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 
Can the photo be changed. I am so over the shitting dog. Just a dunny would do.
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OK
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Ta. I’m also thinking the dot (as in just a full stop) could return to the full word Dot.
The Dump used to be Leashed. Perhaps one could get back to something a bit more palatable. It is basically now The Drum (not Unleashed) which maybe could be Ta Dum or perhaps The Tip.
Conversation seems to have stopped here and on the dot. Might there be something which would entice people back. Popping over to Global Mail or Andrew Elder’s writing is very illuminating these days.
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Wow – that was quick. Thank you again. All doggies thank you too.
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I ask you, what good is a ‘public opinion’ blog that won’t even let people comment?
Nick Champion’s latest article on the leadership vacuum and labour’s being in denial seems to me like it might just stimulate some very healthy debate, but it also seems to be such a touchy political subject (ie. if Abbott isn’t our likely next pm then maybe Gillard needn’t fear the polls quite so much… essentially the tone of the article is a critique on the parlous state of modern politics generally) that there’s no ‘your comments’ button… just one of those ‘house rules’ thingos that they put up when they want to control the real public debate by not allowing any debate on their blog. A pity… the more this happens the less certain I am of the truth of this Wonderful Land of Oz’s claim to be a democracy…
Of course, it could be that today’s Sunday and it was only posted yesterday so it’s possible they may open it up for comments on Monday… in which case I shall feel a little, though not very much, relieved… Weird though, inni’… if they’re gonna post articles on the weekend, why not allow debate on the weekend… In fact, why not allow debate on the weekends generally? After all, that’s when most working people are more likely to be able to engage in it… or do ‘we’ not want to hear from them and this is another way of controlling the debate?
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I think it went up late on Friday, probably about one minute before they closed off all comments as usual. Absolutely ridiculous waste of an article. Not the first time. They have put others other very late on a Friday and closed them soon after. Basically I think they have put some complete fuckwit in charge.
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Or someone, probably a fuckwit with some kind of serious psychological disorder and control issues who wants to control debate, however erratically…
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I didn’t get a chance to comment on Ramana’s blog about the abusive nature of the cult of scientology, so I’ll just use this space to congratulate her on her courage and perspicacity. We can only hope it starts an exodus from this oppressive organisation…
😐
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Strange… my comments to articles by Satyajit Das usually get up but this one didn’t: In response to his latest article, entitled, “Something rotten at the heart of high finance…” I simply replied:
“No shit, Sherlock?!”
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I posted some good responses yesterday and others in previous days. None got up. I’m in the black books it seems.
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I asked someone to walk in the shoes of an asylum seeker on one of those asylum seeker articles. It was not published. Later on I saw that Julian Burnside said the thing. I cited that in my second post and more less saying that his article got up but not my post…the put it up…..
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Mainly $300 Nikes, & Gucci.
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I’m sure they can only afford thongs, isn’t it something most people wear in Queensland, where I am, we need warm socks and knee-high boots and raincoats at least today.
Have you writing on a new pseudo on the Drum, I have not seen Feet Slipper around…
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THONGS???????
Bleedin Ell, they pay fifty fucken grand for a boat trip.
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It is not just poor people who get persecuted or fear for their lives.
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That’s quite true Vivienne… however, I do think you’ll have to admit that they do rather tend to cop somewhat more than their fair share… and money can buy a lot of protection the poor don’t have too…
😉
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It’s a pity no-one is allowed to comment on Sophie Love’s blog over at the Dumb… I wanted to congratulate her on her ongoing recovery and her remarkable courage, for it takes a lot of courage to speak out on such an issue as child abuse… More power to you Sophie!
🙂
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Helen and Mark Hughes have an article over on the Dumb with the title, : “Poor education is letting Indigenous children down”
My response was simply, “Only our indigenous children?” but it didn’t get up…
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asty, yet on some other blog Greg Barns was called a loony and Gerard a wanker, I complained, and the posts disappeared…they also allowed some nasties to appear on the Afghanistan women blog…something weird with their moderating lately..
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Only lately, Helvi? I thought it was ‘par for the course’… Seems the Thought Police are alive and well and working for the ABC…
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Helvi, I’m writing to you now out of respect for the friendship that existed between us some time ago.
