An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
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The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
Here are a few bits and pieces that came to my attention last week.
1. Australia Post could ‘go bust’ without changes to letter delivery rules
Australia Post looks set to lose $6 billion over the next 10 years if it continues to deliver letters on the next day in the cities and within two days in the bush. The volume of letters was down 8.2% in the first half of this financial year.
Some 97% of the mail that’s sent comes from corporations and governments.
I think the idea is to charge $1.00 for a letter and $1.50 if you want it delivered the next day. And lose 900 jobs in the corporation.
It seems that service delivery can only be undertaken if it makes a profit.
2. Productivity Commission on Childcare and Early Childhood Learning report
The report is disappointing, according to Gerardine Neylon of the University of Western Australia. It looked at the methods of payment of subsidies, but ignored issues like the poor pay of childhood workers. The report showed no awareness of the importance of early childhood experience in later life chances, of personal growth and economic productivity etc. Australia’s performance in the sector is crap.
Australian early childhood education and care lags behind its OECD partners due to low financial investment in the sector. The OECD recommends countries spend a minimum of 1% of GDP on early learning. The OECD average is 0.7% and Australia spends 0.45%.
3. Attacking the Census
“Know thyself” said Socrates and a stack of other Greek sages.
The Abbott Government would rather not, says Ben Eltham in pondering why the Abbott government is considering cutting funding to Australia’s census – or even axing it altogether.
If there is a fundamental signature to this government, it is its determination to see Australia and the world through a conservative prism. Where reality doesn’t fit the Abbott government’s predilections, that reality is ignored.
One aspect of this tendency is a puzzling irrationalism. No government in modern Australian history has been more hostile to evidence, science and reason than Tony Abbott’s.
The census is invaluable for demographers, social researchers and anyone interested in public policy. Social analyst David Chalke:
I think it’s nonsense. I think it’s just silly. You cannot run a country without this basic data and I think to contemplate reducing the quality of the census is absurd.
Yes, it costs:
The last census held in 2011 was the nation’s largest logistical peacetime operation requiring 43,000 field staff to deliver 14.2 million forms to 9.8 million households — at a total cost of about $440 million.
I make that about one 10 tenth of one per cent of the Commonwealth budget. Small if you want to know what you are doing with the rest of it.
Labor members of a federal parliamentary committee have acquiesced in the plan to force telecoms providers to store the metadata of all phone and internet users for two years.
The Joint Intelligence and Security Committee has been investigating the Abbott Government’s proposed laws since last year.
It’s recommended some changes to improve oversight and prevent the data from being misused.
As it happens the upper bound of what the scheme might cost is $400 million.
The committee has taken note of journalists’ concerns. They’ve included some safeguards but have come up short in protecting sources.
The McClure report on social security has recommended that the whole social service payments data system be rebuilt. The current system, known as ISIS (Income Security Integrated System), has been described as a “turbo-charged Commodore 64”. For those who came in late the Commodore 64 was one of the early microcomputers of the 1980s which I think had all of 64K of memory.
McClure recommended this to the Howard Government. The Brits tried to do it a few years ago. At current rates the rollout will take 1500 years. A suitable challenge for the man who stopped the boats.
Have “discovered” Twitter. Am seriously addicted. 🙂
Australia Post – Once about half of the Postmaster Generals Office (PMG). The other half of the PMG was telephones. The two services were separated into what we now know as Telstra and Australia Post (AP).
The post office was open on Saturdays and mail was delivered twice daily by men on red bicycles with big leather bags on the front. Dogs hated them. But postal mail was pretty much the only option. Saturday service ceased as did twice daily delivery. Motor cycles replaced bikes. Trunk transport between cities was generally airfreight but parcels were by ship, rail, truck, camel train or whatever. Next day delivery was supposed to happen but in many areas that was an aspirational goal.
Technologies changed significantly; investment in mail sorting and delivery systems kept the letter viable until we developed the internet and email.
Email allowed virtually instant communication. And other services mean you can send money over the ‘net – no need to post cheques or photo’s. You can buy stuff. And all that for free.
But we still need parcel delivery and letter delivery to those many areas where these are the only services available.
It is not surprising that AP is struggling. What can they do? They can’t match the delivery speed, price and convenience of email. Nor can they keep cranking up the prices of letters or shipping – that would drive more clients to electronic solutions.
An option might be to somehow glean a charge for emails – after all public infrastructure makes the internet possible. I’m not happy about that prospect but if we need to provide services to the regions (of course we do) then maybe some email revenue is possible. Would I pay say, $10 per annum for my email address? Yes if the money was properly directed.
