The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.
NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.
———-
The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off. Like a sack of prawn heads in the sun. Something had to be done.
Moderation was taking forever. Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged. When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !
So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit. And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.
As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire. And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.
So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog. Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity. Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.
And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments. Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.
Cheers,
Emm.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
…and the Winner is…..Vivienne and her food stories ! Food articles invite civility and fun, but of course even there argumentative posters try to create havoc or at least indigestion for fellow Piglets.
The second place goes to Big M, never a nasty word from him. 🙂
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Ta very muchly.
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Hey you two! If you can’t back down, at least try to avoid getting any higher on your horses! Tsk, tsk, tsk. Or as the French would say, tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut ……
I shall declare the winner. Me.
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No me,me,me…..
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And the trophy is… a bronze horse’s patootie!
Pour vous, avec le plus grand plaisir!
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You, you, … you shepherd’s pie eating philosopher you!
Quite right atomou, and well-deserved!
Occasionally visuals are better than words. When someone who can’t tell the difference between you and his own brother inadvertently steps over the line, giving him the finger might be a better reminder.
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Clive Forefinger, was one of my better pseuds.
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I know the difference. My brother is a border Communist. Atomou is another “matter”*
* That was a bit unfair, it’s probably over his head.
* The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.
Negatively? Wow, that is an understatement!
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Off with the dogs now…Fingers in ears.
I need some fun & fresh air.
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“Atomou”
Genitive case (ie, possessive) of “atomon,” an individual.
Use: Ποσα ατομα μενοθν σ’αυτο το σπιτι?
Transliteration:
Posa atoma menoun s’afto to spiti?
Translation:
How many people (individuals) live in this house?
Use in Genitive:
Ι χαρα ειναι δικαιομα καθε ατομου
Transliteration
I hara eene dikeoma kathe atomou
Translation
Happiness is the right of every individual.
ALSO
Atomou a japanese comic character. A young hero who can fly (through jets in his shoes, much like Hermes had wings on them) and is the protector of virtue. Also called “Astro Boy.”
The suggestion for this nic was made by our darling currently aboding in Japan.
I AM trying to broaden your mind, pom. Now say thanks!
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With any luck VL will pick up a ruler while he’s out. Until then, amusez-vous bien.
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If’n youse are alluding to what I think that youse are….We both have Hondas, however, mine is a four-wheel drive 😉
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Of course it is, of course it is! Four wheel and twin carbie, Fifteen cylinders. Rumbling muffler. Sixteen flags swaying in the breeze. Elvis singing “Hello Hawaii” for the whole suburb to hear.
Of course it is. Four wheel drive.
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Is the Drum about to get the chop. Most stories are closed and I wanted to get in some more bigoted gay bashing on one article but it’s closed. And the absurdity of the Forensic science article allowed only one comment before it closed and that was from Lord Funston.
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Yes, I don’t want anybody following me 🙂
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atomou, just in the interest of saving your face, so that you don’t call me ignorant again or even a liar (about my knowledge of the source). I am tabling an email that I sent to my brother, the same day (10 mins difference actually).
Now, he is ‘far left’, has stood for greens, been president of the local perma-culture management thingemejig and written many anti-US articles, amongst political
The H& H that he refers to, are his twin daughters; now back in Australia, after two years overseas.
……………………………………………… I have blanked my email. That’s all. But of course my general blogging email is vectesian@bigpond.com
……………………………………………………..
Yes mostly hyperbole, but there is no doubt some truth in it. H & H were shocked by the poverty they saw in Greece. It came as a big surprise to them in a country they had always imagined as a prosperous European nation. Yet there are many billionaires, property and shipping tycoons and pockets of middle class well-off in Athens. Like many countries, squandering money and resources like there’s no tomorrow, which there well might not be. It’s the way of the world or at least the way things were – the Arab, Israeli, Greek, UK, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Tunisian, Egyptian spring has only just begun. Wait till the cutbacks hit the USA – they all have guns.
I prefer my fantasy world, like:
Did you see that cottage for sale in Niton? Two stories, two bedrooms, garden – asking £50,000. That’ll do me, walking distance to pub, 15 to favourite fishing spot, 2 hours to London. Would only take a second prise lotto win lol!
How’s that garden coming along?
TTFN
From: Julian ******* [mailto:***********@bigpond.com]
Sent: Saturday, 20 August 2011 8:12 PM
To: Julian *******
Subject: Big Fat Greek Gravy Train – An interesting article
An email doing the rounds in The UK. I don’t know how much truth there is… Like so many emails, they probably embellish .
But it’s interesting.
Julian
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His response was reasonable. Yours, simply wasn’t. it was bad mannered.
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The day I’ll ask a willful ignoramus to save my face is the day I’ll ask to be euthanised.
Don’t worry about saving my face, lad. Save your mind by going beyond shitty emails that have no more than venom in their cartridge.
Let’s see:
I have posted a petition about reparations and repayment of a loan Greece has made to Germany.
Then, lo and behold, the lad gets an email out of his box, that contains a litany of bullshit which has been analysed to death, the world over, by experts. Their analyses are all over the net in prominent and important media sites. Economists and sociologists have talked about the problems of Greece and of the rest of the world. You thought it wise to forgo reading them and forming an educated opinion on this issue and to deliver this stupid missile here, pretending that, gee, you’re interested in what is going on in Greece.
What your intelligent mate has done is to give you some of the answers and, more importantly to show you that what is happening to Greece has its origins elsewhere and is part of a thoroughly corrupted WORLD. He had some patience with you, and for that you should be thankful.
Personally, if you had asked me a question, or even many questions, instead of sending me this scavenging attack, I might have bothered to spend some time answering you, even though, whatever answers I’d give you, are widely available -on print, on TV, on radio and certainly on the net. I DO bother with questions and with opinions, even, if I can see some thought being put behind them. I saw nothing but a childish attack in your post and pointed out where it came from (took me all of ten seconds) and what sort of organisation it is.
You decided to take no notice of what I’ve posted and, to insult my intelligence once more, you’ve reposted the initial post, as if I can’t read.
Mate, get off your arse and do some reading. I don’t have to explain every simple thing to every simpleton and, though I’ve never thought of you as one before, I’m bamboozled by this behaviour, so expected from a simpleton.
Please DO get back to me when you’ve done some study of the economics of the world and have formed opinions based on facts. Don’t get back to me on this issue, if all you’re going to do is make unexplored and uninformed and simplistic allegations.
I might be wrong but I have done some study. You might be right but you’re still sitting on your arse with your fingers in your ears and shouting, “Hi-ho, the derry-o, the farmer in the dell!”
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Your garrulous and repetitive insults : Ignoramus & simpleton, are just boring, atomou.
You had every opportunity to reply reasonably, as ‘my brother’ did.
Alternatively you could have directed me to the site and explained that it came from ‘ a site’. I din’t know that (that was obvious)
I think that what you’re displaying is guilt, and it has made you defensive about The Greeks. Even though your are, ostensibly, an Australian.
If you cannot express yourself in writing without multiple derogatory and rude (ad-hominem) attacks on a fellow poster, then that is a pretty poor show, in my view.
Not once have I expressed anything other than good manners toward you.
Yelling at me to study the subject elsewhere, does not serve to mitigate your outrageously discourteous remarks. But I can tell, that you couldn’t care less.
G’day.
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“Alternatively you could have directed me to the site and explained that it came from ‘ a site’. I din’t know that (that was obvious)”
I did, in my very first response. You chose to ignore it!
“I think that what you’re displaying is guilt…”
Oh, Funston off, dickhead!
My insults might be boring to you but they are accurate. I am not for turning!
“Even though your are, ostensibly, an Australian.”
Have you just learnt a new word?
“… a pretty poor show, in my view.”