To be frank, I didn’t think that the explanation I’m about to offer was necessary; I would have thought that you, of all people, would have understood, even if you didn’t agree, you would have understood the reasons for my actions.
Helvi, I adopt the pseudonyms so as to escape, just for a short time, the Catamite Quixote’s squealing to Ellis. It gives me the opportunity to engage.
I know that you know who I am, despite the variety of names.
You comment on it every time!
I even leave clues for goodness sake!
.
So I ask you, please, the next time I come on could you please refrain from airing your suspicions.
I shall leave you with a surprise Helvi.
Of all the people that Quixote has thought me, and persuaded Ellis to guillotine, 4 of them were not me!
4.
Helvi.
4.
That are not me!
What a grubby little man he is!!
3 of those you got wrong as well.
It’s not as easy as you think Helvi.
How do I know?
Two of them are friends of mine, from the reading club!
Anyway, that’s all I had to say.
Pass on my regards to Gerard – I still read his stories.
StaggerLee
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StaggerLee, I only happened to spot this post today…sorry that I have not replied to it but I never scrolled down to discover it… I’ll think about what you have said 🙂
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Just about to post this one over on Emilija Beljic’s ‘human rights’ blog:
“There is an expectation that human rights will be progressively realised with societal progress, yet in comparably the strongest economy in the world, we still do not have a federal human rights charter.”
This expectation will never be met as long as the world’s religions promote sacrificial, and even human-sacrificial cosmologies… Since ‘social process follows cosmological process’ (Emile Durkheim: ‘The Rules of Sociological Method’) the social processes which inevitably result from such cosmologies are themselves diametrically opposed to the very notion of ‘human rights’, since there must always be a means of separating out from the rest of the community those who are to be ‘sacrificed’…
And of course, it is not only necessary for the sacrificial victims to have no voice; they must, for the sake of the efficacy of the ritual, be manipulated in such a manner as to give every appearance of consent to their own sacrifice… (a victim who is hesitant or reluctant to go to the sacrifice is a bad omen, even before its entrails are read…)
To put it in religious terms, what we need is for our ‘old order’ to be ‘rolled up and put away’; we need a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ (ie. a new cosmology).
Unfortunately logic would seem to indicate that religions which sacralized (made sacred) the whole notion of sacrifice in the first place, whether reparatory, redemptive or prophylactic, and which still have far too great a sway over our political spheres, are hardly likely to welcome the necessarily secular, and even atheistic, cosmology which logic would seem to suggest is necessary to solve this problem.
Even though religions created this problem in the first place, they are thus hardly likely ever even to recognize the real nature of the problem (since most of them are also hierarchical and their ‘charity’ serves mostly to maintain people in their poverty and themselves in an elevated social position), let alone be able to provide the kind of help really necessary to lift people out of their present ignorance (innocence?) of ‘human rights’, from a state of dependence on charity to a properly designed and run welfare state.
However this federal human rights framework of which you speak is a vital first step. However, it not only ‘allows us to engage with democracy’; without some recognition of the equality of human beings at the most fundamental level, such human rights will never be realized, regardless of legislation.
… I’m posting it here in case it’s a bit too long… (Asty)
🙂
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Actually, I made a mistake at the end… I meant to say that not only does this human rights framework ‘allow us to engage with democracy’, but without it, democracy is not even possible…
🙂
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Here’s a post that didn’t get up on one of the ‘house prices should be allowed to fall’-type blogs they’ve had over at the Dumb this past week or so: I can’t remember the exact words but the gist of it was that all those ‘homestart’ loans ever did was go straight into the hands of the real estate agenst who used methods like fake bidders at auctions to bump up the prices so they would get what they evidently regarded as ‘their’ money…
Can’t think why it wasn’t published… By handing out money like the ‘homeowner’s grant’ in order to buy votes, prospective housebuyers are effectively conned: Indeed, house buyers lose out twice: not only do they pay inflated prices for their property, but a ‘price bubble’ is blown, which will inevitably continue to inflate until it finally bursts and prices are levelled to real values… all that ‘inflation-created’ wealth will disappear, leaving anyone who was ‘riding the bubble’ dangerously exposed. Of course, I’m sure it was a popular move amongst the real-estate agents…
😉
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Here’s one I’m just about to post over at the Dumb in reply to SM, which may or may not make it past the censors:
What a ridiculous comment! Did you even bother to read the article?
