Cut & Paste This

The Australian, Editorial, August 3 2007:

'Compensation payment shows that apologies are cheap'

'Many on the Left of politics, including the Labor Party, have made much of the need to say sorry to Aboriginal people but Mr Trevorrow's case highlights just how cheap and hollow an apology can be...'

'...This sort of hypocrisy is possible because the "Sorry" brigade has never made it clear, even to itself, what we are all meant to be saying sorry for and what it is meant to achieve.'

The Australian, Editorial, Today:

'The Australian has not had a problem with saying sorry to indigenous Australians, but we have always considered it to be a second-order issue compared with the need to improve living standards for indigenous Australians. Saying sorry would have been a sign of good faith but would not, in itself, make things better.'

And who said it would, 'in itself', make things better? As The Oz struggles to drag itself out of the pit of the culture war in the wake of Howard's demise it also struggles with understanding (after a decade) what proponents of saying "sorry" believe it will acheive.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that even the stalwarts of Australian conservatism are at least trying to call a truce in their culture war as they sense the potential for alienation if they continue down the hardline path of the last 11 years.

(Still injured, just couldn't help but comment. Oh, and I sent the above in a letter to the Oz, reakon they'll print it?)

Disabled

I haven't been in action since Monday and won't be for a while yet due to an operation on my right hand. You can imagine how hard it was just to type this!

Bad timing considering recent scandals I know. What a beautiful week it's been.

Bye.

My Earliest Clear And Distinct Memory Meme

Christ this is hard, but Art Vandelay AND Mikey have tagged me so here goes.

I've got to:

1. Describe my earliest memory where the memory is clear, and where "clear" means I can depict at least three details.
2. Give an estimate of my age at the time.
   
3. Tag five other bloggers with this meme.

I think my first memory goes as follows:

I'd been naughty for some reason and he (my Dad) was pissed off. He was chasing me around the pine dinner table, that I remember being positioned almost in the middle of the kitchen, and as he out-manoeuvred me I dived under the table. Each time he reached to grab me I ran to the other side. My Mum and brother must have thought this was hilarious because all they were doing was laughing until he started laughing as well. I still wasn't sure if I was in the clear or not though, I was hopeful.

If I think about it I remember my Dad looking really 70's but I'm not sure if I've attached photos I've seen taken of him back then to the him in my memory. I think I was......about........four????? Maybe???? I mean, could a four year old put up a chase (obviously I'm childless)? Or was he just messing around? I'll have to ask him. It's a tad dramatic but I seriously can't remember anything that, I think, came before then.

I'm tagging Lad Litter, Miss Politics (who has the cutest daughter BTW so maybe she'd know the answer to the above question), John Surname, Hap and....??? (to be decided later).

Memo To Labor, Your Advertising Sucks

If Labor do actually get over the line this coming election it won't be thanks to their election advertising. In short, it's shit. Every time a program is interrupted by that whining housewife complaining about this, that and everything else I cringe and (for some weird reason) hope that whoever else is in the room has tuned out and isn't really paying attention.

Don't get me wrong, I think all election advertisements are shit, but while we all accept this, we can still rate them in order from the shittest to the less shit and the whining women, this year, rates as the shittest by far. She makes me pine for those glory days when Latham would appear on the screen preceding every sentence with "Labor is ready..." (and I found THAT annoying).

When they call her 'Whinging Wendy' they aren't lying. Thinking about it has put me in the awkward position of agreeing with Janet Albrechtsen today:

'The perception, however, is governments are somehow responsible for "mortgage stress" and the so-called housing affordability crisis. But let's face it. The price of continued prosperity is that many people have simply abandoned financial responsibility, racking up debt to buy bigger homes than they can afford, pumping more money into the housing market and driving prices higher.'

'It won't win you votes to say so but notions of financial restraint and thrift have been replaced with a "have it all now" mentality driven by easy access to debt. The Howard Government has only fuelled that mentality. As The Sun-Herald reported on Sunday, the Government's original first home buyers grant of $7000 is being accessed by those buying million-dollar houses. And then, when interest rates rise off the back of a booming economy, those ungrateful sods cry foul.'

When the Saturday Age runs a profile on a "typical" family previously on a combined income of 140,000 now "struggling" after the arrival of kids on just one income of 120,000 you know something is up. I found it particularly hard to sympathise with the fact that they were forced to sell the Porche for a RAV4. During a boom as large as this where most people's troubles are that they have too much I find Whinging Wendy a bit hard to swallow. Give me the dodgy profiles coupled with slamming door noises are dark music any day.

(On a side note Albrechtsen completely contradicts herself when she later attacks Clive Hamilton's criticisms of today's mentality, they're very close to her above comments)

Oops, I Did It Again!