One good thing about AP’s problem is that it shifts the idea of privatising AP off the table, at least for now.
I’m sure Ahmed Fahour ( our highest payed public servant at $4,800,000 last year ) will make Aust Post bounce back strongly despite the technological challenges.
Also his generous philanthropic activities within the Muslim community are an inspiration to us all.
Sir J: Would you have made a snide comment about “philanthropic activities in the Christian community” if the well paid head of Australia Post was Christian?”
Do you think your Abbottish snide comment would help or hinder attempts to persuade young Australians not to support groups like IS?
John
I’m not being ” snide ” as you put it.
I’m finally ( trying to ) see the world as someone like Sarah Hanson-Young would.
I would have thought that you, of all people, would endorse that.
But would you have defended a Christian you thought ( mistakenly ) attacked in such a way ?
As for supporters of IS, I think these people have little choice after the trauma of being subjected to the Islamaphobic atmosphere created by the Abbott/murdoch followers.
ISIS are just Peace loving folk forced to defend themselves.
The words of Mohamed have nothing to do with their motivation, nothing at all.
When did Sarah Hanson-Young praise Ahmed Fahour’s philanthropic activities? I must have missed it.
Electricity is back! Telephone is back! Internet is back!
I do feel very sorry for those not as lucky as me.
Hearty thanks and congratulations to the crews out in the field working their guts out to restore services – and condemnation to the board-room bludgers – sack the lot!.
The cyclone itself, fearsome as it was, was only the minor part of the breakdowns. Infrastructure run-down and abysmal planning was the major part.
Natural disasters are a normal part of life in Australia, so just factor them in AND listen to the advice of workers out in the field, they can see on the ground potential problems that are beneath the gaze of the board-room aristocrats, they are the ones who can give early warnings in good weather long before they are forced to risk their lives carrying out repairs under hazardous conditions.
Why on earth did out telecommunications fail as soon as the electricity failed? Yeah, I know, back up systems to power the telecommunications system cost money and reduce profits.
We were better prepared than many – but I was still surprised to find our telecommunications had become mid-level third world standard.
Geoff Henderson @ 2 was right to mention the PMG. If we still had that government monopoly of posts and telecommunications we would now have a world-leading, research-driven, adaptable, efficient and cheap communications instead of the expensive, unreliable dog’s breakfast we have now well into the 21st Century.
PB, good luck with Twitter. I’m determined to stay clear.
Sir J, your attempt to adopt a POV you don’t actually own is tending to come across snide. I’m not happy! I like plain speaking and something called “authenticity”.
Sir J: The IRA was a Christian organization that blew up people from a different Christian sect. Therefore all Christians are violent people who want to blow people up. It got a lot of its support from young catholics who felt that they had been poorly treated by the protestants.
ISIS is a Muslim organization that is busy killing people from other Muslim sects. Therefore all Muslims are violent people who want to kill people. ISIS is getting some of its support from young Muslims that feel they are being poorly treated in the countries where they grew up.
Graham, after the cyclone damage is repaired everything will be new. Like Germany after the war we expect an economic miracle!
Glad to hear normalcy approaches your area. Last serious blow we copped was Yasi. We did not lose power because we are off grid. The telephone repeater failed though because the low solar input was insufficient to sustain operations. The diesel back up worked a treat until it ran out of fuel. The fuel truck could not cross the river. Locals could not access the compound. When the fuel truck finally arrived it could not climb the gentle slope to the tank… there’s a hole in the bucket dear Henry
I worked as a base grade clerk in the Automotive Plant Division of the PMG in Brisbane back in the 1960s when we didn’t even have calculators. It was a fine organisation. Thanks for the history, Geoff. IIRC in our suburb the posties walked. Too hilly for bicycles.
Sadly the older generation are probably over-represented in those who still use snail mail.
Sadly too, I don’t think privatisation is off the agenda at all.
Census:
Wind it back to 10 year intervals? Well there goes 43,000 part time jobs.
I was a collector for the 2011 census. Great fun it was, and there was a sense of purpose readily identified. Doubling the interval between census will present some interesting challenges for the statisticians and denigrate the resolution of the data.
When a government wants to spend billions on equipment designed to kill, $400 million seems cheap to learn about the living.
Went to a talk by Bob Massie organized by 350.org.
