A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, James Farrell, Gilmae, Gummo Trotsky, Amanda Rose, Tim Sterne, Stephen Hill and Saint.
Politics
Australian
RWDB JF Beck thinks this Guardian photo is typically misleading greenie propaganda, because it shows steam from cooling towers not CO2 smoke. Only problem with his argument is that water vapour is an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (although it tends to precipitate rather more quickly) |
Mirko Bagaric has a surprise for Treasurer Wayne Swan; he also provides sound advice on what to do if you see someone in peril near Lord Archer or Baroness Thatcher.
The Currency Lad on loony Liberal specks and loony Labor planks. Jason Soon (who seems surprised at the revelations of Irwin’s lunacy) adds a brief note on labels applied by loony Labor to Israel.
Harry Clarke uses the problem of “white-flighting” from NSW schools as a case for rethinking our migration and refugee programs, while Andrew Norton – who notes the lack of statistical evidence – prefers Laurie Ferguson’s “black spread” solution than even limiting “white flight” through cutting private school funding, if “white-flight”, is indeed, a fact.
The Analyst reviews Morris Iemma’s first year since his re-election (gilmae thinks it seems like much much longer).
Sedgwick is bemused by the way The Hun chooses to protect the identity of an anonymous source.
International
Philip Gorski on class, nation and covenant in Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech.
Hilzoy exposes another porkie pie by Hillary Clinton and her blood boils at a US government decision to deport a heroic Kurdish migrant.
Rip Van Lovell awakens from a catnap to find that John McCain’s ‘League of Democratic Nations’ is already up and running.
Darryl Mason doesn’t waste any civility – neither the old-fashioned kind or the newer stuff – on Dick Cheney’s attitude to American opposition to the War in Iraq. The Whitehouse transcript of the (US) ABC interview which caused the current furore suggests that the interview was edited for dramatic impact.
Savo Heleta takes a detailed look at the tragic situation in Darfur.
Michael Totten looks at Kosovo as the Israel of the Balkans, while William R Polk looks at Iran: danger and opportunity.
Mark “Oz Conservative” Richardson applies his inimitable approach to China and sees sympathy for Tibetan rioters as merely an artefact of white liberal intellectuals.
Economics
Andrew Leigh and Joshua Gans have failed to persuade Nicola Roxon to phase in the increase in the baby bonus. Andrew notes that her reason for opposing it is identical to his reason for suggesting it. Joshua was hoping for an outright freeze, leading to an outphase.
Peter Martin applauds Ross Garnaut’s proposal for an emissions trading system as does Johsua Gans.
Harry Clarke supports a Productivity Commission enquiry into paid maternity leave and ridicules “concerned femmes” and Pru Goward who think it should just be introduced post haste.
Possum Comitatus publishes the second part of a long and impressive analysis of Australian housing policy.
Law
Sandy Levinson looks at the issues surrounding the US Supreme Court’s agreeing to hear a case about the constitutionality of Federal Communications Commission rules regarding fleeting expletives in the media. Fucking hell! See, that was one just went past then.
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Issues analysis
Jennifer Marohasy has a link round up of blogger reactions to Pearson’s article in The Australian, in which her interview on ABC National is cited:
Duffy asked Marohasy: “Is the Earth still warming?”
She replied: “No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you’d expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years.” ((This isn’t so much issues analysis as a recitation of blatantly dishonest and misleading standard climate change denialist nonsense, but I suppose it’s good to have it highlighted in Missing Link in the interest of completeness. Hopefully someone like Tim Lambert will be bothered churning out yet another rebuttal of these tired old canards ~ KP))
Tim Blair, as usual, prefers the New York Times, and insists it is olden warming. Really olden.
Lauredhel invites discussion on why Caesarean sections are increasing; she provides a few reasons and non-reasons of her own.
Brad DeLong ponders the pros and cons of free trade versus fair trade over a morning coffee.
Slim Pickens points to new research showing that speed cameras actually do significantly reduce both driving speeds and pedestrian fatalities, but this dosn’t stop Miranda Devine publishing her usual fact-free column dismissing them as mere “revenue raisers“.
Arts
“She just couldn’t wait to spend the money, could she?”
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Owen Hatherly is impressed by Jean-Luc Godards ferocious 1970 film, British Sounds; Emmy Hennings is considerably less enamoured with Gus Van Sants cowardly and self-indulgent Paranoid Park.