Now YOU’RE being insulting! I thought the show was excellent.
“Not once have I expressed anything other than good manners toward you.”
This insulting piece of crap you’ve posted for my attention was not my idea of “good manners.” We obviously have different views on this issue. We’ll just have to agree to disagree upon it.
My suggestion for you to go and do some research was made for your own good and BECAUSE I care. Obviously too subtle, even though it was made repeatedly! Very unfortunate that.
Have a nice day -but get out of the fecund ground of bullshit for a while and fill your mind with some facts… for your own good!
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“Oh dear, I was planning to go to Canberra on Monday for the second viewing of Fred Williams’s divine Australian landscape paintings.”
This is what the Moderators let through of my post on the Mikkelsen’s Truckie Convoy story. The rest of my post was clipped off, the part were I was mildly critical of the truckies.I never understand them, why not bin the whole comment, it did not make much sense without the rest…
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Still you made it before they cut off comments. Open one day and closed the same day the new way to go. Ridiculous.
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Looks like there were more bikes supporting the carbon tax than the 200 trucks at the Liberal party organised truck blockade. I noticed to the Parrot, Allen Jones was the guest speaker, Enough said.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-21/us-hikers-jailed-for-8-years/2848634
Not the brightest thing for Iran, to do!
I see a Tsunami coming. Syrian, Egyptian & Libyan style.
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Spy’s for sure
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Last time I recall something like this, America invaded Granada – maybe 25 or 30 years ago. That time it was medical exchange students. And some small matter like the fact that there was a socialist government elected there – uncomfortably close to the American mainland. Could be a slightly larger scale to do this time, though.
Any excuse, as they say.
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Yes and the Americans are broke Mikey
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RE: American invasion.
Of course that is not what I meant.
With Blackberries, Twitter, face-ache, textual apparatus; I meant the general population will sweep away the religious Fanatics. The Iranian populace, would be vividly aware that this case is an absolute sham, and while not ( in itself) a reason for change; just another incident to galvanise them into realising what a bunch of Wallys are running their country.
Their is a young intelligentsia in Iran, who were browbeaten and hoodwinked at the last elections. There is an undercurrent of discontentment. A feeling of being out of step. A yearning for freedom of expression. A freedom that exists in The US… Yes The US, like it or lump it !
Change is gonna come. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48K5Y0421Ig
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I don’t know why I mix up their & there. Eye hand thing, or old age perhaps.
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I’d hate to see them get killed like the Syrians but I guess it will come to that.
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Well, maybe not. Perhaps if they bide their time, they might be able to preform a bloodless coup.
It will be hard though, because The Ayatollahs won’t give up their newly (since 1979) found dictatorship. And they control the armies. They have their special guard (Iv’e forgotten the name) and they are the ones that crack down on everythig. They are controlled by The Mullahs and not the President. Although I notice that the mdget ‘dinner-jacket’, has been trying to speak for himself recently–so moves are afoot. I can see him ending up in the clink.
Personally, I wish that Islam, was given ‘the arse’ all over the world. Not for a few lifetimes anyway, I suppose.
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The Iran-Iraq border. Always wanted to go there for a holiday. How could a couple of young hikers be expected to know that a friendly bunch of people like the Iranian government might take exception to Americans entering their country illegally? Anyway, if they had been spies the American government would have said so. Tourist’s for s’ure.
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Bauer, a freelance journalist, and Ms Shourd, an English teacher, had been living in Damascus, Syria, when Fattal, an environmental and global health advocate, came to visit them. All three are graduates of the University of California at Berkeley.
Yes, they do sound suspicious don’t they?
I walked across the border from England to Wales once, carrying a pair of curtain binoccs. No-one said a thing!
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Dunno about that, VL… if they can draw the USA into another war, which it REALLY can’t afford (not that they could afford the last couple!) they could just about bankrupt the country… It could turn out to be a strategically very sound move (purely from the Iranian viewpoint, that is…)
Of course, if the USA’s economy was in better shape, I’d probably agree with you… unless, of course, the hikers were ‘lefties’, in which case they US govt would probably ignore ’em!
😉
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Well, they’re greenies, I don’t know who they vote for.
The US, doesn’t have to do anything really. It’s not in their backyard. There will be an implosion, is my prediction.
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Hi
atomou, you will probably find this contentious. And may I say, by way of a preface, that I have no idea as to the truth of any of this.
It came my way from an acquaintance in The UK; it’s obviously an email doing the rounds over there. A bit like some of the silly mails that do the rounds here, against everything from Moslems to Politicians.
HOWEVER, because of your heritage, I am interested in your perspective.
The original mail, has photographs…nothing much just local pic of Athens, ect. However the captions have stayed in the text, so it seems out of context, where that happens.
——————————————————————
Even on a stiflingly hot summer’s day, the Athens underground is a pleasure. It is air-conditioned, with plasma screens to entertain passengers relaxing in cool, cavernous departure halls – and the trains even run on time.
There is another bonus for users of this state-of-the-art rapid transport system: it is, in effect, free for the five million people of the Greek capital.
With no barriers to prevent free entry or exit to this impressive tube network, the good citizens of Athens are instead asked to ‘validate’ their tickets at honesty machines before boarding. Few bother.
Cracking up: The Euro is at risk of collapse because of the Greek financial crisis
This is not surprising: fiddling on a Herculean scale — from the owner of the smallest shop to the most powerful figures in business and politics — has become as much a part of Greek life as ouzo and olives.
Indeed, as well as not paying for their metro tickets, the people of Greece barely paid a penny of the underground’s £1.5 billion cost — a ‘sweetener’ from Brussels (and, therefore, the UK taxpayer) to help the country put on an impressive 2004 Olympics free of the city’s notorious traffic jams.
The transport perks are not confined to the customers. Incredibly, the average salary on Greece’s railways is £60,000, which includes cleaners and track workers – treble the earnings of the average private sector employee here.
The over ground rail network is as big a racket as the EU-funded underground. While its annual income is only £80 million from ticket sales, the wage bill is more than £500m a year — prompting one Greek politician to famously remark that it would be cheaper to put all the commuters into private taxis.
‘We have a railroad company which is bankrupt beyond comprehension,’ says Stefans Manos, a former Greek finance minister. ‘And yet, there isn’t a single private company in Greece with that kind of average pay.’
Significantly, since entering Europe as part of an ill-fated dream by politicians of creating a European super-state, the wage bill of the Greek public sector has doubled in a decade. At the same time, perks and fiddles reminiscent of Britain in the union-controlled 1970s have flourished.
Greek farce: Living it up in swanky harbour-side restaurants
Ridiculously, Greek pastry chefs, radio announcers, hairdressers and masseurs in steam baths are among more than 600 professions allowed to retire at 50 (with a state pension of 95 per cent of their last working year’s earnings) — on account of the ‘arduous and perilous’ nature of their work.
This week, it was reported that every family in Britain could face a £14,000 bill to pay for Greece’s self-inflicted financial crisis. Such fears were denied yesterday after Brussels voted a massive new £100bn rescue package which, it insisted, would not need a contribution from Britain.
Even if this is true — and many British MPs have their doubts — we will still have to stump up £1billion to the bailout through the International Monetary Fund.
In return for this loan, European leaders want the Greeks’ free-spending ways to end immediately if the country is to be prevented from ‘infecting’ the world’s financial system. Naturally, the Greek people are not happy about this.
In Constitution Square this week, opposite the parliament, I witnessed thousands gathering to campaign against government cuts designed to save the country from bankruptcy.
After running battles with riot police, who used tear gas to disperse protesters, thousands are still camped out in the square ahead of a vote by Greek politicians next week on whether to accept Europe-imposed austerity measures.
Yet these protesters should direct their anger closer to home — to those Greeks who have for many years done their damndest to deny their country the dues they owe it.