The Mission of the NEC is to
The talk ranged over a range of changes that have, or should take place in the US. A key message was that change can be driven from the top, bottom and sides – we don’t need a change of the federal government to achieve things.
Supporting the Bob Massie was a talk by someone from the Felton Valley community, a community near to Toowoomba that sucessfully drove off a proposal to establish a coal mine in their valley. As part of this they run an annual food festival to remind people that land can actually be used to produce food, not just inedible coal. They expect about 15,000 people to visit this years festival.
Audience at the talk was about 500.
Brain
Ok, I gave it a shot. It felt a little uncomfortable but I was totally up front and certainly not a dishonest sock puppet ruse. I would still recommend it to others as a form of perspective perspective.
Glad it’s finished to be Frank 🙂
John
I must have missed when Jerry Adams announced a jihad to install a worldwide caliphate ruled by protestant law.
I’ll ask again, do you openly defend christians you think have been slandered ?
Or jewish or hindi or scientologists ?
Or is it just islamists ?
Also went to an APCSE talk by Rowan Dowland, the General manager development at BankMECU on “What is the purpose of business?”
The talk raised a number of important questions about the purpose of business and its role in building a more sustainable and equitable world. He also challenged the audience to consider the role investors and consumers can play in determining how business responds and adapts to a host of critical social, economic and environmental issues.
Like most APCSE events this talk was another high quality event that ranged over strategies for building a better world.
Jumpy @15: Welcome back to your world.
BTW Jerry Adams was a leader in the Catholic IRA. Conversion was never part of the agenda.
Yep, I have defended all sorts of people when I think they really need defending against prejudice or where I think the prejudice is damaging our society..
John
Thanks, it’s good to be back and, yes, catholic ( me, d’oh!)
I don’t think you see how prejudiced islam is.
Are you claiming insight unavailable to us mere mortals, or did you read it in a Murdoch fish wrapper?
zoot
na, it’s freely available and na the text itself.
Seriously Jumpy, I’d appreciate the benefit of your wisdom.
I have Muslim friends and associates and I have Christian friends and associates. I can discern no difference between the two groups when it comes to prejudice. For the record, they all appear relatively unprejudiced to me.
So how prejudiced is Islam and how is it more prejudiced than Christianity? Just give me some links and I’ll follow them up.
Brian @ 10: Thanks for that wonderful bit of hope. Sadly, this is Australia and very bad corporate habits are rewarded rather than being punished. Still. I hope to be proved wrong this time.
and @ 12: I was always one for government monopolies where they were the most efficient deliverers of services – or potentially so with better management (e.g. PMG for an integrated and adaptable communications system; government railways for very long distance goods and passenger haulage); for government and private oligopolies where they gave the best service (e.g., broadcasting, nationwide and international airlines, schooling, banking, pharmaceuticals); for open slather private business (e.g. retailing, legal and medical practices).
However, with the reality of unrestricted privatization and its consequent destruction of our standard of living and of our sovereignty, I have been forced to change my mind. Privatization is nothing but the theft of public property – usually with the victims of the theft having to pay for it in the long run. Privatization is felony and should be treated as any other felony is treated – with the culprits brought to justice and made to pay very dearly for their crimes.
The only thing open slather in business that should be allowed now is open slather by defrauded and injured customers and by cheated suppliers in seizing the property of those who committed privatization.
It is useful to remember that the renaissance originated in the flowering of the Caliphate. At that time the Islamic world was a leader in science, maths, navigation, literature etc. It was a time when Islamic scholars had the confidence to argue with the scholars of other religions.
The irony is that, while the Islamic extreme claims to be fighting to restore the Caliphate its members fail to understand what the Caliphate was really like. The extreme no longer has the confidence to argue and uses force and terror to silence those who see things differently.
Further to @14, BZE on Bob Massie.
zoot
Just compare the koran ( not to be used as fish wrapper, ever! ) and the new testament.
( both suitable for dunny paper imho )
I’m disappointed Jumpy, I was hoping for something specific.
It’s almost as if you haven’t actually read the Koran and you’re merely parroting the opinion of someone like Alan Jones or Andrew Bolt, neither of whom are renowned for their knowledge of Islam.
zoot
Not cool to imply dishonesty and plagiarism of me dude.
But if that is your want, I have my options.
G’nite.
John D. @ 23. Strange as it may seem for someone like me; I have always been in favour of a restored genuine Caliphate and a united Araby.
Despite a lot of horrible things that were done by and for various Caliphs, there was indeed prosperity and justice and great learning under some Caliphs. I suppose the same could be said for some periods of the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdoms of France and Spain.