You just don’t get it, do you? The so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has not only failed miserably; it has magnified what was once a very minor problem (the health problems of a relatively small handful of individuals) several orders of magnitude into the colossal social problem it is today.
It’s about time we heard something from the legal fraternity on the effect of ‘drug laws’ on the legal system itself: they corrupt not only the legal system itself but the whole of society, including and especially those in the legal industry… police, lawyers, magistrates and even prison guards all have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo because their livelihoods depend on it.
Health problems – and surely even you must realise that the real nature of the problem of individual drug use IS a health issue! – CANNOT be legislated away; making ill people criminals by legislating against their disease not only doesn’t work, it actually guarantees the spread of the disease.
If this issue concerns you so much why not actually do a bit of research on the subject instead of just giving vent to what are quite apparently pure prejudices in public? All your post does is declare your own ignorance. Or do you have a vested interest in the status quo yourself? Do you perhaps work in one of the above industries? If it is not ignorance which causes such prejudicial twaddle as your post, it is surely malice!
And so is your pretense at caring for ‘innocent family members’: if you really cared for those innocent family members would you not want a system which actually reduced the problem?
The one we have now not only exacerbates the original problem, it adds a myriad of other problems to it, among the worst of which is the corruption of the police and judiciary and the inevitable decline and fall of any country foolish enough to enact such laws; the worst thing of all, is that such a society becomes addicted to the revenue these drug laws generate on both sides of the legal fence and so they become self-perpetuating!
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INTERESTING:
In the comments underneath Satyajit Das’s story, were a couple by R.AMBROSE RAVEN. He/she attacked Germany, in an underhanded way, using derogatory words.
I commented, as did about 10 other posters. They put them up – then pulled them all. Including his/hers 3 or four. I have long suspected that Raven was Mulga, and try as he/she might to engross this alter ego – and essentially endeavour to connive another character – he/she was caught out.
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You are right Lord Funston, I saw Raven ‘s post but did not read it…I don’t think it’s Mulga though…I read yours and others…I hate those very long posts, life is too short to waste on long political ramlings…
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I’ve been reading a few of Raven’s posts lately Helvi… and although it is also written by an erudite individual, I don’t think Raven is Mulga either… the style of writing, though equally educated, is different.
I always thought there was something quite magnificent about Mulga’s rants… I mostly enjoyed them…
🙂
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I enjoyed Mulga’s rants, VL is wrong in thinking that Raven is Mulga….
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I think you’re quite right, Helvi, although I enjoy Raven’s posts too… but they’re different from Mulga’s… they’re not quite so hot-headed; Raven’s reasoning is relatively cool and analytical, which, for all his vast knowledge of historical detail, is not Mulga’s strong suit…
🙂
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You’re both wrong. It is he/she. They pulled him/her off again today, when he/she put his/her anti-German rant up again…after they removed it.
He/she, has about 5 pseuds.
R. Ambrose Raven..really!
His phraseology is identical T2.
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Although I think his/her mind is getting addled.
Have a read of his/her post on Josh Frydenberg’s article. He/she is still completely nutty.
Myname has changed itself to Carisbrook?
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Trap door alert..
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Well, since you insist, Carisbroke, (battery perhaps?) I’ll have a closer look at them, but up til now they’ve always struck me as being stylistically different…
As for ‘nutty’… in this day and age, when it is quite evident that the whole world is insane, the very concept of sanity loses all relevance; we’re all nuts!
🙂
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Wise words from a fellow nutter… 🙂
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I agree with T2. Raven isn’t as Thesaurus bound as Mulga. Plus Mulga was a Jew hater. Raven doesn’t give anything like that away.
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Hi Hung… good to see you haven’t lost the art of stirring… Mulga wasn’t a Jew-hater; a Zionist-hater, perhaps… But there’s definitely less vehemence and vitriol in Raven’s post. Still… haven’t read any of his posts lately so I’ll keep an open mind for next time I do.
