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DEMOCRACY GONE WILD
“This is democracy on December 2, 2005,” writes apocalypse-minded Margo Kingston:
An Australian is hanged. The career of a would-be Prime Minister who made his name breaking union power in the Courts is in ruins. The IR legislation passes the Senate as a fierce and thunderous storm whips through Canberra. Drivers in a long line of white cars outside the Parliament’s Senate Entrance waiting to take the Senators away turn on their lights as rumours fly that the airport is closed. A tree uprooted by the storm falls in a nearby suburb, killing a man.
Right. Let’s work through this ...
* The hanging of Nguyen Tuong Van has nothing to do with Australian democracy, just as the executions in Malaysia of Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers nineteen years ago—when a Labor government was in power—were nothing to do with Australian democracy.
* Peter Costello has blundered spectacularly, but his career is far from ruined.
* A “fierce and thunderous storm” on the east coast also has little to do with the democratic process, and in fact may help drought-ravaged Australia produce one of its largest grain hauls since 1995.
* Weather-related airport closures, or rumours thereof, are not influenced by voter behaviour.
* It is unlikely that any part of the Australian democratic system was involved in the death of a man struck by a falling tree. Well, maybe not; after all, according to Webdiary commenter Damian Lataan:
Howard is a liar whose lies have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
And now he’s killing people with trees! Oddly, Margo neglected to mention Australian democracy’s complicity in the vicious slaying of Popsicle.
UPDATE. Alan Ramsey hits a Margoesque note:
Nguyen Tuong Van went to his death. John Howard went to the cricket. Kim Beazley went to church. Rob Gerard went into exile. A day in the life of politics. Business as usual. The Prime Minister excused his cricket attendance on the basis of his “hosting duties”. Singapore’s hangman could have said the same thing. An embittered friend emailed: “As you often observe, God help us all.”
That paragraph means absolutely nothing.
UPDATE II. Margo explains her ridiculous piece:
The headline quotes Ron Boswell during the IR debate wrap. The first paragraph is a list some things that happened on the day. That’s all.
What’s wrong with chihuahuas dying? Yappy little mutts!
No yappy, John!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 02 at 02:19 PM • permalinkYeah. That storm last night was a doozy. Wronright and Iowahawk job well done. You fine gentlemen should have parked your black helicopters somewhere and called in for a beer. I’m sure you probably had other assignments to fulfil, other catastrophies to inflict, storms to cause and lakes to steal.
Maybe next time.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 12 02 at 03:37 PM • permalinkTim, how can you be so blind? These truly are the final days…
Or, it could be the influence of MoDo.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 02 at 03:50 PM • permalinkPaco, #4: Maybe someone could throw a bucket of water on Elisa Roberts…..?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 02 at 03:58 PM • permalinkHer writing skills evoke those of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, he of the phrase “it was a dark and stormy night…”
On a serious note (someone throw a bucket of water on me) the next year or two will be an interesting time here. The left/ALP are planning to rebound on the back of the IR legislation but for the first time they will encounter a critical mass of opposition that is historically informed and economically literate. Bill Hutt will become a household name in the offensive line that will push Chris Shiel and his team off the ball every time they get into a scrum.
I would say that Margo Kingston is your Maureen Dowd except that Dowd has some talent at writing. Margo is truly a numbingly bad writer. And that is not taking into account her inability to analyse. She can’t reason and she can’t write, and she looks like an Easter Island monolith. What more could one country hope for? She’s the trifecta of bad political commentary.
o/t by about 15 threads:
Hey Dave S! Hey Barrie!
I finally snapped outta my stupor and retorted to Barrie’s vile besmirchment of the libertarian escutcheon, over on the “Column Wears Hat, Rhinestones” thread, but now nobody’s reading it any more! What should I do?Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 02 at 05:57 PM • permalinkIsn’t it suspicious that you never see Margo and MoDo in the same place at the same time? I mean besides the “fact” that they live in different hemispheres, a misleading trifle to the acute and logical mind. Based on their similar nonthinking inabilities, I’ll bet they are the same person. Now you know why Margo had to take all those “vacations”. That was when she was doing her MoDo alter ego.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 02 at 06:02 PM • permalinkShe has the ability to treat the english langage like a 5 yerar old kid with a magnifying glass over an ant hole.
Wisps of smoke spiral upowards as the nouns are singed, agonised squealing fronm the verbs which have been only half fried.
Entertaining but just so wrong.
(This is my entry in the 2005 tourtured analogy competition).Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 02 at 07:30 PM • permalinkHey Dave S! Hey Barrie!
