalism just fucks up everything. Anyway, I didn't even get to watch you on #qanda. I like how when our elected representatives go on that show, they ostensibly get asked a question but a member of the studio audience who, in turn, is ostensibly a member of the general public. And, much like when they are asked a question by a journalist, instead of answering the question, they use the juncture at which the audience member stops talking as a cue to say whatever they were going to say anyway on whatever topic they like. Anyway, Sophie Mirabella said Julia was as deluded as Gaddafi if she believed her people with her on the carbon tax issue. This was deeply offensive. Cos, you know, he's an evil, dictatorial, tyrant who's been in power for 40 years or something. Which we didn't mind so much until Time's 2010 Person of the Year and the Winklevoss twins liberated Egypt. Damn internet. How's that filter coming along? If you could check with Conroy, that would be great. Hey, do you like beards? Julia had a go a Rob Oakeshott when parliament resumed after the summer break. She said his newfound bearded facial growth was pretty ordinary. I was wondering, what do you think would happen if Tony stood up in parliament and expressed the opinion that Julia was having a bad hair day. Tim would be so upset. Anyway, the ALP are polling at about 30% of the primary vote. Lowest on record. Tony's gone back to being crazy (he only acts "normal" during election campaigns, when more people are watching). And yet were an election to be held today and the polling trends were accurate, he would be the leader of this country. Why do you think that is?