Good to see you back, Hung… Mary’s here; she says ‘hello’ and wants to know when you’re coming over for a jam next… Email me…
🙂
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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4015156.html#comments
1460 comments…Wow
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Only post I ever saw to achieve 1460 comments was the one on the catholic world youth day… I think it even got as high as 1462 comments, so the one you’re reporting about is not quite ‘Guinness Book of Records’ material… noteworthy as it is.
🙂
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It’s still open!!!
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I wonder if you got him Jules.
You replied within 45 secs…..Or….the trapdoor??
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Hehehe… went cruising the net for a short while Funston, but I’m back here now… for the time being…
If that post is still open for comment then it may be a record for the Dumb, but it’s not an overall record… that, I am quite sure, must be reserved for our very own ‘dot’, whose numbers we gave up calculating after it reached 10,000 posts in response to the shortest possible article with the shortest possible title, for, as we all know, ‘The Dot’ is simply a single ‘full stop’… a single dot. Now THIS, I think might be GBR material!
🙂
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I know I risk being called a discourager, with this post but I must suggest that asty goes off and read the Symposium and then come back and tell you all (because I won’t be looking) where he sees the word “horse” or any distinction between black and white.
Then he should direct himself to Plato’s dialogue called “Phaedrus” and see if, by the time he gets, say, halfway (around 245-250) he doesn’t come across the very, very, VERY famous analogy that Socrates proffers about the human soul, it being split in two, like two horses yoked on the same chariot. It is this bit to which Mungo was directing his readers.
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AAhh thank you kind (intermittent) sage 😉
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Thanks Ato… nice to see you again. Merv! You’d better give Ato a large shot of ouzo!
It’s true, Ato, that I’m not actually familiar with ‘Phaedrus’ (though I think I did read it many, many years ago), but I knew the one thing you wouldn’t be able to resist was correcting me for making such a bold statement on a subject I know little or nothing about… Gotcha!
To be perfectly frank, I didn’t even read Mungo’s comment, but I did suspect that you were at least ‘keeping an eye’ on the Pigs’ and that you wouldn’t be able to resist responding if I were to be so presumptuous as to speak in your place in such a bold manner… I knew it would draw you back…
However, I shall now do the homework you’ve set for me and probably discover that, of course, you’re quite right… as usual (though not, perhaps, always).
🙂
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An excellent sentiment, T2. And beautifully put.
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Stay Ato – please.
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Yes I agree, stay Ato, please.
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Mungo wrote: n his classic dialogue Phaedrus, the great philosopher Socrates anticipated Sigmund Freud by composing an allegory for human behaviour.
What do you have to say atomou?
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Since atomou apparently won’t answer, perhaps I will do? I think Mungo is actually referring not to ‘Phaedrus’ nor to Socrates, but to a dialogue between the latter and Aristophanes in the ‘Symposium’, in which Aristophanes offers the allegory for human behavior.
But don’t quote me on it; I could be wrong…
🙂
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Yeah?
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Someone,,,,I think wrote that it was Plato?
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I’m off. You take tooooo loooong to reply. I’m gonna, tend my ‘erbs.
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VL, if you want to carry on conversations in real-time, perhaps you should try ‘Instant Messenger’ or ‘ICQ’ or one of the other forms of messenger which allow you to conduct real-time conversations… I used to use ICQ though I no longer do. I do have Windows’ ‘Instant Messenger’ however, though I don’t actually use it…
Just a thought.
🙂
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Don’t need to. With outlook, I can see any email coming in. Even if I ahve 10 different windows open.
I can read the BBC and my email at the same time.
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You see, I have just answered Viv, elsewhere, at the same time as writing to you – and reading five different news -sources.
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Crabb’s article, today.
Budget Smuggler: Bwilliant..gold star.
Of course remember when Rudd trotted out all of the Coalitions ideas once before…Once bitten, twice shy.
One understands that a government bereft of ideas on how to guide a trading nation of 22milion souls, would want to hear the polices of the opposition. That’s quite easily demonstrated, by Swan’s vacant budget; blown it!!