Clash: Protesters continue to riot in Athens
Take a short trip on the metro to the city’s cooler northern suburbs, and you will find an enclave of staggering opulence.
Here, in the suburb of Kifissia, amid clean, tree-lined streets full of designer boutiques and car showrooms selling luxury marques such as Porsche and Ferrari, live some of the richest men and women in the world.
With its streets paved with marble, and dotted with charming parks and cafes, this suburb is home to shipping tycoons such as Spiros Latsis, a billionaire and friend of Prince Charles, as well as countless other wealthy industrialists and politicians.
One of the reasons they are so rich is that rather than paying millions in tax to the Greek state, as they rightfully should, many of these residents are living entirely tax-free.
Along street after street of opulent mansions and villas, surrounded by high walls and with their own pools, most of the millionaires living here are, officially, virtually paupers.
How so? Simple: they are allowed to state their own earnings for tax purposes, figures which are rarely challenged. And rich Greeks take full advantage.
Astonishingly, only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than £90,000 a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in Kifissia.
Yet studies have shown that more than 60,000 Greek homes each have investments worth more than £1m, let alone unknown quantities in overseas banks, prompting one economist to describe Greece as a ‘poor country full of rich people’.
Running battles: The riots are threatening to destabilise the Euro
Manipulating a corrupt tax system, many of the residents simply say that they earn below the basic tax threshold of around £10,000 a year, even though they own boats, second homes on Greek islands and properties overseas.
And, should the taxman rumble this common ruse, it can be dealt with using a ‘fakelaki’ — an envelope stuffed with cash.. There is even a semi-official rate for bribes: passing a false tax return requires a payment of up to 10,000 euros (the average Greek family is reckoned to pay out £2,000 a year in fakelaki.)
Even more incredibly, Greek shipping magnates — the king of kings among the wealthy of Kifissia — are automatically exempt from tax, supposedly on account of the great benefits they bring the country.
Yet the shipyards are empty; once employing 15,000, they now have less than 500 to service the once-mighty Greek shipping lines which, like the rest of the country, are in terminal decline.
With Greek President George Papandreou calling for a crackdown on these tax dodgers — who are believed to cost the economy as much as £40bn a year — he is now resorting to bizarre means to identify the cheats. After issuing warnings last year, government officials say he is set to deploy helicopter snoopers, along with scrutiny of Google Earth satellite pictures, to show who has a swimming pool in the northern suburbs — an indicator, officials say, of the owner’s wealth.
Officially, just over 300 Kifissia residents admitted to having a pool. The true figure is believed to be 20,000. There is even a boom in sales of tarpaulins to cover pools and make them invisible to the aerial tax inspectors.
‘The most popular and effective measure used by owners is to camouflage their pool with a khaki military mesh to make it look like natural undergrowth,’ says Vasilis Logothetis, director of a major swimming pool construction company. ‘That way, neither helicopters nor Google Earth can spot them.’
But faced with the threat of a crackdown, money is now pouring out of the country into overseas tax havens such as Liechtenstein, the Bahamas and Cyprus.
Parliament: It could be all over for Greece, which is effectively bust from relying on EU cash from richer northern European countries
‘Other popular alternatives include setting up offshore companies in Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, or the purchase of real estate abroad,’ says one doctor, who declares an income of less than £90,000 yet earns five times that amount.
There has also been a boom in London property purchases by Athens-based Greeks in an attempt to hide their true worth from their domestic tax authorities.
‘These anti-tax evasion measures by the government force us to resort to even more detailed tax evasion ploys,’ admits Petros Iliopoulos, a civil engineer.
Hotlines have been set up offering rewards for people who inform on tax dodgers. Last month, to show the government is serious, it named and shamed 68 high-earning doctors found guilty of tax evasion.
‘We will spare no effort to collect what is due to the state,’ said Evangelos Venizelos, the new Greek finance minister of the socialist ruling party. ‘We promise to draft and apply a new and honest tax system, one that has been needed for decades, so that taxes are duly paid by those who should pay.’
Yet, already, it is too late. Greece is effectively bust — relying on EU cash from richer northern European countries, but this has been the case ever since the country finally joined the euro in 2001.
Two years earlier, the country was barred from entering because it did not meet the financial criteria.
No matter: the Greeks simply cooked the books. Two years later, having falsely claimed to have met standards relating to manufacturing and industrial production and low inflation, the Greeks were allowed in.
Funds poured into the country from across Europe and the Greeks started spending like there was no tomorrow.
Money flowed into all areas of public life. As a result, for example, the Greek school system is now an over-staffed shambles, employing four times more teachers per pupil than Finland, the country with the highest-rated education system in Europe. ‘But we still have to pay for tutors for our two children,’ says Helena, an Athens mother. ‘The teachers are hopeless — they seem to spend their time off sick.’
Although Brussels has now agreed to provide the next stage of its debt payment programme to safeguard the count ry’s immediate economic future, the Greek media still carries ominous warnings that the military may be forced to step in should the country’s foray into Europe end in ignominy, bankruptcy and rising violence.
For now, the crisis has simply been delayed. With European taxpayers facing the prospect of saving Greece from bankruptcy for the second year in a row, some say even the £100bn on offer will pay off only the interest on the country’s debts — meaning it will be broke again within two years.
Meanwhile, there are doom-laden warnings that the collapse of the Greek economy could be the catalyst for another global recession.
Perhaps if the Greeks themselves had shown more willingness to tighten their belts and pay taxes due to the state, voters across Europe might not now be feeling such anger towards them.
But having strolled the streets of Kifissia, and watched the Greek hordes stream past the honesty boxes on the underground, it does not take a degree in European economics to know when somebody is taking advantage — at our expense.
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Laddie, too much going on here today for me to give YOU a full answer but I shall give the “article” the answer it deserves; and it is this:
I do not respond to articles written in yellow rags whose single preoccupation is evident from this terse list of headlines:
1. Socialists Reverting To They’re 1930s Tactics
2. Glasgow is turned into post-zombie war Philadelphia as Brad Pitt brings his Zombie movie to the Scottish city
3. Migration rockets 45% in just a year mostly thanks to the EU
4. Jobless Somali refugees are put up in lavish £2m, six bedroom house paid for by the taxpayer
5. Migrants need 415,000 new council homes –Ah the ‘enrichment’ of it all.
That’s the Salfardian for you. Notice the dreadful, uneducated spelling in the first headline. It’s an excellent indication of the level of their IQ and diligent approach for accuracy.
Sickening lot of White Supremacist shit!
Do us a favour, will you?
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Personally, I see nothing wrong in being expressive. No matter what the sentiment or persuasion. I realise that you don’t have (or want) to discuss it, but to dismiss it as White Supremacist, is surely bigoted??
Probably the best thing is to put your fingers in your ears; shout La la la–and just ignore it.
Protests from all sides are welcomed in any discussion with me. And a well constructed criticism, that demolishes absurd claims, is especially revered in my mind.
However I ddi preface it, with how I obtained it…..And you know what It’s indicative of how a lot o people feel. Not necessarily high IQ’d of course–but then even the dunces deserve their voices heard.
It won’t affect us anyway. Will it Auto Om ?
regards,
A contumelious bastard 🙂
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The article has been written by someone in the Salfardian.
It appears next to some of the most uninformed, biased, claptrap I’ve ever seen, some of which I’ve listed by headline above. Look at that list and tell me you can’t find a spelling mistake. What does that list tell you about the rag’s political, social and moral leanings?
Who is Andrew Bolt? Why don’t you get off your arse and check him out? He is constantly been discussed in the Oz media.
It is the ignorant who must listen to the informed, not the other way round, though, the ignorant stay ignorant because nothing penetrates their love for ignorance; and THAT’S bigotry!
