The elegant and erudite Gianna is the latest (and second last, I’m told) blogger to be granted refuge by that great blogospherical philanthropist Scott Wickstein. What with Boynton et al, the Ubersportingpundit empire may well be the only part of the blogosphere to achieve something approaching gender and sexuality equity. Scott may need to consider changing the domain name to “Uberbloggingpundit” to reflect his unchallenged status as the ultimate blogging Godfather (although Bailz is without peer on the technological front).
Meanwhile Gummo Trotsky (links bloggered so scroll down to “Alarmed But Not Alert“) has a post suggesting that John Howard’s “reform” the Senate push might be more seriously/sinisterly intended than many (including yours truly) have assumed. I don’t doubt that Howard is running the ideas up the flagpole to see who salutes, but I’d be surprised if he actually held a referendum (the referendum bill would have to get through the Senate or a joint sitting) and even more surprised if it ever succeeded. *NB See comment box for slight correction to this observation.
Bargarz (links bloggered in a slightly different way, so scroll down to “Broinowski’s barrow”) also has a good post on the egregious Alison Broinowski and why her claims about Asian “blowback” from Australia’s participation in the Iraq conflict are misconceived leftie propaganda.
Last but certainly not least, Tim Dunlop has a great article about blogging titled “If you build it they will come – blogging and the new citizenship” on the Evatt Foundation website. Tim’s sunny view of the certainty of a huge audience may have more to do with his own stellar hit rate than the reality for most of us more pedestrian bloggers. That nitpick aside, it’s a great article.
Thanks for the link Ken,
I’ve finally been able to republish my archives (the Blogspot server doesn’t always play nice) and the link is now fixed.
Broinowski’s Barrow link is here.
Sadly, it looks like I will have to republish my archives every day that I add new entries in order for the new ones to be directly linkable.
Ken,
get out of the Territory, get rid of that redneck, come down to Sidanee and take take out the Beautiful Gianna to some trendy restaurant and so blow your life savings. You won’t be able to afford any housing but so what you will have lawve!
lol
DW is strictly a boys club … well, maybe.
Correction on referenda. The referendum bill doesn’t need to go to a joint sitting; it just needs to be twice rejected with a time gap similar to that applying to double dissolution trigger bills. After that the G-G can approve the referendum’s submission to the people. See section 128. So maybe it’s not so completely unlikely after all. Howard could if he so desired put up a referendum bill, have it rejected twice and then hold the actual referendum to coincide with his duble dissolution election.
If that’s what he’s got in mind, it tends to reinforce the view that they’re looking to July-August next year or thereabouts as a DD election date. It would take that long to go through a semblance of public consultation about “reform” proposals and then get the bill rejected twice in the time frame required by section 128.
Homer,
I’m not sure who you’re referring to as a “redneck”, but it’s gratuitously offensive and not even slightly funny. It’s a bit like someone who deliberately farts in a crowded room and thinks it’s a great joke.
As for the Gianna comment, well we middle-aged married has-beens can dream, I suppose. If I had been a customer in the Sydney meat market (instead of a suburban dad), I reckon I probably would have ended up like poor old Joe: needy, desperate and discarded. It’s human nature to imagine further fields are greener. Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not, but invariably the price of getting there is higher than you think. I didn’t actually intend to be quite this honest, but so be it (it’s inspired by Scott Wickstein’s self-revelation on Gianna’s blog).
Who is Joe?
Bailz,
You obviously haven’t been reading Gianna’s blog attentively enough. I’m a sucker for a soap opera too, as long as the characters engage my interest. The ones in Big Brother don’t.
Thanks for the comment, Ken. And thanks to your blog-partner for the offer to write the article in the first place.
Believe me Ken the last thing I want to do is give you offence so I sincerely apologise.
bloggers as the new public intellectuals
Tim Dunlop has an an article on bloggers the new public intellectuals listed at the Evatt Foundation. The article has been noted but not commented on in Australia. A one liner can be found here. I will outline Tim’s argument then move to some quibbles….