No Abooot & Malcolm will make it hard. There’s still (potentially) 17 months to go.
Get your own ideas ALP!!
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Shouldn’t this be in the joke section?
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Here’s a nice little rant I’m about to post on the ‘Labor party’s abandonment of equity’ blog:
Don’t you realize, Disco, that the two are not only far from mutually exclusive phenomena, but in fact are oh-so-easily interchangeable.
Today’s worker is tomorrow’s dole-bludger; today’s dole-bludger is tomorrow’s worker… and it is this very fact that makes unemployment and the treatment of the unemployed such vital issues for any truly ‘Labor’ government.
So, if you have a job today, count yourself lucky; but don’t count on having that job forever!
Frankly, it seems to me that in any case there is no real ‘Labor’ movement in Australia; just two sets of political puppets who do their neo-Con masters’ bidding… and it also seems to me that whenever those masters want to do something really nasty to the public, they get the Labor party to do it (eg. introducing fees for university and thus ripping the heart out of Labor philosophy) while on those rare occasions when they (the masters) are obliged to be the least bit generous, it will usually be the Libs distributing the largesse… (usually in the form of bait on some sort of hook, so the public can be dragged along with whatever action the government plans regardless of public opinion…)
But the upshot is always the same: the lower classes are constantly squeezed for every erg of output energy the bosses can get out of ’em, and for as little in return as the bosses can possibly get away with paying their workers…
Once upon a time a family could be raised on a single wage; now it takes the work of both parents and the kids have to raise themselves! (And we wonder what’s wrong with our ‘juvenile justice system’ – or even our adult ‘justice system’! Simple: There’s no justice!)
You need to ask yourself, what kind of a world are we building? (Or, indeed, are we in fact not building, but rather destroying the world?)
The shortsighted and shallow self-interest of the ultra-rich (and it is only they who deny the existence of ‘class warfare’, along with the mythical claim that they give us a ‘fair go’… but as I point out in my book ‘Aesthetics of Violence’, it is in the interests of the larger protagonist in an unfair war to deny that a state of warfare exists)
😐
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Dammit… forgot to finish my last sentence (got lost in parentheses!) after the closed parentheses, should have returned to what I started to say, and continued, “… will destroy the world.”
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Keep your parenthesis closed. At all times.
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You missed him VL…That old trap door thingee.
Even though you posted within 3¾ minutes 😉
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Sorry VL… been busy watching ancient movies and comedy videos… I found the two series of ‘Open All Hours’ that I don’t have on Youtube; also rediscovered ‘One Million Years BC’, ‘The Running Man’ and ‘Starship Troopers’ as well as several old ‘Hercules’ movies with Steeve Reeves, along with lots of other goodies…
🙂
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Of course, they didn’t publish it, did they… a bit too radical for the Dumb, I suppose…
🙂
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Hmmm… VL musta fallen through that trapdoor he’s always whinging about… He’ll probably say he was walking his dogs or some such nonsense to explain his absence…
😉
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I’m here!!!
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I’m always monitoring what is said. But you weren’t really addressing me. You were just talking to yourself. Apart from the apology bit.
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Well… that and the bit about the Dumb not publishing my post…
😉
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Go to bed.
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Here a good one on the house; enjoy!
http://biggeekdad.com/2012/02/a-glass-of-red/
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Fascinating…
🙂
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I did not read it, but attempted to post a simple comment in response to the title of the article, “What is the Point of Marriage?”
I simply said, “Good question!” but it didn’t get a guernsey… On the other hand, a brief quip I made as I was glancing through the comments did get up, which was in response to Wendy Arndt’s effusive reference to marriage as a ‘wonderful institution’, and in which I merely quoted Groucho Marx (I miss Groucho from the Dumb, don’t you?) who said, “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?”
(Helvi and Gez, and Emmjay and FM and any other married couples are requested not to take this little quip too seriously; I do realize that for some people marriage is the perfect institution…)
🙂
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Phawn Eacator :
26 Apr 2012 10:09:28am
The sex industry should be strictly licensed, with 24 hr CCTV, monitoring their every move.
OH well, it got up. Much to my surprise.
