Missing Link – Thursday 24 May

Well, things have been a bit lively on the technology side, so no internal hyperlinks (and no wiki, alas). Nonetheless your faithful Missing Link Editorial team ™ have done their bit to bring you lots of bloggyguido.gif goodness to enjoy.

Kicking off today’s issue is a variety of differing views on Amnesty International’s recent entry into Australian political discource. Tim Dunlop and Jason Soon – in a nice bit of bipartisan agreement – both thought Amnesty shot themsleves in the foot rather badly, while Gandhi (as his wont) accuses Tim of crossing over to the Dark Side (presumably Mr Soon was there already). Pommygranate takes a more long-term view, considering the likely damage to Amnesty’s reputation.

Likewise, Catherine Deveny’s rant against government funding for private schools also showed that – for all that people across the political spectrum are supposedly moving closer together – sometimes the centre does not hold. Harry Clarke got very irritated with her, Darlene Taylor thought her piece was terrific, while Andrew Norton – in his usual polite way – simply took her to bits.

Graphics for this edition courtesy Gianna of She Sells Sanctuary and Guido of Rank and Vile. I do wonder where the latter got his model turd… out of an Ekka Sample Bag perhaps? (Queenslander in-joke).

Today’s Missing Link brought to you by Amanda Rose, Jason Soon and James Farrell, with Helen Dale doing the editing thang… (I suspect Ken Parish may have made a few selections, too, but in the absence of the wiki, I can’t be sure). Helen Dale is also responsible for any and all snarky comments (editorial and otherwise). I came as close as I’m ever likely to come to doing something nasty to a fellow counsel’s wig today. Long story.


News and Politics stuff

David Bath agrees thinks Mr Howard is right about ALP hypocrisy over political advertising: Rudd has no credibility on this issue unless he does something to reign in the state governments. Andrew Bartlett acknowledges that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish public information campaigns from electioneering, but points out that this difficulty hardly applies to legislation that hasn’t been passed, hasn’t been spelt out in detail and doesn’t even have a name.

Is Joe Hockey ugly? That’s pretty subjective but, as Tim Dunlop notes, the same can’t be said for the new employment template from the Hotels, Motels and Accommodation Association. As an antidote to the fantasies of Joe and his cheer squad, Ken Lovell challenges five myths about employers.

Several bloggers have taken up the topic of leadership rumblings. Tim Dunlop guesses that Tuckey’s Hawke comment was just revenge over the wheat marketing decision, but observes that it’s not a good look. Jeremy begs the PM to stay and face the music. David Bath predicts that in any case Costello may have trouble holding Higgins. Bryan at OzPolitics reckons the leadership penny has dropped. Is it time for Peter Costello?

In a nice piece of econoblogging, Peter Martin makes a cogent case for describing the Future Fund as a ‘con’.

Gummo alerts us to a potential big scandal for the government, the Smith-Hyndes-BALCAP Affair.

Mark Bahnisch weighs the issues, and approves (on balance) Labor’s decision not to reintroduce compulsory student unionism, should it win Government.

John Humphreys at the ALS blog kicks off a discussion about the implications of a recent finding that almost half of US soldiers disagreed with Geneva Convention requirements. Diogenes Lamp does a quick demolition of what he regards as some economic fallacies propounded by The Age’s Kenneth Davidson.

The ALS blog also draws attention to a recent Australian Democrats petitition against the proposed ‘Access Card’ in a fine illustration of libertarian right and left consensus.

Legal Eagle shares her thoughts on Julia Gillard’s old law firm incorporating and listing on the stock exchange… say goodbye to the equity partner, perhaps?

Bannerman has an amusing take on discovering that he’s been made a news source… for Crikey!

Life and Other Serious Stuff

As is his wont, Adrien Swords has another long, reflective ideas-packed post, this time on postmodernism, which is hard to summarise but fun to read.

Richard Watts reviews 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to a successful high brow British horror/sf movie.

JF Beck reprises an ongoing argument with Tim Lambert about the perennial RWDB topic of whether DDT was actually banned.

In a post about the growing number of insurgencies, Eric Martin proposes that a better solution than defeating them is to avoid creating them in the first place. Robert Merkel gives low marks to Phillip Adams and Australian Story for stories on an inventor (Max Whisson) that contain no assessment of the invention itself (a windmill that allegedly extracts water from air).

Lauredhel at Hoyden about Town discusses a ‘milk mining’ company called Prolacta, which donates milk to Africa as a PR exercise. A bit of number crunching reveals the true scale of their generosity.

Apropos of recent revisions to Peter Costello’s jogging route, Patrick writes a homage to Parliament House. He doesn’t say whether the building is enhanced by having the world’s biggest Bunsen burner sitting on top of it.

Kieran at the Dead Roo enjoyed Andrew Denton’s documentary on Christians. He asks:

btw, am I the only one who thought that the individual who believed
dead bodies condemned him for failing to talk to them about god, could use a
sedative and some counseling re his obvious PTSD?