'And we're supposed to show respect to those Maori who treat these gifts (by "gifts" he means European accomplishments, science, philosophy etc...) -- and the descendants of those that brought them--with contempt and hostility. We're supposed to show the remnants of the primitive culture they ought to have been glad to put behind them with some kind of reverence, to pretend that Maori beliefs and social attitudes are somehow worthy of respect.Well, they're not.'

'For Maori shit-stirrers to posture and babble on about "sovereignty" while they prance around in fucking grass skirts with painted faces, all the while accepting welfare payments and going home in their Japanese offroaders to watch Coronation Street on their taxpayer-supplied plasma televisions is laughable.Well, it WOULD be laughable, if so many of us weren't working our asses off to pay the taxes that fund this crap.'

And, on reading how a protester was violently attacked:

'Oh boo-hoo, should have kicked his bloody teeth in as well, it's the only language they understand anyway...'

'...I love it when boots are put to moonbat's asses.'

Do I even need to tell you who said the above? That's right, my favourite anti-racist KG from Crusader Rabbit doing his best to create a "liberal" society. Sorry, I just had to post it.

Gerard Henderson Has Some Nerve

Henderson lambastes those who wrongly predicted a Labor win in 2004:

'This served as a reminder as to what McKew was up to about this time in the election cycle three years ago. In an extraordinary interview on ABC Metropolitan Radio on September 30, 2004, the then ABC presenter declared that the then Labor leader Mark Latham "will make it" as prime minister. She even fantasised that "the inevitability of the Latham ascension" was such that he "might" become prime minister by April 2005, even if he lost the election in October 2004. Really.'

'All it demonstrated was that McKew lacked judgment and engaged in wish fulfilment, at least where Latham was concerned. She was not alone, in ABC circles at least. '

Henderson relays this detail (with obvious relish) while arguing that to wrongly predict something doesn't make one a liar, which is his main argument. But who can help but see the joy with which he points out McKew's folly. It's not the first time. He once got into Matt Price for predicting a Latham win in 2004 also. This has made me consider this exchange:

TONY JONES: George is not going to give us the figures, quite rightly, but what he was suggesting is that the lead on that is actually narrowing, so it's going back towards Labor's way there as well, even on the economy.

GERARD HENDERSON: Well, it might have narrowed but it would have narrowed from a substantial margin for that kind of figure. But we'll see and I don't know, I'm not a prophet unlike Mr Bolt in Melbourne. But it's not good news.

ANDREW BOLT: Hello Gerard, Gerard we know your game, you'll sit on the fence, not say anything. You're paid danger money to predict, and at the end of it all you'll run your little essays every election, pinging those who had the guts to say something, but were wrong. Now come on, you're paid danger money to make a prediction, make one.

GERARD HENDERSON: Andrew, all I... the only... all I know is that all the prophets I know have been foul prophets, all of them. And I don't run down the...

ANDREW BOLT: ...and I'll say 10 seats, I'll say 10 seats how about you?

GERARD HENDERSON: I won't get into that.

TONY JONES: Fair enough. Let's...

ANDREW BOLT: Reserve the right to be smart arse afterwards.

TONY JONES: Let's...

GERARD HENDERSON: No, I was smart before. I think not making predictions is pretty clever actually.

Who the hell does Henderson think he is attacking others for their wrong predictions while refraining from making any himself?

"Me-Tooism" All Round 2

Well, well, it appears that the much hyped "me-tooism" that Rudd's consistently accused of is actually a contagious bug:

'Mr Howard announced there would be a tax rebate for education expenses, beginning with kindergarten through to the end of secondary school, covering fees, excursions, text books, tools and computer equipment.'

Me-too!!!

'The home ownership plans will involve several schemes for boosting savings, The tax-free home saver account, available from next financial year, would allow $1000 tax deductible contributions with all earnings tax free.'

Me-too!!! And let's not forget:

'Mr Howard went through a number of commitments already made: measures to combat climate change, but not at the expense of the coal industry, the proposed constitutional recognition of aboriginal people in the Constitution.'

Me-too, me-too!!! He also added this complete fallacy:

'The Prime Minister praised Peter Costello describing him as the principle architect of the economic achievement.'

"Principle architect"??? Howard's always been fond of revisionism but this is a bit much. Costello had nothing to do with the early economic reforms made by Labor, which most economists agree, were far more instrumental in the current boom, leading Howard to say in 1996:

'I inherited an economy in not bad shape, not bad shape at all.'

Nor has he any responsibility for China's immense growth which has had such an impact here. (He did give us the GST though)

But back to their sudden breakout of "me-tooism".

It leads me to wonder, who will the government copy when Rudd's not around???