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It was probably taken ofr a serious suggestion, VL…
🙂
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Good to see that you are awake, T2.
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Awake, yes…
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Because I was going to reply to something that you wrote elsewhere. Then I thought,,,,,what’s the point you won’t know.
I’ll go and find the spot.
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FOUND IT. This is pasted from my email:
astyages commented on Slippery Values.
in response to V.L:
No, the moral is, never become a soldier. It’s part of the military services and you might have to go to a war zone. And if you’re going to hold the office of Speaker, one of the highest in the land – don’t charge the taxpayer for trips that you haven’t taken. People are in […]
He’ll get off though VL… there’s one law for the likes of us ordinary piglets; and another for rich boars like Slipper. Strange isn’t it; there’s something faintly gay and also faintly prophetic in the name ‘Slipper’… 🙂
Reply Comments
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I wondered if you were aware that I have had, “Feet Slipper”, as a pseud, since November? In The Dumb, of course.
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No VL… I have not encountered that pseud yet… I’m far too distracted for blogging much at all these days; it was all I could do to post a short episode of Virgil’s Aeneid on my own blog… and it had been waiting a month… Too much happening at the mo… and not much of it pleasant…
😐
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Oh dear, I hope everything works out. Blogging on TD, takes my mind off things. Unfortunately, – work too 🙂
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Helvi – on the Drum I am Stuffed Olive. I’m Viv or Vivienne or Vivie here at the Pub.
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Viv, I’m sorry, I realised too late, I always notice my mistakes too late, that’s why I’m always doind edits and corrections…
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…there you go…doing…
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It is basically okay – but not again. People might start talking !
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As I said, as Joe Strummer, back in November, his short sighted appointment would end in tears.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-21/slipper-denies-harassment-claims/3964192?WT.svl=news0
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With our poorly internet connections, I have not visited UL much, did the Slipper slip in the shower 🙂 Oh well, none of us are squeaky clean…
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Just click on the ABC link that I provided Helvi.
Surely you can do that without gerard’s help?
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VL, I have read all about Slipper, and found it silly…therefor my comment, Murdoch press digging dirt…I’m a teeny bit tired of Oz news….Gillard is doing something good for our old people….is that reason for all this…
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I don’t think that silly is quite the word tha I would use.
Disgusting comes to mind. And he is now also under investigation ny the Fedral police. Hardly silly at all – considering the post that he holds.
This man is a gruesome cretin. Now wonder the Libs booted him out. He is an odious blot in politics.. And Gillard deserves a raspberry for elevated him. Buuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppppppppppppppppppp!
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The elderly package is approved by both sides of politics and is not related to choosing Slipper as Speaker. A job that he now cannot continue. OBVIOUSLY.
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BTW, Murdoch doesn’t own the ABC. So I don’t understand your comment, or your support for Slipper: a sleazy cheat.
Off to walk the dogs. To save you the embarrassment of defending him again.
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Libs did not boot Slipper out. He went of his own accord. The Libs were thinking about what to do for years as they did not like Mr Slipper. Whatever the truth of the matter it just sounds like a set up. Abbott was good at that – has a known record himself, just legal (think Pauline Hanson).
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He has ‘stood aside’.
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Well… the last item I posted here got posted after all… and Uthman was even kind (or ‘game’) enough to answer one or two of my other posts; we’re almost having a conversation! However, here’s one post I’m quite proud of which Uthman did not respond to:
Cynicure :
18 Apr 2012 9:31:54pm
Uthman, just because one does not believe in the model of the universe which you propose does not mean one is therefore obliged to put forward another, more appropriate proposition.
BTW, which one of the ‘theist’ religions do YOU think is the right one? And why is yours the right one and all the others wrong?
If you want people to believe you all you have to do is provide evidence… it’s much friendlier than just trying to discredit arguments which have far more logic to them. Me? I’m happy to say ‘I don’t know…’ and at least retain the virtue of honesty.
Also, the question ‘why’ is essentially meaningless since individuals will all have their own individual answers to this question anyway… ‘How’ is more appropriate; and science is a more appropriate vehicle of explanation for this question than religion.