The trouble is that in 2015, the only contenders for Caliph are the False Caliph himself, a grubby clone of the drug lords of northern Mexico and the chief of the head-hackers, kiddie-rapers and slave-takers …. or, even worse, one of the descendants of the usurper Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman al Saud, the occupier of Islam’s Holy Places. What a satanic choice! The only genuine contender for the title of Caliph would be the doomed Hashemite King of Jordan, Abdullah II; he is doomed because, so long as he and his family lives, the other two contenders have a credible rival even if he has never said he was interested in claiming the title..
As for a United Araby, thanks to the naïve and foolishly greedy Americans arming Saudi Arabia, their real enemy, to the hilt with the latest and greatest weaponry, that will happen soon enough – but don’t expect too much prosperity, justice or great learning under the brutal rule of the new imperialists.
GB: A new caliphate isn’t going to flower by imposing the past on the present or insisting that it has to have a Caliph. Democracy and the freedom to differ have been key features of the Western flowering.
One small sample of Christian prejudice in action.
Please note, none of my Christian, Muslim or Atheist associates has this level of prejudice (I must only hang out with progressive thinkers, funny about that)
John @29
Plus freeing up trade and property rights equality for the common man.
Funny thing Jumpy is that Aus was much better off in the bad old days before Gough started the free trade push. Unemployment has never got back to the levels we enjoyed when I joined the workforce.
John
Maybe Goughs massive welfare
putschpush had an effect from that time on.Just a theory riffing on the the theory that taxing an activity is a disincentive and subsidising an activity is an incentive.
I imagine it works with employment like every thing else.
Graeme are you leaning here to a policy of appeasement? Or assimilation?
Chamberlain famously tried appeasement. Edmund Barton went for conditional assimilation. Here’s some of Barton:
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an Australian and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an Australian, and nothing but an Australian…
There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an Australian, but something else also, isn’t an Australian at all.
We have room for but one flag, the Australian flag….
We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the Australian people.’
Edmund Barton 1907
Maybe I am old-fashioned but I think there is a lot of good moral stuff in there. if there are elements who truly wish to impose Sharia law in Australia, that is an example of what Barton was trying to exclude. Is that prejudice?
Well asked Geoff,well asked.
( No offence to Graham, who is a good person, wanna make that clear )
Can anybody give an authoritative figure on how many of these people there actually are? The only ones I can think of are Fred Nile and Danny Nalliah (obviously they don’t call it Sharia, but the substance is the same).
Jumpy: Places like Sweden have been top economic performers over a long period of time. Yep, you guessed it, famous for their high taxes. some of it went to producing a healthy, educated workforce. Also keep in mind that spending on welfare and services created the internal customer base that helped grow their economy.
John D. @ 25: There is not a chance in the wide world that liberal progressive thought (which has a long and noble tradition in the Middle East) will ever be allowed to flourish in this century; what started with such great hopes in Tunisia was quickly strangled at birth by all the usual culprits. What will be imposed is a fake caliphate that will have far more in common with Russia under Stalin and Dzerzhinsky or the DPRK under the three Kims than with any Salafist dream of a truly Islamic empire or any wished-for prosperous and progressive Islamic confederation.
Geoff Henderson @ 34: Appeasement – unless you are temporarily trading time for room to manoeuvre – is downright suicidal.
Assimilation is not the terrible evil the Thought Police and other assorted bullies insist we all believe it to be. Assimilation – unless it is imposed with mindless brutality – is essentially a very unequal exchange but an exchange nonetheless. If it is actively encouraged rather than forcefully imposed, it can benefit both sides in the exchange.
Whilst I am sympathetic to Barton’s view in that 1907 quote you gave, I find it too rigid and it does not adequately recognize that the newcomer to Australia may bring with them skills or attitudes or experiences that the native-born may find worthwhile emulating. Whilst I am opposed to the folly of dual nationality too – I have a slightly more accommodating attitude to foreign languages (English in public – whatever language you like in private) and a very accommodating attitude indeed to our own Aboriginal Languages, which are an integral part of what makes us Australians.
Barton’s view is a heck of a lot better than the mindless ratbaggery that is becoming so fashionable: My Country right or wrong! (about which somebody made the wry comment that it was like proclaiming: My Mother drunk or sober!).
We do need to assert ourselves – and that can be done without being nasty or vicious. Just be proud of ourselves and stop grovelling. The whole world admires strength with grace – and despises weakness, crawling and self-abuse.