No, Kieran, you are not. tigtog blogged on the same topic, but spawned a great discussion about Richard Dawkins instead (in the comments thread). Also on the topic of religion, John Quiggin discussess why more Muslims than Christians put God before country. Still on Dawkins, Audrey of the Bad Apples has some religious reflections inspired by her mother’s recent death:

There’s nothing quite like your mother dying to make you want to march up to the boss in charge and hit him with a big stick and demand to know just what in the fucking fuck gives. Then you might ask some questions of less celestial lawmakers, such as how we can possibly live in a governed society that considers the euthanasia of cancer ridden animals humane yet simulataneously insists upon the obscene practice of forcing a similarly doomed human being to slowly and torturously starve to death because her stomach is so ravaged by cancer nodules that it has lost the ability to function, meaning that even small sips of water are vigourously and painfully rejected along with copious amounts of seemingly endless stomach bile.

tigtog’s Feminism 101 Blog has a new address. If you haven’t seen the blog at all, start here.

The Yarts

Supernaut on a ‘technology based dance project’ called In the Bones of Children.

Matilda’s weekly round up.

Jaycee’s ambivalent thoughts on Big Brother.gianna.gif

Angry Penguin gets … angry about rude theatre-goers.

Join Jess in confessing a soft spot for chick lit.

Comics Down Under on old school British comics.

Via Sauntering Walker blog, a link to this YouTube preview of a documentary Seven Days about the work of mission volunteer Fiona Dixon-Thompson in the village of Mwandi, western Zambia.

‘Russian orphan weepie’ is almost a genre of its own, James Farrell pronounces the latest installment “a masterpiece.”

Bloggy reaction to Mark Davis’ ‘new public intellectuals’ list is ongoing, with a highlight being this thoughtful piece from Rafe Champion.

Troppo Sports Stadium

Five shares her Round 9 AFL tips (she’s now starting to do better than the bookies, too).

Tony the Teacher is getting rather tired of a certain American phrase creeping into Australian sporting commentary.

Scott Wickstein has an excellent wrap-up of the First Test of the England-West Indies series. And he’s pleased to be watching Test Cricket:

Test cricket puts the question to the captains like nothing else- how much are you prepared to risk defeat to gain a victory? It is pretty clear on this showing that after what happened to them in Adelaide, that the answer is ‘not much’.

And just cos I’m a Queenslander, I must draw attantion to Gilmae’s great Origin post-mortem. Go read.

Mad, Bad Sad and Glad

Stephanie Trigg takes a trip down memory lane via her local corner store. ((Highly recommended.~SL)) Glen is getting towards the business end of his thesis – and is clearly using the gym to work out a few frustrations. Still on matters academic, Dr Faustus has a personal take on Google’s decision to ban advertising essays for hire ‘services’.

Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe hosts a lively Australiana-themed blog carnival: From little things big things grow.

Barista has a great essay on CSIRO and GM food – refreshingly free of fear- and scandal- mongering, even if you disagree with his conclusions.

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gilmae
16 years ago

I got two emails, one with the ML contents and one with a link to this page. Just to let you all know – well, Jacques anyway – the email was fine. Specifically, the Content-Type header wasn’t being over ridden, Jacques.

skepticlawyer
16 years ago

Thanks gilmae. I’m hoping that not too many people were tag-affected :)

fatfingers
fatfingers
16 years ago

I don’t know who picked Beck’s post on Lambert as something worthy of Missing Link, but it was a bad call. Their boring spat is hardly something which warrants being promoted to the wider blogosphere.

Am I missing some enlightening angle/interesting point/well-written prose in the post, or was it a mistake? Or some attempt at ideological balance?

Nicholas Gruen
Admin
16 years ago

I heard the Amnesty International lady on (I think) AM this morning – and she was poisonous. She could have made specific comments on David Hicks and the rule of law which I would have fully supported, but went the generalised smear.

It was peurile stuff and sad to see such a worthy organisation with such an unworthy message to sell.

Darlene
16 years ago

I think the Ekka actually does move interstate, so it’s not just Queenslanders who get to enjoy paying ridiculous prices to get in, spending time on awful rides and then buying a ton of sample bags. The Ekka; awful one day terrible the next.

pommygranate
16 years ago

SL

Disappointed that you missed my review of this year’s Turner Prize entrants.

A rare foray into the Yartz for me.

skepticlawyer
16 years ago

I don’t do the arts round-up, PG, that’s Amanda’s bailiwick. With any sort of luck she’s now spotted your efforts!

Amanda
16 years ago

Pommygranate’s blog is not on my Arts feeder list and nor did it come up in my othern searches (chiefly through The Australian Index for post from non-usual suspects). But the reason I missed it is that was posted at 4pm Thursday and I do my Thursday Missing Link early in the morning, thus did not get picked up and by the time Monday rolled around it was buried.

Moral: If you want me to see it consider posting Wednesday afternoon … or feel free to send me an email to make sure.

flopearedmule
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