You talk of ‘atheist ideology’… now this is something I’ve heard of (but only from believers) but never yet encountered; perhaps you would be good enough to furnish me with some examples of it?
It is unfair to claim that the pronouncements of scientists, whether atheist or otherwise, are merely ‘ideological’; a case of psychological projection, no doubt… since there is no doubt that your own claims are ideological.
It’s also not correct to claim the works of scientists as representations of ‘atheists ideology’, since not all atheists necessarily agree with all scientific theories; moreover scientific theories are ALWAYS open to disproof; all it takes is superior logic…
Furthermore, atheists do not claim sole possession of ‘reason’; we merely observe that religious believers include irrational concepts in their reasoning which devalue it significantly, if not completely…
Shall we put the propositions of religion in the dock now, Uthman? Shall we require that they furnish some evidence, if not proof, before giving them any right to expect us to believe them? But of course, if you could do that, you wouldn’t be writing drivel like the above, now, would you?
🙂
Recently it seems to have been quite fashionable for believers to challenge non-believers to actually do what is already well-known to be impossible and prove the non-existence of god since they assert that this is what atheists claim… In effect they will argue that since atheists cannot prove god doesn’t exist, ipso facto therefore he could exist, and since we’re short of an explanation here and there, god must therefore explain all these gaps (oops! Sorry… I meant ‘lacunae’…) and therefore god does exist!
Really… it’s quite beyond me… just who exactly do they think they’re fooling?
😐
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Search me.
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Sorry VL… I was just in the mood for a good rant… and Uthman’s blog was a great place to do it!
Can’t stop; I’m just off to do an ‘open mike night’ at the Gaslight (which I think used to be the Governor Hindmarsh) Hotel with a coupla mates who are going to accompany me on bass and drums; it should be interesting to say the least, as we’ve never all played together before!
Seizure later! Will let youse all know how it went…
🙂
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Well??? How did it go??
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It went… well…
Seriously though, it was a bit of a disaster at the start: my guitar was out of tune when I went on stage so I had to borrow another muso’s implement… Then, of course, predictably, it was hard to keep in time with a bassist and drummer I’d never played with before… But after a couple of numbers (which I swear were beginning to sound a bit better!) the bass and drummer left the stage and allowed me to do a few songs on my own and, as I’m quite used to playing on my own, these were quite successful and went down quite well… So, it wasn’t too bad after a poor start…
Might go again in a coupla weeks…
🙂
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Here’s a reply I’ve just posted to Uthman Badar’s ‘Atheism on trial’ blog, just in case it doesn’t make it past the censor:
“If people are challenged or made to feel stupid in their beliefs we move into waters where hostility escalates.”
If people feel stupid when their beliefs are challenged, it is simply because they recognize, at some level, the stupidity inherent in said beliefs, but do not wish to admit they were wrong.
There is another alternative to hostility; a method practiced by atheists: When your beliefs are (successfully) challenged (such that you cannot logically defend them) you simply change your beliefs according to the light of whatever new data has successfully challenged your belief.
Or, of course, you could choose to remain stupid.
But I forget… you don’t have a choice really, do you? Isn’t it true that Islam has the death penalty for its heretics and apostates?
Now that there is a damn good reason for never joining such a religion in the first place.
😐
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Couldn’t get this up. I wonder why 😉
So, let’s talk about it?
What do you think about The Taliban’s training camps that gave sanctuary to Al-Qaeda? The one where they trained and learnt how to kill innocent little girls and boys around the world, including Aussies that were killed in 911.
Let’s start there.
WARNING: I am going to list every dead person that the training camps were, either directly, or indirectly responsible for killing. I am going to list every amputee and maimed individual, from every country; all their relatives and all of the buildings that they destroyed, in every country.
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Here’s a hero for you guys. He wants to confiscate any income in excess of 350k Euros…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/06/jean-luc-melenchon-campaign-interview
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He loves poetry, and says, ‘I’m Dangerous’.
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(Swoons) My hero! A very brave chap, I’d say, VL… I wonder how long he’ll live…
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Not long. Unlessen he has a union to live off?