Alison Croggon reviews the Kransky Sisters and other acts at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and promotes a book of her own poetry available for free on the web.
Amanda Rose reviews Loudon Wainwright III’s performance and various other acts at the Blue Mountains Music Festival
The sad billionaire situates Rev. Jeremiah’s Wright’s oratory in the context of modern African American aesthetics:
Just as bourgeois rap critics have not yet learned to listen to hip-hop as a contradictory gestalt that scrambles the logic of Western aesthetics intentionally, so critics of Wright’s sermons appear not to believe that the form (the sermon), context (religious worship at a particular historical conjuncture), and larger literary and aesthetic tradition (African American oratory writ large) matter in evaluating his “message”…
With a Village Voice essay by David Mamet strangely becoming the next front in the phony culture wars, Alison Croggon questions Mamet’s assumptive belief of having a past history as a woolly-minded liberal, while Kim Jameson at Larvatus Prodeo ponders whether Janet Albrechtsen has got a little over-excited in her selective quotation of Mamet’s essay. Surely this dull admixture of polemics and art is not particularly eludicating, particularly when Albrechtsen would probably be the first to submit a complaint to Sen. Benardi’s Senate Inquiry into Swearing after a brief viewing of Glengarry,Glen Ross. But maybe the more interesting question out of all this is, which salesmen in Glengarry, Glen Ross utters the most obscenities? Returning to Mamet it does seem strange that the author of Oleanna in his writing was ever the straw-man construction of an American liberal, as Mamet like any good writer of dialogue was able in his plays to move beyond the static caricatures in documenting the motivations and drives of his assemblage of characters. As Allison Croggon notes it would definitely be a loss to theatre if Mamet’s later work veers off into the territory of didactic passion-play :-
It seems to me that Mamet might have been more interesting as a playwright when he was less aware of what he thought, and that it is this self-recognition, rather than any essential shift in perception, that might be the problem with his recent work. There’s a reason why poets are supposed to be blind. In any case, a work of art that strikes beyond the superficial simply isn’t biddable to such simplistic divisions, however much commentators – flapping in from the right or the left – attempt to rip off its limbs in order to stuff it into whichever ideological box takes their fancy.
Sport
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Norman Geras reminisces about Mark Waugh’s genius as a slips fieldsman.
Shaun Cronin argues that NRL leagues clubs may need to emulate Souths and ditch the pokies.
Mike Salter on the weekend’s soccer Australia versus Singapore 0-0 draw soccer “friendly”:
If last night’s tedious match in Singapore had any value at all, it was surely to underline the fact that Pim Verbeek was, by and large, right to suggest that the A-League troops are not quite up to negotiating the “Asia shift” on their own.
Snark, strangeness and charm
Pavlov’s Cat flaxes whimsical.
Simon Jackman points out that Gough Whitlam never used the word c**t in Parliament, he was way too cunning and classy for that.
Slim Pickens is disinclined to waste any civility on Chris Berg’s defence of fast-food marketing in The Sunday Age.
Skeptic Lawyer publically owns her nerdery, her libertarianism, and her individualism – all without a hint of romance.
The Editor at GrodsCorp trains his binoculars on Tim Blair’s flying monkeys as they dismember another hapless blogger.
Ashleigh is agro. No, not the puppet. Ticked off.
Darlene Taylor takes a look at Melbourne beggars/bums/hobos/vagrants/tramps (in Darwin they’re called “long-grassers” and the late lamented Lord Mayor George Brown proudly claimed to be one of them).
Jennifer Marohasy? Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. If you have to highlight death beast denialism, at least stick to the Tim Blair version which is at least amusing.
The whole “white flight” panic (no coincidence it was framed as such by a Fairfax rag, eh?) is just another case of morally vain Luvvies demanding that working class and lower middle class Australians pay the price for the Luvvies’ multiculti cult. Of course, the Luvvies themselves fled these schools years ago, but pull the ladder away and refuse to allow their lower SES neighbours do the same.
Sometimes I wonder if John G is a BASIC program. he never says anything that can’t be predicted.
CGI script would have been my guess – but maybe my thinking needs to be a little more old-fashioned. A COBOL port might be possible, I reckon.