Once again, I’ll refer you to Plato’s “Simile of the Cave,” in his “Republic,” a seminal piece of work which, together with that of Aristotle has influenced the thinking of almost every thinker in the world. Thinker, that is, not seeker of shadows and noise.
Again, get off your arse and read the damned passage. It won’t kill you. It will enlighten you -and enlightenment is what the simile is all about.
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Salfardian.?
Oh I see a Mancurian , or near abouts? I still don’t see the relevance. Sorry.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Salfordian
Of course Plato & Aristotle influenced the world. They came first didn’t they?
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Oh, for Christ’s sake, lad!
http://the-salfordian.com/the-big-fat-greek-gravy-train-a-special-investigation-into-the-eu-funded-culture-of-greed-tax-evasion-and-scandalous-waste/
Rushing to admit ignorance with such alacrity, as if ignorance were some sort of high virtue is at the very least embarrassing for you. True, it’s your right to do so; to live with it in your own head and in your own cave but when you bring it and parade it with the sort of pride you’ve been exhibiting, it’s highly irritating!
There are facts everywhere on the net. Look for them and inform yourself of facts only. Opinions of the ignorant are dangerous for the world.
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THIS IS WHAT I WROTE: in my introduction. Yesterday
It came my way from an acquaintance in The UK; it’s obviously an email doing the rounds over there. A bit like some of the silly mails that do the rounds here, against everything from Moslems to Politicians. OK
I have never, ever heard of the magazine that you referenced and I am insulted that to justify your ‘avoidance of the topic’…ON about 5 occasions. You have attacked me personally.
It really is quite bewildering. I will put it down to Ouzo consumption.
I googled Salfordian, or salfardisn and came up with references to Salford, a city that T2 probably knows.
I had no need to assume that it was on the web, or indeed in a newspaper/site.
You, on the other hand, have just displayed, a complete disregard for the topic, showing petulance; proclaiming that as you had checked the source, it was beneath you to comment on the content. And further that everyone else is morally challenged, but of course not you. You righteously claim.
You have studiously ignored the content. That is, that Greece fiddled their way into The EU and have basically been swindling The EU. There are a million references to this in every news outlet on the planet. it is mentioned everyday by Australian bankers & economists. Now fair enough–if you do not agree you can say so–‘But’ you didn’t.
You have wasted paragraph after paragraph of absolute, unmitigated, obfuscation. Attacking a newspaper that I never even knew existed.
I’m surmising that you do not know anything about it. That is why, I said below:
“Vectis Lad says:
August 21, 2011 at 6:15 pm
I’ll have to confess to being bamboozled here atomou. I thought that you would reply with a comment about the current Greek Tragedy, but you appear to have gone off on a tangent–so let’s just leave it EH?”
I thought that would be the end of the matter.
Yours sincerely,
Bamboozled.
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There’s no worse venom than the venom spat out by the intellectually and morally challenged -who, when responded to, reply with “you’re a bigot for not listening to me,” when they have no idea of either what the word means or that their fog headed opinions can sow. It is everyone’s duty to get informed, not circulate venomous bullshit.
Sorry, mate, but to this sort of insulting, unintelligent crap I do shut my ears and treat those who utter it with the disdain they deserve.
At least Andrew Bolt can spell his words of insult and derision!
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I can’t see any spelling mistakes. Do I need 3D glasses?
This article is about Greece! And finance!
It seems to echo stories in The British left wing press. Unpalatable, I suppose. Never mind.
BTW, as I have asked before, “Who is Andrew Bolt”? Where can I find him?…I suppose I can just Google?…In fact I will now.
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I’ll have to confess to being bamboozled here atomou. I thought that you would reply with a comment about the current Greek Tragedy, but you appear to have gone off on a tangent–so let’s just leave it EH?
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Very interesting. Topical for me too, having just been asked to fill in the questionnaire, that comes with the Notice to Prospective Juror.
I suppose that I could fill the whole panel, if I used all of the pseudonyms that I have used in Unleashed and The Drum 😉
Lord Funston on Conversations.
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Which jury are you going to be sitting on, VL? Anything interesting?
🙂
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He might not even get picked, asty. They generally have an issue with contumelious bastards. (Sorry, laddie, couldn’t resist that one!)
Potential jurors are placed in a huge room and then called by lot, presented to the court and asked questions by the two lawyers, the responses to which will determine whether said contumelious bastard will be selected. No one knows what case they’ll be called for until they are selected.
Dr Opas, QC wrote a brilliant book on how to corrupt the jury selection back in the 70s, I believe. Don’t have it any more but certainly worth while getting your hands on a copy.
Opas was the one who had defended Ronald Ryan, the last man hanged in Oz. I remember standing outside Pentridge prison with a lot of mates, holding an all-night vigil, hoping that his sentence would be commuted. Alas, Bolte, being the precocious vile neocon he was, turned the screws even more and, if I remember correctly, threw Opas out of the case and so, Ryan was hanged in the morning.
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See reply to Algy…At Dot.
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I posted a brilliant comment on Rowan Dean’s stupid article yesterday. It has not been published. As usual I did not keep a copy. Again, half my comments don’t make it. Bugger.
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They occasionally have some good laughs. Anison Cameron’s email exchange is an absolute scream.
Then there’s the Cadel Evans knocker who opined “Maybe Cadel should have biked through Afghanistan.He was a Mountain biking champ after all.He could have diffused roadside bombs.” Evidently he believes that the Taliban needs some assistance.
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In the topic Same Sex Marriage – Discrimination without Borders (now closed)
Hung One On (12th August 1818hrs) tried to deny:…”trying to make me out as a bigot however I am not.”
Hung, my copy of the Oxford Concise (1962 edition) gives the definition of “bigot” as “One who holds irrespective of reason, & attaches disproportionat weight to, some creed or view.”
Hung, you fit that definition.
My Macquarie defines a bigot as “A person who is intolerantly convinced of the rightness of a particular opinion, creed or practice.”
Hung, you fit that definition, too.
Hung, you cannot deny your bigotry.
You ARE a bigot by the authoritative definition of two of the most respected dictionaries of the English language in the “irrespective of reason”, the “disproportionate weight” and the intolerant conviction you hold.
At this point, you need to decide whether to embrace your bigotry and accept the status or to change your opinion and join the rest of society.
Your choice.
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Hey! Tomo! Nice to see you again… Merv, a pint of Trotters for Tomokatu, please…
The Macquarie definition, since it omits the ‘irrationality’ mentioned in the Oxford Concise, is inadequate as under this definition, anyone who strongly holds ANY view, even rational ones, could fit the bill… But as to whether or not our Hung is a bigot, I can’t say that I’ve noticed… though I haven’t been reading the ‘same sex marriage’ blogs, so I don’t understand the context of your comment.
Anyway, nice to see you back at the pub…
🙂
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Whereas Oxford Dictionaries Online defines a bigot as “a person who is bigoted”, and bigoted as “having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one’s own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others”.
I’ve never liked the Macquarie and this just confirms my (rational and unbigoted) dislike of it. I think they are too proactive in changing the meaning of words. They are hardly disinterested in this respect and I suspect their motives, whether conscious or not.
——————————————————————
In any case, Tomokatu, what you’re hanging Hung One On on is a technicality. The person who accused him of being a bigot was strongly implying that means he is a hateful person, by an unfair attempt at guilt by association with people who oppose interracial marriage. HOO’s reply only meant that he isn’t a hateful person.
To label HOO a bigot by the OED standard would require you to be pretty judgemental. And although he is a bigot by the Macquarie definition, so are most of commenters on that blog, on either side of the issue.
As for “you need to decide whether to embrace your bigotry and accept the status or to change your opinion and join the rest of society”. Well, that’s a fallacy.