Just made my 1st twitter error. Along with others, blamed Mike Baird for something he didn’t do. Credibility smashed!
Ah, Twitter is awesome. I do not recommend it. Like LP in the old days you can stay on it all day. Only been on it a week or so and I have over 50 followers.
Seriously, it is seriously addictive. Stay away from it.
You have all been warned.
Thanks Paul – too flat out busy as it is to even consider Twitter. Cheers 🙂
GB: 100 yrs ago the Turkish empire was intact and the world in general very different from it is now. So who knows what the world and Islam will be like in 2115?
My take is that cultures flower when they have the confidence to welcome the ideas of the outside world and argue for their values. This was a feature of the Islamic flowerings in Baghdad, India and Spain. It is also a feature of much of the modern Western world.
When people try to impose the Caliphate, Sharia law or assimilation into Australian culture there is often a combination of arrogance mixed with insecurity behind this. The sort of insecurity that lacks confidence that what we are demanding will stand up to scrutiny and somehow it will be awful if we or our descendants are influenced by others.
John D.@ 41: You are right about arrogance and insecurity – and about confidence too.
Sadly, there is another factor that should be considered too; the sheer delight in violence and destruction; in cruelty and domination for their own sakes and not for military or political gain, even when indulging it such perverse delight actually harms your own cause and leads to your eventual defeat.
This is why some of the Moslem conquests were so abominable; why much of the Crusades was criminal; why the Nazi German and Imperial Japanese savagery got its just punishments.
Much of the arrogance and insecurity and their resultant cruelty and destructiveness can be abolished by ENCOURAGING people to have confidence and pride in their own culture and its values and in their own history, whatever that history may be; to have willingness to assert the virtues of their own way of life. As I said, this can be done without being nasty or vicious.
This is why I despise the do-badders who try to ram their own twisted version of multiculturalism down everyone’s throats and demand that we hate everything “boagan”. Far from enforcing tolerance and imposing understanding, these fanatical do-badders only fracture communal harmony and cause unnecessary hatred.
I am struggling to cope with your strategy here GB. Are you suggesting that to deal with a group that regularly cries death to we infidels, blows people up, does terrible things to women, cuts off heads (and gives them to their kids) I send them a box of chocolates?
I’m good with multiculturalism. Arguably one of the best things ever for Australia. But if folks come here and begin to identify themselves as high risk I’m really happy for them to leave. Am I a “do-badder”? I don’t think so. If I came down your street with a group of my fierce-looking mates, shaking my fist in the air and shouting anti-infidel slogans, are you going to rush out and give me a bunch of flowers?
I know the majority are peace loving good folk.But the apparent acquiescence of those good folk, even if driven by fear, worries me. I can understand the desire for a moderate approach to the issues. But I personally favour a clear and unambiguous option for those who want my head on a platter, and it’s not a box of chocolates.
Abbott kind of fumbled around with that. Did you note the hefty and clearly orchestrated negative response?
I’m amazing myself writing this stuff.
Pop quiz, who said this ?
“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
For bonus points, How many Australians chant these words on a regular basis ?
( Clue, ” Not Christians, Jews, Hindus or, obviously, atheists “)
Opps, should have bolded “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” for theatrical effect.
Jumpy: The atheist communists did the odd bad thing but as far as I know they didn’t think to cut off fingertips.
Jumpy @44&45
I believe it was God, was it not?
I don’t know, but I’m betting it was Allah.
Jumpy, JD & Brian
http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=8&verse=12
Brian @48:
Same fellah. Jews call him Jawheh, Christians call him God and Muslims call him Allah. Sort of an unholy trinity if you think about it.
Geoff Henderson @ 43: My strategy is straightforward enough.
(1) Well-planned diversity can enrich us – but unplanned, uncontrolled and unwelcome diversity has done us great harm.
Therefore, seize back our Immigration system from the crims and shonks who have hijacked it. Renationalize Immigration. Round up all the so-called immigration agents, seize their assets, put them into well-guarded work-camps in the Great Victoria Desert ( also put a sign over the entrance of each work-camp “Work Will Set You Free”); send them some entrepreneurial lawyers and dodgy “asylum seeker advocates” to keep them company too.