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Of course, he does have a point… what sense does it make letting a handful of citizens get richer than the government of the country? If that happens, who really runs the country… do you call that democracy? And Europe’s just about right for another ‘French Revolution’ since the way in which those who caused the GFC, and who were bailed out from the public purse, are now trying to make the poorer classes, who had least to do with causing the GFC, pay for it, is really just like saying ‘Let them eat cake!’
This kind of hubris is unbearable, so of course, he’s immensely popular… Think I’ll keep an eye on him; he’s likely to prove more interesting than the usual French politician…
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I wonder if any piglet has actually had the Dumb shut down in his/her face before? It just happened to me!
There I was, all prepared to make a comment on Joel Hodge’s latest drivel… something about you can’t know what ‘love’ is unless you’re a christian and accept the reality of human sacrifice as a means to redemption; the existing comments still had their usual ‘reply/alert moderator’ choice and the ‘post your own comment’ button was still there… but when I went to attempt to enter any text into the dialogue box I was told new comments were no longer being accepted.
Acting out of curiosity I then hit the ‘back button’ and then returned once more to the comments section to see that the ‘reply’ and ‘post your own comment’ buttons had gone; the site was now officially closed for comment… Weird huh?
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Yes, more than once. I decided that an incoming post from me must have been the last straw for someone. Poof, gone. They should have a time for closing and it should be the same or all, say 4 pm on a Friday. Not random.
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8.53pm
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So how do you explain ’em slamming the door in my face at 4.00pm, VL?
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It was, of course, on Joel Hodges’ blog… that may well be explanation enough, I suppose!
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I DO wish someone would change the name of this page back to ‘Leashed’… Please? It bothers me!
Anyway, here’s a comment I just posted to Damon Young’s latest effort on the symbolism of Hot Cross buns (an article that’s right up your alley, I think, Gez!) which may or may not get through:
It’s interesting that you should choose to analyze the symbolism of the ‘Hot Crossed Bun’ Damon:
Although it is certainly true that the crosses on these buns are currently taken as representing the crucifixion of Jesus, like much of the symbolism of the Oestre festival, this one, too, has been appropriated (indeed this festival has been more-or-less appropriated wholus bolus) by christianity) but in fact may very well refer to the pre-christian, Celtic symbol: a cross (most notably within a circle (beautifully represented by the bun!) the symbolism of which had more to do with the turning of the year and the passing of the seasons (indeed, even of the division of the year into seasons…) than about any christian notions of some kind of post-mortem ‘redemption’ for their inbuilt guilt complex.
And this is in keeping with the other typically ‘fertility-rite’ symbolism associated with Oestre, who was the Celtic goddess of fertility, and whose rites were the ‘Rites of Spring’: and incidentally, it was also a celebration of the renewal of growth (seen as the ‘return of life’ to the world after the coldness of winter; the season which symbolized death for the Celts…)
It’s easy to see why the early christians should base their celebrations around this festival, as it picks up on the latter sentiments at least; just as there are similar ancient (I hesitate to use the word ‘pagan’) festivals which have been appropriated by the church for its purposes: Christmas and ‘All Hallows’ being the two most obvious, but also Llamas and Michaelmas.
Previously these were known by other names, such as Dionysia, Saturnalia, Pandaemonium, and Oestre (also known as Beltane).
‘X marks the spot’, they say, and this is most certainly true, since a cross is the very first operation necessary in order to mark out space; which is a necessary first step before it is becomes possible to even conceive of such things as directions and seasons in terms of fixed and regular phenomena rather than as mere random changes with little or no meaning.
The same symbol (a cross) is credited to the mythical first ancestor Fu Xi in the ancient Chinese ‘Book of Changes’, the ‘I Ching’.
It’s actually a pretty universal symbol, though having quite different meanings from those superimposed upon them by christians, even though these latter do seem to have become rather territorial about it… I think it’s time non-christian symbols were reclaimed by their proper owners, don’t you?
Happy Oestre!
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Happy Oestre.
° http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE2Vdcv9Q_o
According to Lennon, the title came from the cover of a gun magazine that producer George Martin showed him: “I think he showed me a cover of a magazine that said ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun.’ It was a gun magazine. I just thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you just shot something.”
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Thanks for that VL… Haven’t heard it in ages…
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