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Wow, brilliant Voice, Hi Five 🙂
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Collins says – intolerant re religion, politics and race………. I have three dictionaries and they all have a differing take on the definition. They are all written by people and no-one is perfect.
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Collins says – intolerant of religions, politics and race. I have three dictionaries and they are all differing on the definition. Written by people and no one is perfect.
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Your humble servant, HOO.
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Tomo, I don’t understand why HOO is a bigot and you or I are not -even by Mace’s standard. None of the dictionaries you’ve quoted from say that a mere variance of opinion, make one a bigot. Strong, even adamantly and immovably strong opinion, does not make one a bigot.
Here’s one of HOO’s posts:
12 Aug 2011 6:18:27pm
I feel strongly about it Glenda and I’m standing my ground. Some posters here are trying to make me out as a bigot however I am not. If the majority of Australians accept it then that’s fine its a democracy after all and I will accept the umpires decision.
I’d say this post shows that he’s not a bigot but a man who understands the rules of a democratic society and, even he doesn’t like some of them (does anyone among us like them all?) he is quite accepting of what he calls the “umpire’s decision.”
Pretty simple and obvious confirmation that he’s not a bigot, I reckon.
Further, I absolute abhor pornography. I’m adamantly and immovably opined so. You, however, as many others in the world either love it, are addicted to it, don’t mind it or tolerate it adamantly and immovably so. By my view I think you, like all the religious fundamentalists who love their religion, and their fairy god mothers and fathers, adamantly and immovably, are all doing the world a great deal of harm.
Who’s the bigot?
It’d a bastard of a life if everyone who stands by their opinion adamantly and immovably, was called a bigot. Who’ll do the judging, the Pope? The Ayatollah? The Rabbi? Other… bigots?
Personally, I also hate high heels and dancing with them on the table but I don’t call those who do, bigots.
And Voice, I agree with your assessment of the Mac! I think it’s beginning to creep me out! The good old OD is more than ample for me.
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Nah… the pope’s a bigot ato… in fact he’s probably the biggest bigot in the world, by the Oxford Concise version of the word…
😉
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Exactly what I was saying, asty: The pope, the ayatollah, the rabbi, are all the most vivid paradigms of bigotry. Yet billions of people follow them blindly.
Looking at the latest OED (2nd ed. 1989) it seems that the word is a confluence of “hypocrite’ (“a judge beneath”) “superstition” and “false pretenses” (being an imposter)
It’s first entry (though now marked with a cross, as obsolete) says: a. A hypocritical professor of religion, a hypocrite. b. A superstitious adherent of religion.
Used in this sense by Chauser, in 1598.
In 1661 Cowly described Cromwell as being “a rather well-meaning and deluded bigot than a crafty and malicious Impostor.” (Cromwell, Wks. II 655)
Then we have (1656) : an hypocrite, or one that seems much more holy than he is, also a scrupulous or superstitious fellow.
The next example the OED gives is also telling. It comes in 1741 and said by Watts in his “Improve. Mind, i, Wks. (1813) “A dogmatist in religion is not a long way off from bigot.”
The second and following entries, (no longer marked as obsolete) speak of “A person obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion or ritual” and thereof follows a conjectured etymology of the word, going into possibilities of religious division, with one lot calling itself “Scotts” and the other “Bigots.” (1654) from whence, I’d say came the expression of frustration, uttered by Hickeringhill (Vind. Naked Truth ii. 24) “‘Tis this Bigottism that undoes us”.
Or, the OED goes on, whether it describes the difference between Ostrogoths and Visigoths (the latter being the bigots), followed by interesting et ceteras.
(That’s why I paid $2,000 for the thing! Love it to death!)
Personally, I prefer the first meaning, the one that the OED guys think is obsolete. I shall spread my bigoted meaning of the word “bigot.”
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Aah, you’ve come to it now atomou. I didn’t want to write my interpretation before because often it is at variance with accepted Australian versions. I come across this regularly, with colloquialisms, catch phrase and literal nuances.
I brought the subject up (often brought is used incorrectly), at dinner last eve.
My understanding of bigotry is an attitude of intolerance toward anyone/thing──yet (often) a clandestine compliance/creed or action that is indulged by the very accuser, or pontificater !*
That’s what I like about the right: they proclaim loud and clear what their views are….and hang the consequences. That is not bigotry IMHO.
That is not to say that their are bigots on all sides.
Not the least and most vile of all these bigots, is The Church; raping and committing paedophilia crimes while advocating purity, piety and justness: The height and very epitome of capricious bigotry.
* Goes well with Pontiff he he!
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There is bigots on all sides….I mangled ‘my’ English there!
Well, I guess we all know that….but some refuse to acknowledge it.
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Or, are..
I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead 😉
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“That is not to say that their are bigots on all sides.”
“I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead”
First you have to GET ahead.
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……AND then an Akubra to go on I suppose?
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🙂
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A ‘head’….gerrit?
Can’t stop i’m slagging off Brull. The impostor.
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…or maybe even… a head! 🙂
You’ve obviously haven’t noticed, laddie, that the Left also “proclaim loud and clear what their views are,” but they DO care about the consequences and that’s why you must like the Left more than the Right. You’re quite right, the mere fact that people proclaim their view loudly and clearly, does not make them bigots. We all have views on everything. I doubt any one of us agrees with every view held by anyone else. I daresay, there are varying views in the Vatican, even on the question of whether there is a god or a squashed banana sitting on that etherial throne!
It is very tempting, for me at least, to say that all theists are bigots because they are superstitious, even if they don’t know it; and it is this ingredient of the word -superstition- that I think plays the major role in its meaning.
The other bit, the bit where people demand one action of others but a different one of themselves, should be simply called “hypocrites.” (hypo=under, sur and critis=judge; therefore, a hypocrite is one who judges surreptitiously, underhandedly).
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Yes…..!!
I agree with your definition of hypocrite.
What I am saying, is that MY understanding is there exists some pollination between the two.
I am right, right right 🙂
Don’t argue!!
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I’m off to the Doc…So, C YA .
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Who’s arguing?
It takes a Left AND a Right to make a step -forward or backward… but in the dance of the Zorba it is the Left foot that does all the difficult tricks.
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So, the difference between the Left and the Right is that the Left is tricksier?
OK, OK, I’ll get back into the kitchen.
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Hung One On might be many things like all of us, but bigot he’s not. I don’t have to refer to any dictionaries to know that.I know Hungie from the old Unleashed, from Pigs Arms and the Drum. If anything he’s one of the most harmless posters I have come across, he might be irreverent at times, mostly amusing, but a bigot, never!
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Mostly harmless (Douglas Adams), beautiful, thank you Helvi 🙂
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Nice to see you again here at the P/Arms Tomo. We are all bigots at times ( especially you know who) but Hungi is more like an ingot of zinc alume. (18carats and rising in value almost daily.)
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lol:)
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Hey Tomo, Haven’t heard the cricket scores have ya?
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How’s Alistair Cook Travelling. HOO?
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Glad to see him getting good scores, a quality player and actually one of the few in the team that’s actually English.
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While you here, Tomokatu Miowarra, how are the ankles healing ?
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Helvi, they’ll never be what they were. There’s a loss of mobility, particularly on the right one, a loss of strength or security in the tendons that locate things leading to a sense of insecurity and probably future falls, chronic aches and occasional sharper pain.
All in all, decreased mobility and an increased tendency to remain indoors, seated and to put on weight. In short, much as one should expect with the advancing years.
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Gee Tomo and I was just starting to like you. So look, I will lower myself down to your level and reply.
You state ‘My Macquarie defines a bigot as “A person who is intolerantly convinced of the rightness of a particular opinion, creed or practice.”’ Now your post reeks of moral superiority and self righteousness so therefore by your own definition you are also a bigot however I think the term dickhead fits you much better.