I finally snapped outta my stupor and retorted to Barrie’s vile besmirchment of the libertarian escutcheon, over on the “Column Wears Hat, Rhinestones” thread, but now nobody’s reading it any more! What should I do?‘Tis the tragedy of the rolling threads - sometimes our bon mots will linger for eternity unread in the Blair Archives. One must accept it, sadly.
Omens. What Margo needs is more omens.
Two-headed babies born, statues crying, eagles flying west at dawn. Omens!
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 02 at 09:06 PM • permalinkI know this is somewhat off-topic but in light of quoting stupid things people say I’m hoping that Tim might see fit to have and end-of-the-year “Stupidest Quote of the Year” award.
I know by rights Margo should have a lock on the honor hands down but for my money the stupidest quote of the year (and maybe the decade) has to be from Age editor Andrew Jaspan regarding Douglas Wood:
“The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive.”
O/T but the perth festival in association with various Unis in WA, and sponsering from the lotteries commision is showing that wonderfull movie “Paradise now”.
/gag.spewPosted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 02 at 10:06 PM • permalinkI am truly disturbed by the extremism displayed by Margok and Shit-for-Brains Ramsey in this case, but I guess in a democracy they can get away with it.
On a positive note, I applaud Downer calling Robert Rectum, QC a ‘creep’ and the Libs and Nats in Queensland walking out of Parliament as that flog Beattie tried to undo 90 years of history by having a minute’s silence to a dead criminal.Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2005 12 02 at 10:20 PM • permalink#31 kcom, I think we have a new contender for Stupidest Quote Of The Year: Robert Richter.
“Changi is a place that resonates in the Australian psyche ... we remember Changi for the unspeakable horrors that happened there under Japanese occupation.
“But what happened at Changi this morning is more shameful and worse,” he said.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 02 at 10:29 PM • permalinkUnhappy Ramsey + Unhappy Margo = Ha Ha!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 02 at 10:44 PM • permalinko/t the age is running this piece of loony lefty arty farty fluff - can we get some rwdbs down to st kilda to ridicule the failed university lecturer & designer who dreamed this up?
what the article doesn’t say is which benighted group of taxpayers is footing the bill
Mr Redman says Mr Lansell’s enthusiasm has given him an interest in the planets and astronomy generally, but working on the project has mostly deepened his appreciation for the vulnerability and fragility of our planet. “It’s all about the here and now, this is humanity’s one shot,” he says.
The planets, which will be on metal stands to allow children to look up at them, will be on display between 2pm and 8pm on two consecutive weekends — December 10 and 11 and December 17 and 18.The pair want their art to be available to others to reproduce it. The first example of replicator art on their website is the ingenious marshmallow TV, an invention of Mr Lansell’s. Mr Redman describes it as the “lava lamp of the new millennium”.
Some days more than others, timblair.net feels like an island of sanity in an ocean of barking moonbat madness. This is definitely one of those days.
But ekw #20 - what did the Easter Island monoliths ever do to you to deserve that sort of abuse?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 12 02 at 11:26 PM • permalinkThat Margoyle piece that was the literary equivalent of a Leunig cartoon - nonsensical, inept and sub-adolescent in its directionless & pointless disaffection.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 12 03 at 12:33 AM • permalinkBut wait, there’s more!
Dear Leader Margo has now started emulating Stalin by airbrushing dissidents out of existence.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 03 at 12:36 AM • permalink#20 ekw, I’ll pay that! LOL!
(Oh, and thanks to those who answered my question about RSS. I’m still a bit confused, but not as much. Ta!)Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 12 03 at 12:41 AM • permalinkChihuahuas
Is that like a little tiny Cthulhu that humps your ankle with its tentacles?*
And hey, if Bush can inflict hurricanes on the defenseless blacks of New Orleans, surely John Howard can close one lousy airport.
*or to put it in Lovecraftian prose: “an Achillean embrace at once serpentine anf formless, indescribable in its inchoate complexity that entwined itself in the very roots of my tortured sanity…”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 03 at 12:58 AM • permalinkblogstrop — Shows you how fried I am tonite that I saw “chihuahua” and read “cthulhu”... Iä! Iä!...
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 03 at 02:05 AM • permalink“a little tiny Cthulhu that humps your ankle with its tentacles”
Another item for my Christmas wish list!
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 12 03 at 02:33 AM • permalinkHmmm, Chuthulu, Rove, GWB, missing lakes, what could the connection be…..
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 03 at 02:34 AM • permalinkEP, If you source them in Australia lt me know. I can relive my youth with something like that.
