Missing Link on Tuesday (Samoan Time)

Not exactly home-grown art, but irresistible. Via Remember the West, original provenance unspecified.

The News and Politics section is full of links on the election. But the Introduction to Missing Link is reknowned for its dignity and fair-mindedness, and not the venue for divisiveness and point-scoring, so there they will stay. So what to put here? It turns out that the only other topic that attracted more than two posts from the surveyed blogs was Al Gore’s Peace Prize. What more uncontroversial and unifying event could you ask for? Well, almost any, it seems. MK can’t think of anything that Al Gore has done for world peace. Bernard Slattery also doesn’t think much Al Gore’s award:

If they handed out Nobel Prizes for sport, Marion Jones would have to be a shoo-in. Arnold Schwarzenegger would romp in the Nobel for acting; and Robert Mugabe would blitz the field in a Nobel for humanitarianism.
That’s how much the Nobel has been devalued in recent times. Not content with giving the once exalted Peace Prize to a terrorist, they’ve cheapened it further by presenting it to a myth-spreader who just last week was found by a judge to have spread significant untruths about the subject which won him the award.

Not so uncontroversial it seems, but at least the consensus appeared solid — that is, until John Quiggin strode forward to offer Gore his hearty congratulations. And when Tim Lambert volunteered to dissect the Washington Post’s version of the ‘Judge Finds Nine Errors’ meme, and collect a few theories about Gore Derangement Syndrome, it collapsed altogether.

Never mind, we tried. Peaceful wishes from Pater Black, Amanda Rose, gilmae and James Farrell.

News and Politics Stuff

November 24 it is. Tim Blair lists some other notable November 24 events.

Will Jacques Chester blog his campaining?

Andrew Landeryou takes a look at the YouTube election thus far.

Remember that scene when Mr Burns claims he is skint only to have a pile of treasure fall from the ceiling?

From (and by?) tigtog.

Tim Dunlop thinks the slogan in the Liberal TV advertisements might backfire:

One of the things people hate about WorkChoices is exactly that, that the logic behind it reduces people to a factor of production, where their economic worth to business is made central by taking away most of the negotiating power from the workers themselves and handing it to their employers.

It’s rare for a government to announce such an ambitious long-term adjustment of taxes without revising the plan later, John Quiggin argues.

Andrew Bartlett predicts that smaller parties and independents will mostly be ignored by the media, who don’t make the effort to look beyond stage managed campaign events for their coverage. He hopes that the internet will help to redress the imbalance this time. Mark Bahnisch makes a heroic attempt to extract clues on support for the Liberals from a by-election that had no Liberal candidate.

Robert Merkel thinks that Labor lives up to its rhetoric on economic growth better than the Liberals.

Howard is a coward, declares Apathetic Sarah, in the light of the conditions the PM has placed on his debate participation. Phil to wants more debates even though in his view it might actually help the PM. Debate or no debate, tigtog just pines for the days when politicians threw good insults.

Gianna leapt at the PM’s invitation to ‘love me or loathe me’, listing three quick ways to achieve the latter. Jeremy is more understanding: realising that Howard’s omission of the Eureka Stockade and Menzies’ attempt to ban the Communist Party from his otherwise perfect history curriculum were honest mistakes.

LP team is promising to ply us with ‘dispathches from ‘key marginals’. The seat of Menzies is not one of them, so it’s fortunate that GrodsCorp was there to interview independent candidate Philip Nitzchke on Youtube, about his hopes to unseat Kevin Andrews.

Life and Other Serious Stuff

John Ray is concerned that Google has become deliberately evil.

James Orzak sees Gattaca in a recent news report.

Up on her Balcony, Helen vents her exasperation at Connex, again spending money on infuriating propaganda instead of improving its hardware and saervice.

Dvid Bath is disturbed by news that Microsoft hopes to create a database of all our health records.
Mercurius at LP argues that while technology is making it ever harder to delete our indiscreet utterances from the public record, this is may be good for our souls:

Courtesy of Tony at AGB.

Those who seek to sanitise their online persona seem to me like latter-day Dorian Grays, furtively hiding their true face in a password-protected attic.

The Yartz

Benjamin Myers finds Al Pacino to be a wonderful Satan in the Milton-mode.

A review of Tao: On the Road and On the Run in Outlaw China.

Scott considers the issue of Australian Idol and that ever lurking shark.

Ben Peek on Radiohead.

tigtog takes a certain Richard Schickel to task for dismissing the Queen’s Tilbury speech in Elizabeth: the Golden Age as a ham-fisted cocoction.

T.S.S

(troppo sports stadium)

Will is distressed by the state of the ICC and international cricket in general.

Guido thinks the Murdoch press has it in for soccer.

Mad, Bad, Sad and Glad

Darlene, simply because the internet needs more goths in dubious shirts holding chickens and snarky remarks about the Australian Greens.

dr. faustus concocts a plan to play dice with reality.