The Drum article is advocating for same sex marriage. I don’t agree that same sex partners should be allowed to marry. A marriage, to me, is a union of a man and a woman that generally revolves around family but not always. I am not against gays nor their rights of equal status within the community however on the issue of marriage I hold a different view. Does this make me a bigot for holding a different point of view? Dear oh dear, dangerous territory here. My niece wants to marry her girlfriend. I told her my views and now she will not talk to me even though I have had dinner with her and her girlfriend on many occasions and had a wonderful time. So now who is the bigot is this case?
You say to me “At this point, you need to decide whether to embrace your bigotry and accept the status or to change your opinion and join the rest of society.” So do you speak for the rest of society? Does the majority of society support same sex marriage? If I don’t conform to society does that make me a bigot or just someone with a different point of view? I think you have opened a can of worms with your moralising and you should really be ashamed of yourself to come on this page and make such a wild accusation.
I also hold opinions on other matters but by your definition I had better not go against society otherwise that would be bigotry. So the longer this reply goes I am seeing you as a pretty silly person that can’t rub two neurones together as you only
have one available.
Now be a good boy and shut the door on your way out.
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You should come over to the right. Then you can say what you like, with fearless honesty.
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lol 🙂
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“Now be a good boy and shut the door on your way out.”
Hey Hung, are you the doorman now? You can’t tell the PA’s clients to leave just because they disagree with your views.
I think only the boss-man Emmjay can do that 🙂
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Helvi,
I do not drag your character through the mud if I don’t agree with you.
Tomo is welcome at the pub at any time
Mark
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Hung, I disagree with some people on Pigs Arms very often but I’m very much aware that our clientele is very small, so I try not to scare anyone away, I rather stay away myself.
The Drum is a different matter, one is only a drop in the ocean, so the only worry is to pass the moderators 🙂
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Helvi,
I reckon be yourself. Don’t be afraid. Helvi, I like the way that you don’t set ceilings with people, fantastic. Just say what you feel girl. Go for it!
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I’m suprised VL didn’t have another go at me here.
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Lord Funston acknowledged you in The Tom-tom.
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They can be trained as engineers, cooks, cleaners, drivers, gymnasts, boxers, clerks and…with a frontal lobotomy…bloggers in here!!!
Please…use your loaf!
Lord Funston’s reply about conscription.
In the Ritter titter.
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My contribution:
I blame the pie. Where in London can you buy a decent lamb and apricot pie? I asked this question years ago, but nobody paid attention. Now see what’s happened.
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Jellied eels Voix. that’s’ the go. I came across a shop in Eltham, near Greenwich. It’s alway called Pie & mash shop, because that’s what they do….pies & eels… And the decor is always chequered, black & white tiles.
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I think that I took a foto. I’ll have a look tomorrow.
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Please, don’t trouble yourself on my account.
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Shop, yes. Jellied eels, don’t trouble yourself.
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A foto of the shop, you wombat 🙂
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The post got up, but only one lobotomy so far. And he was a reasonable person.
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That wasn’t fair: the drum terminated the discussion, denying Blob Bellies a reply to Bob, in their back and forth. A bloody rude lot if’n you ask me.
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The Drum shut again, looks like I have have to go back to football
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It’s the unions 😉 😉
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Or the onions 🙂
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The bunions?
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The funions?
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What’s the difference between an elephant and an onion?
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You don’t know?
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Funions means ‘the funny (amusing) ones’, and I’d say Hung One On, is one of them 🙂
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The Hungoneions!
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“What’s the difference between an elephant and an onion?”
“You don’t know?”
Of course I do. One’s green and one is grey!!
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ato, you always come back with the ‘bestest’ comebacks, damn you 🙂
We had a Korean student staying with us in Sydney, can’t remember how her name was spelt but she explained to us it sounded almost like ‘onion’.
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So why ask? The real answer is – onions taste better !!
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But the elephant is the better hung… one!
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Noo nooo noo. And BTW, I can’t stop. Just got back from the tip to pick the dogs up..
The thing is….What did Hannibal say when he was going over the mountains ???
Be back in an hour and a half.
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He said….
…
.. Here come the onions.
.
He was colour blind !! Boom boom!
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Sorry Vectis, gerad’s passport joke was funnier.
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Definitely some hanky panky at The Drum!!!
Two of my replies to JG Cole have disappeared. Yet his sanctimonious self-adulating posts have stayed.
If’n I didn’t know better, I would say that there is an ABC censor AND an ABC poster who are all in the same office.
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Now one of them is back.
It’s like an amateur conjuring night. There’ll be someone in a fez, with a white rabbit next.
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Nice line – the fez and white rabbit show !
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I do hope it’s Tommy Cooper… he’s funny!
😉
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Speaking of Tommy Cooper, here’s a little sample:
Of course, you know how Tommy Cooper died don’t you Vectis Lad? “Not like that; just like that!”
😉
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And just ’cause I knew you’d all love that one… here’s another one:
🙂
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Couldn’t resist adding this one, either:
Enjoy!
🙂
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I just posted a comment which may not get a guernsey in Simon Smart’s blog about Fred Nile… It’s a pity I didn’t keep a copy of it, because now I think it may not get up… but the bit I really wanted to see in print was the question I asked and then attempted to answer myself: “What kind of person could possibly object to ‘ethics’; the only answer which comes to mind is, ‘someone with none’!”
Who knows, maybe I’ll be lucky… Mr Smart certainly seems more reasonable that Fred, but that would only make a difference if Drum contributors do their own moderating. Still… fingers crossed!
🙂
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Wouldn’cha knowit~! I just checked the Drum again and my post did get up… I’m sure they did it just to make a liar out of me!
(It’s a joke Voice! In fact I deliberately posted at least it’s most salient point here in a deliberate attempt [successfully, I might add!] to invoke Murphy’s Law!)
🙂
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I’ve just read Denis Wright’s latest piece on the problems facing modern journalism… Only published yesterday and already closed for comment, with a grand total of nine comments.
Gord forbid they let amateur writers like us comment on what’s wrong with professional journalism.
Seems to me the Drum is way past its use-by date; it no longer serves any useful function whatsoever, as far as I can see… Time to consign it to history’s wastebasket, I think!
😉
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The moderators are on strike, over at The Drum. Every story is closed. Some aftyer a few minutes. Maybe they’ve run out of money….eeeek.
More tax.
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Nah! It’s not money they’ve run out of, VL… it’s ideas! Perhaps they’re even starting to get bored themselves with repeating the same arguments over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum… But they daren’t give new writers, with new ideas, the gig, ’cause they’re terrified they might all be raving lefties!
😉
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Actually, this might also explain their hurry to close posts for comment so quickly now… they’ve discovered that, unlike ‘righties’, lefties don’t respond to the articles immediately with a ‘knee-jerk’ response, but prefer, like Vivienne and yours truly, to think about them for a day or two before commenting… and they’ve decided to take advantage of that fact.
😉
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Mate, you’re impugning the Drum people with some kind of organised approach to anything. Are you having a minor fit ?
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Agree Emmjay
I think that they are chronically short staffed and are fathomably overwhelmed. They need to draft in some genes from The Auswalian to stop all of the interbreeding.