Posted by KevGillett on 2005 12 03 at 04:14 AM • permalink#30 EP - actually I think that’s exactly what happened in a Douglas Admas book; one of the Dirk Gently ‘series’. Oh, maybe not exactly that - I think there was the bit where Thor got pissed-off at the airlines, blew up the airport lounge and turned the check-in lady into a Coke machine. Still, that’s not too far off the mark from your suggestions and from Margo’s summation of events in Canberra.
Seriously - when a senior journalist has to add commentary to explain a heading, and explain the purpose (or not) and context of the text already published: that’s no longer funny, that’s pathetic.
Roberto -Changi is a place the Abc turned into a musical comedy…
Matt Price also commented on the relationship between the storm and Howard’s legislation.
In a separate article he equated the executed Van Nguyen with Saddam Hussein.Whatever Van’s faults in no way could you call him a hands on ,deliberate genocidal torturer war criminal but Price says Howard is a HYPOCRITE for not worrying about Hussein’s possible death sentence.Different case anyway when the defendent is Iraqi and is sentenced by Iraqis or a sentence is carried out by Iraqis.#10 Yeah. That storm last night was a doozy. Wronright and Iowahawk job well done. You fine gentlemen should have parked your black helicopters somewhere and called in for a beer. I’m sure you probably had other assignments to fulfil, other catastrophies to inflict, storms to cause and lakes to steal. Maybe next time.
I’m not drinking a beer anywhere close to Iowahawk. (curls index fingers in a wriggly fashion) All he did was boss me around. “Do that wronwright. No, not like that you featherbrain. Like McEnroe does it”. He refuses to lift a finger to help. Apparently, he’s an “idea man”.
My god, don’t we have enough “idea men” in this
evil cultbenevolent organization? We need men of action. No, make that Men of Action! (—> note to self: apply for copyright on term, sue the shit out of anyone who uses it)(please note that Men of Action includes women of action too. And people that are somewhere in between. We’re evil but we’re sensitively inclusive also)
Posted by wronwright on 2005 12 03 at 10:49 AM • permalinkAction Man? You’ll be hearing from the trademark lawyers, wronwright. Our Dark Master says you’re on your own with that one. After what they put Open Source Media/Pajamas Media/Occupant through…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 03 at 02:07 PM • permalinkRebeccaH — That’s an insult to eldritch molluscs anywhere…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 03 at 03:56 PM • permalinkThat paragraph from Margo is like a scene out of Exorcist II: The Heretic... with the original, really bad ending…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 03 at 05:30 PM • permalinkSpeaking of Cthulhu, remember that stirring challenge:
Cuthulhu for President. Why settle for the lesser evil?
It should come in handy in 2008.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 03 at 06:57 PM • permalinkNo, not Action Man. Men of Action. I might also copyright Neocon of Action.
Maybe just neocon too. Maybe I can get some dough out of the webdiarists and Daily Kossacks when they do they rants against Bush and Cheney.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 12 04 at 05:07 AM • permalinkHey, Stoop. I hope you find this. To understand me at all you need to distinguish between moral libertarians and political ones. The Clintons are a moral libertine subset of libertarianism, except for say the death penalty. Political liberals may be a mixture of each -usually are - while being statist economically [so they’re really confused, like most marxists were.]
Liberal as a political party can mean anything - from very conservative on anything to very statist, to very anti-statist.
HTH ;)
Mr just-making-shit-up-now
Hey, Stoop. I hope you find this. To understand me at all you need to distinguish between moral libertarians and political ones. The Clintons are a moral libertine subset of libertarianism,
No. Wrong. Irrelevant. Nongermane. Ridiculous. The Clintons are NOT small-l libertarians, are not big-L Libertarians, and are not nor have ever been any kind of subset OF libertarians. Never and none, not even by mistake, not even with the stretchiest definitions. The Clintons don’t call themselves libertarians, and NO libertarian has ever called the Clintons libertarians. Explaining libertarianism in terms of the Clintons is ... hm ... it’s like studying Egyptology by setting up a telescope and photographing the rings of Jupiter. That’s a simile, not a metaphor; and they are liberals, not libertarians. Dictionaries, look into them.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 04 at 11:06 PM • permalinkI forgot to add that, logically Christians are simply Muslims with a cuter supernatural mascot.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 05 at 12:42 PM • permalink
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Australian democracy responsible for uprooted trees! Surely Margo doesnt even believe this fiction! Howard responsible for tooth decay and athletes foot, too?