Then, bring in planeloads of Assyrian Christians, South Africans (of whatever race), Zimbabweans, Coptic Christians, Yazidi and Alawite Moslems, American abortionists, Bahais, anti-Putin dissidents, Filipinos, citizens of Kiribati and Tuvalu, Japanese “Burakumin” and those of Korean ancestry, Vanu Atuans and anyone else WE care to invite in (regardless of whether they have any bribe-money to swing a visa) so as to help re-build our country and share in its eventual prosperity.
The outbound flights would carry Expellees. Those identified by Profiling as having done us harm or actually intending to harm us – in chains and under strict guard, of course – to be dropped off in bleak places where they can have their very own “wailing and gnashing of teeth”
Nasty? You bet! And not a “box of chocolates” in sight.
Jumpy,
Stannis Baratheon?
Hmm GB not a strategy I had thought of, except the chocolates.
Even if your strategy was viable, I would spend the mountain of cash needed to assist our needy.
Geoff Henderson: The strategy is quite viable though somewhat impolite. The mountain of cash? Don’t you worry about that. It would be “self-funding” – just like the measures used by Ferdinand and Isabella in dealing with the closet Moslems and Jews left over after the expulsions, though with the surplus going to help our needy rather than to build new palaces for the Castillian torturers. See? Easy.
GB: Hockey, Abbott and their rich supporters would be logical candidates for the expellee list. Plenty of money to confiscate and their contribution to Aus has been ?????
John D you know Abbott only gets $507K, way less than some other public servants. The head of Australia Post gets (apparently) $4.7 million. So should he not be on the list?
Congratulations Zoot @ 47 if one believes that nonsense.
But another nonsense in the nonsense chain is angel Gabiel told Uncle Mo.
So the first real entity to say that was Uncle Mo, No winners, I’m sorry.
Uncle Mo was iliterate so his wife, that he married when she was a grade 3er, was apparently the first to write it down. (don’t worry, she was in grade 6 at consummation )
No one ventured a punt at the bonus points, which disappoints, as the answer is ALL muslim, even zoots ” friends and associates “ chant I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” on a regular basis ( some more than others )
And if they say they don’t then that’s taquiya
And that’s cool with Uncle mo.
PB @52
Anyone could say it in series 5 ( exempt Sam Tarly), the waiting is killing me but I refuse to read the books ( it’ll spoil the show )
Jumpy, I’m still waiting for God/Jahweh/Allah/Gabriel/Mo or whoever said it to cast terror into my heart. Will it take much longer? I’ve got things I need to do.
zoot @ 58
Best I can arrange is Barry Cassidy and 2 or 3 other Abbott mockers on Insiders agreeing how Abbott is a laughing stock coz he hasn’t denied saying it.
Fact Check will examine and find CORRECT that claim.
And ABC radio will run with it all next week.
Q and A will have an ” undecided voter ” from the audience ask a question about it. ( token lefty mummy blogger or comedian will receive biggest applause for the show with a witty Abbott joke on that theme )
Thus confirming, again, why Abbott strikes fear in your heart.
But Jumpy, Abbott doesn’t strike fear in my heart.
I’ve just realised (excuse me, I’m a bit slow on the uptake) that Jumpy must have thought I suffer from coulrophobia, although I don’t know what gave him that impression. Rest assured Jumpy old bean, I have no such fears.
Jumpy @ 59: You can’t blame the whole of Menzies’ Mouthpiece (2015 model) for the wafflings of a few quaint Leftie fossils left over from the Last Century. They provide light entertainment and influence nobody much. The listening’s good on ABC Classical FM.
Hey! You lot! Don’t you dare touch Mr Abbott, Mr Morrison, Mr Turnbull, Mr Hockey, Mr Shorten and their bestest friends! They’re already slotted into the brand new Department Of Island Affairs – High Commissioner to Pitcairn Island, Consul-General to Kerguelen, Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Comoros, Cease-Fire Observer-in-Chief on Tristan da Cunha, Senior Agriculture Commissioner on South Georgia. You just leave them alone, do you hear?
Geoff Henderson @ 56: Now that Japan Post Office is buying out the mighty Toll transport empire, maybe they’ll buy the potentially profitable part of the former Post Master General’s Department too and we’ll all get a top-grade postal service again (with all due respect to the front-line Australia Post workers who are keeping the system alive).
Fear? Jumpy? It is anger and revulsion!! ….and embarrassment for our country’s reputation.
BilB
Yes, I’ve noticed an increased angry tone to your comments of late.
It’s not healthy imo.
Try ” In through the nose and out throughout the mouth ” breathing when you watch the AlpBC shows.
Works for me. 🙂
Your own individual health it the most important thing.