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Clinton, I don’t know if you’ve read the comments I submitted just after your ‘Gone Fishin’ line… (ouch!) but I do hope you’ll forgive me for having mistaken you for being the ‘mysterious culprit’ who ‘disappeared’ my latest draft submission, when in fact, as it turns out, it was our very own editor-in-chief, in transit from a pc to mac and called to work halfway through the process of posting it… I don’t think I’ve actually had the privilege of conversing with you to date, but welcome to the pub…
Merv! A Trotters Ale… ‘Underpants Special brew, I think, for my new friend…
😉
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Call me crazy, T2, but when I look for posts, I look for them under Posts. I never even knew there was anywhere else you COULD look for them. Not that I’m surprised if there is; when I do something infrequently I usually only bother to learn one way that works and I’m lucky to remember that! I have to admit, I’m kind of wondering if that’s what’s happened here i.e. could you have been looking the wrong place? Hey, don’t shoot me if I’m wrong. Because, I doubt that Emmjay would have had to remove it from Posts in order to finally convert to a proper computer after all this time. Still more doubt it would have been deliberately removed. Anyway, no harm done.
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But Voice, at this stage in the production process, it wasn’t a ‘post’; just a ‘draft’… so initially I looked for it under ‘drafts’; then when I suspected Clinton (because of the remarkable coincidence of his comment on my request for the office boy to publish it for me, I first tried to look in the ‘trash’, but there wasn’t a ‘trash’ folder… so finally I thought I’d try looking in ‘posts’, just in case, and the rest… is the rest!
😉
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Oh well, I’m probably wrong. It’s just, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and on this site I see drafts as posts with status draft. I don’t mean that’s my point of view, I mean that’s how I find drafts. I look in Posts, and they are there with status draft. Never knew you could look for them under Drafts. There you go.
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@ T2: Apology accepted.
I did NOT have sex with that woman!!
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Okay, Clinton… no worries mate… now I know who you are, let me just say I (double-underlined; I would have italicised it, but it’s not possible in these ‘comments’ dialogue boxes…) believe you!
😉
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BTW, how was the fishing? Been sooooooo long since I went fishing…
🙂
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Caught a few bottom feeders with a spangled, luminous lure. Ta.
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That’s not a thinly-veiled reference to myself is it, Clinton?
😉
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Nein.
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Oh good… Just checking! So if I were to ask, “Flathead”, you won’t turn round and call me ‘fishface’!
😉
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Not sure if this will see the blessed light of the blessed Drum but let it shine here. I’m thoroughly sick of this scumbag who posts under stolen nics. He has done it to me and to a couple more of us here and now he’s doing it to psyclaw: Utter sleazebag! Prime example of how the minds of the Far Right operate. Like the cowardly scum in Norway who stole a cop’s uniform to do his putrid deed.
http://abc.com.au/unleashed/2813250.html#comments
It’s very unfortunate that the moderators can’t weed out cowardly mongrels like you, who steal other people’s nics.
But we know who the real psyclaw is and what his/her views are; and they are not the sycophantic butt licking views of the neo cons which you espouse.
You’ve done the same with my nic and with that of many others.
Shame on you!
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Done it to me and now to RON the original. Is it puerile as well? So pathetic. Not sure if it is the same person but could be.
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Not all of you are fools. Goodness me, how many of you are fools then? C’mon confide?
by Funston, to Sunny
That’ll never get up. If it does I’ll buy a soda lime ‘n bitters, all round.
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Fabien Medvecky (PhD candidate) has a BA (hons) from the University of Queensland (2006).
Blimey, with a name like that he’s just asking for Funston to have a go.
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Along the lines of Fabian? Fabien is French. Not sure about Medvecky though.
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Maybe Czech? That’s a risky guess though, in case it’s Slovakian.
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Fabian, was an American crooner (pop star), when I was a child. He looked like a character from Dell comics, mags that I use to get from The Yanks in Java.
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Sorry guys, as usual can’t help myself but here’s a reply to Lord Funston over at the Drum
Thanks for the laugh Lord Funston because that’s all your bleat was worth.
Funny hey.
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It’ll never get up 😦
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And another one
Schnappi, too right. Now I heard the other day that Alan Jones was searching for a new house but it had to opposite a park with a public toilet, just sayin.
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Who is Alan Jones?
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And who is Snappy?
You’ve gotta remember, I’m just a Pom, I don’t know any of your pop idols, except for John Farnham & Rolf Harriss
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You know the one who was charged with gross indeceny in the public toilet opposite the West End Central police sleep house in about 1995. I only know the details and which dunny it was because I used to have the odd pint at the pub nearby when I was living in London in the 1980’s. Denied it of course and pulled in a lot of favours to have the charges dropped.
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I’ll have to confess to ignorance of him & his crimes. but with a name like Jones, anything is possible, I suppose. 🙂 🙂 🙂 :-))
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Alan Jones is a local ‘shock-jock’, VL, a shit-stirring, hatemongering, bigoted aresehole with his own radio show and a big mouth. Frankly when I first arrived in this otherwise wonderful land of Oz, I was indeed very shocked that anyone could get away with saying the kinds of things this prick does all day every day… let alone doing it over the radio!
Freedom of speech is one thing, but hatemongering is another…
😐
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Don’t hold back Asty! He hasn’t got any original thoughts and parrots others, hence his nickname “the Parrot”. He was instrumental in the Cronulla race riots stirred up people and incited them to turn up. How he is allowed to be on radio or get away with what he does is beyond me. Must have heaps of pictures of people in compromising positions.
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I told Mr Funston not to be silly. It was meant as a friendly reply 🙂
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Lord Funston is just a caricature of someone. Maybe a cross between Les Patterson and Monckton, with a tincture of self righteousness. He is not quite foul-mouthed, but he is bellicose, overbearing and highly opinionated. Just one of those who knows that he is right. He gets to say anything that he likes, and some of his polemic has found good fodder. he is, I may add reasonably well informed, so be careful if you run foul of him.
That is one of The Drum’s saving graces; in that one can get to throw mud around and have an argument with an unknown adversary. Well it used to be like that. Now it’s, “Hang him from the Mainbrace”……….mid sentence.
But it’s fun ( Funston). There are worse things in life, as we all know only too well.
I’ll keep him going for a while; until I get bored. Then I’ll dredge up another personna.
He/she, won’t be a leftie though. No offence, but I think that your’e all a bit fey 😉
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Now that you mention it, VL, there IS quite a remarkable physical resemblance between Monckton and Les Patterson… Wonder if they’re related?
Fey, hey? In what way, say?
😉
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Well, you can take your pick Asty. A cross between Greg Combet with a handbag; Julia Gillard with a Knife Nose and Wayne swan in a tight knee length skirt, just showing his knobbly knees. Oh and perhaps Noel Coward, with a silk scarf tied arounfd his forehead 😉
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I never knew Noel Coward was a leftie, VL… But you know, another thing that surprised me about Oz when I got here was the discovery that the party which calls itself the Labor party out here is actually just the covert wing of ‘Liberal’ (ie. ‘tory’) party… which latter uses the former to do all its really dirty work, such as the introduction of compulsory fees for uni, ending forever the notion of free university education… Maybe it has something to do with hanging upside down off the arse-end of the world…
😉
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Actually I don’t know Coward’s political ‘bent’. What I meant was effeminate. Because of course he was queer. Alternatively, fey can imply, bizarre, or crazed 🙂
Or, to some it up (sorry to be long winded); slightly touched. That is how I have always used it. An effeminate, vague, nancyish type. You know like Paul Keating (Chinese lover, as I am sure is common knowledge); Bob Brown; Penny Wong; Peter Garrett (odd); Latham (extremely odd–makes Abbooott look normal); Wedgwood Benn & Anurin Bevin (both of whom I admire greatly) :)…John Geilgud..:)
Actually (for the benefit of Vivienne, Warrigal & Algy), I don’t mind those types, they should stick to what they do best……………………… Obviously Garrett is a good musician!
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Of course part of that is nonsense: Wong is more like Attilla.
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VL – I think you have lost touch with reality regarding ‘fey’ which is just vague and whimsical really.
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Nonsense for nonsense.
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Well, NOT ‘just’, Viv. Here are some alternatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fey
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I
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo,
‘Good gracious! how you hop!
Over the fields and the water too,
As if you never would stop!
My life is a bore in this nasty pond,
And I long to go out in the world beyond!
I wish I could hop like you!’
Said the duck to the Kangaroo.
II
‘Please give me a ride on your back!’
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.
‘I would sit quite still, and say nothing but “Quack,”
The whole of the long day through!
And we’d go to the Dee, and the Jelly Bo Lee,
Over the land and over the sea;–
Please take me a ride! O do!’
Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.
III
Said the Kangaroo to the Duck,
‘This requires some little reflection;
Perhaps on the whole it might bring me luck,
And there seems but one objection,
Which is, if you’ll let me speak so bold,
Your feet are unpleasantly wet and cold,
And would probably give me the roo-
Matiz!’ said the Kangaroo.
IV
Said the Duck ,’As I sate on the rocks,
I have thought over that completely,
And I bought four pairs of worsted socks
Which fit my web-feet neatly.
And to keep out the cold I’ve bought a cloak,
And every day a cigar I’ll smoke,
All to follow my own dear true
Love of a Kangaroo!’
V
Said the Kangaroo,’I’m ready!
All in the moonlight pale;
But to balance me well, dear Duck, sit steady!
And quite at the end of my tail!’
So away they went with a hop and a bound,
And they hopped the whole world three times round;
And who so happy, — O who,
As the duck and the Kangaroo?
Edward Lear.
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One would think that the polite thing to do, would be to list the articles that are open for comment,rather than have hundreds of customers punching the keyboard only to find out:
Comments for this story are closed. No new comments can be added.
I suppose lateral thinking is not a prerequisite for running a government business, these days?
Or they could organise a flashing or blinking light over the open articles, and a caricature of a body dangling on a gallows, on the (usually prematurely) truncated and ‘truly’ censored stories
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I honestly don’t know why you bother. I am massively uninterested by the structure and function of the WHOLE ABC.net 😦
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Old soldiers never die. They only fade away. 😉
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Fair enough, VL. I now appreciate that it’s not the cause, but the struggle that counts ! Cheers.
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You might as well start a post-iceberg discussion about the colour of the wallpaper in the Titanic ballroom.
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Can’t get this one up. I’m on my third attempt. Mind you I have been out most of ythe day, so maybe it’ll get up twice 🙂 🙂
Exactly. Good article. It’s what’s been missing from the whole discussion anyway, because the left want control: rules and taxation in the form of purgatory. And the right want freedom of expression; subject to the laws of the land, with any perpetrators of criminal activity, brought to book.
Ethics, are probably what one can get away with at any given time, and certainly this lousy government is no standard bearer in good ethics; rather a permanently callow and perfunctory performer!
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On Berg’s watch.
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Given the speed with which comments are closed, I expect that the entertainment value will be short-lived.
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The latest article to be ‘closed for comment’ is Mungo McCallum’s piece on the issue of ‘Privacy’… Posted yesterday; closed for comment today. Seems like we’re not even allowed to discuss this concept… For what it’s worth, here’s my two-cents’ worth; the comment I would have made, had it been permitted:
“Hmmmm… “privacy”… Seems I’ve heard that word before… What does it mean again?”
😉
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I could tell you what it means – if it wasn’t private.
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Isn’t it where you tart off as, in dad’s army? I mean, start off? I mean, before you become all corporeal?
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Something curious I’ve noticed about McCallum’s article: Yesterday, unless my memory is playing funny tricks on me, I could’ve sworn that it was ‘closed for comment’ with 37 comments on the board… Today, although it’s still ‘closed for comment’ there are 45 comments on the notice board.
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Asty, I noticed that too but I concluded that they had to publish the posts that had been sitting there for awhile before the ‘closed’ sign appeared.
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Pretty much the same conclusion I came to about five minutes after I’d posted that, Helvi… ‘Great minds think alike’!
😉
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Yesterday the Drum published an item about Fred Nile’s objections to the continuation of ethics classes as an alternative to religious instruction classes and the political vote-swapping he is currently attempting in order to prevent it…
Today it already closed for comment, so I wish I’d made my comment yesterday instead of, as is my usual habit, giving articles at least a day or two of thought before I comment on them. (Indeed, nowadays after giving most of the articles posted on the Drum sufficient thought helps me realise the pointlessness of commenting and thus ameliorates the urge to respond…)
However, I’d have liked to respond to this one, with my tongue most firmly in my cheek:
“That’s right Fred…. whatever you do, don’t let schools teach the kids ETHICS!
It may encourage them to make decisions which are contrary to your religion… ethical decisions… and god forbid that ethical decisions ever get to replace those which superstitiously follow religious dogma which has imposed itself on humanity for far too many millenia…”
Of course, Fred’s own objection to ethics is perfectly obvious… and it is fascinating to the anthropologist in me that an opposition between ‘Ethics’ and ‘Religion’ appears to be shaping up in this debate:
The thought occurs to me that this argument in and of itself could (and indeed, should) end up with ‘Religion’ disappearing in a puff of logic, though I realise that religion, as always, is impervious to logic. Still, the debate and its outcome should prove both interesting and informative; already we can see the standard of ethics we may expect to see on the ‘religious’ side of the debate in the speed with which they have evidently managed to limit secular comment on this artlcle… and that, in a public opinion forum… in what is laughingly referred to as a ‘democracy’!
🙂
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Completely missed it. I have been very busy on other matters but when I see something of interest on Unleashed I often leave it a bit like you. Go back and bingo – closed for comments. It is really beginning to give me the s…s
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One day people are going to wake up to the fact that messiahnic religion(s) and democracy are, in fact, diametrically opposed… But I won’t hold my breath…
🙂
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The irony here Asty is that both the Anglican Church and the catholic church are quite comfortable with things as they are currently and do not oppose ethics classes. Fred Nile is isolated here, even most of his own constituancy are opposed to his actions, however, never fear the shooters and fishers party have come to his rescue.
I don’t think the closing for comment had anything to do with the subject though Asty. Over the last few weeks some of the topic put up have had a life of as little as 4 hours before they’re closed. I only post of an evening nowadays but I do view at work to comment of an evening. Half the time the topic is closed before I get a chance to post.
Have a look at some of the earlier comments from last weekend
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That Fred Nile is actually so isolated is both encouraging (in the sense that he has few followers) and discouraging (in the sense that such a crank can have such an influence out of all proportion to his followers as a percentage of the community… and what this reveals about our ‘democracy’)
What you say about other posts also closing very quickly is true, Algae, but I still think it has something to do with a certain sensitivity to responses… I’ve noticed that the ones which close early are always ‘controversial’ subjects which would normally attract a heavy input from ‘progressive’ commenters. What other reason could they possibly have for closing articles for comment, unless someone, somewhere, fears that comment?
🙂
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Asty, I think that the unleashed/drum site has become a joke. They don’t follow there own rules or terms of use. Now putting posts up for a few minutes then closing, well. I’m not a fan of Fred Nile, never have been.
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Agreed Algae, that the Drum has become a joke… what is supposed to be a ‘public opinion’ forum is now turning into a propagandist site for some highly questionable interest groups, though it’s difficult to say which ones exactly… it is evident, however, that they are ultra-right-wing, christian fundamentalist (of the worst sort… FN is a good example) and probably neo-Con too, judging from the articles which close for comment too quickly… The whole idea of closing a ‘public opinion’ blog for comment is ludicrous anyway. I would never have mistaken you for any kind of fan of FN either Algae. Your belief and the manner in which you express them are far more acceptable (and, I sincerely believe, far closer to what JC intended…) but FN is a classic, indeed, an archetypal ‘god-botherer’. I do hope the Queenslanders give him short shrift!
🙂
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