Im impressed by The Editors brilliant decoding of my post, which read in full:
All the meaning, you see, is implied in the spaces between. The Editor is therefore able to arrive at this translation:
Its just so obvious! But Im surprised that The Editor hasnt discovered the coded messages hidden within these two posts. The former is clearly a call for raucous celebration of Kristallnachts anniversary. The latter? Well, any idiot can tell its a demand that import duty on vintage clothing be reduced. Youve got to look at the meanings implied in the spaces between.
(By the way, looking at the meaning implied in the spaces between The Editors own post, he plainly meant to write: Nobody reads this site. Please pay attention to us. Cmon, weve got audio, video, the whole deal, but the only comments we ever get are from our own contributors. WERE DYING HERE.)
So just what was the purpose of your post Tim?
A good laugh at someone who’s life is in a way mucked up? Someone who is brave enough to be open and honest about it. Someone who has suffered most unfortunate circumstances. How did you think your readers would react? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Oh, I’m sorry, Peter; I didn’t realise heroin addiction granted one immunity to gentle typo jokes.
How did I think my readers would react? I couldn’t have predicted, but it seems they reacted in various ways. Some were critical of Terry. Other readers, like The Editor, were supportive. My readers are a diverse lot.
Mmm, the sweet, sweet taste of sophistry. Makes anything taste better.
Odd that in over four years of blogging, and posting those sneering links to other, less well-known, bloggers, tim hasn’t learnt enough from the way his readers have reacted to past posts to form even the foggiest notion of what might happen next time he does it.
Rather disengenuous – the comments by his resident admin Andrea Harris were disgusting.
Did you tick her off for her comment Tim?
Misconstrued, eh, Ant? Lets look at what was said, during a discussion about how I might fare in a greased cage fight to the death with Andrew Bolt:
Idiot One: Timmys been weakened by cancer recently, hes got … Timmy has illness, hes weaker at the moment …
Idiot Two: He could throw his colostomy bag at Andrew!
(Loud laughter, shouts of Too far!)
Idiot Three: Just to clarify, we all wish Tim a speedy recovery.
(Increased laughter)
So – lets get this straight – its fine for you guys to laugh about me having cancer, but its wrong of me to make fun of a spelling mistake?
When are you going to get rid of Andrea Tim?
Tim: “its fine for you guys to laugh about me having cancer…”
As I said to you in a private email, Tim, while the colostomy bag joke might have been in poor taste, it certainly wasn’t a “cancer joke” as you claimed at the time. Nor were we laughing in the podcast about you having cancer; we were laughing at the mental image of somebody throwing a colostomy bag at another person. (Again, perhaps in poor taste but not malicious.) We were not laughing at the fact that you have recently battled cancer.
Back when you announced that you were going to undergo cancer surgery I wrote this at GrodsCorp…
And then in episode two of our podcast, after your surgery, I said the following…
So just to make things absolutely clear: I do not think it’s funny that you had cancer and I’m pleased that you will apparently recover fully.
Tim: “…but its wrong of me to make fun of a spelling mistake?”
If you read our post carefully you’ll see that we don’t think it’s wrong to make fun of a spelling mistake — we do it all the time — but we thought it was wrong to sit back and implicitly approve of the kind of vicious comments that your readership made at your blog and Terry’s. You’ve addressed this accusation, you disagree with it, so let’s agree to disagree on this one.
It’s a common complaint that Tim Blair’s readers are vicious, but not always born out by evidence. The apparent attack of ‘batwing’ monkeys on Terry’s blog certainly does not bear out convincing evidence of this ‘viciousness’ – there were only about five critical comments on the blog. It’s hard to know if each of the anonymous critical comments were by different critics, but even so: five nasty commenters is hardly worthy of comment on the blogosphere, where snark is a daily form of currency.
And how about on Tim’s blog? Comments one through ten don’t seem especially nasty; and much of what follows seems to simply be in the nature of criticism or bitching. Pogria’s comment, which has attracted so much criticism, is a little unsympathetic, perhaps, but certainly makes a valid point in strong terms: that a difficult life does not necessarily cause one to take up heroin addiction. Andrea’s comments, which follow immediately after, are similar.
On the whole, there is very little evidence here for ‘vicious’ commenters: just snark, which is common on the blogosphere.
However, there is another reason Blair’s commenters are sometimes referred to as ‘vicious’, and that is because it is rhetorically useful: moderate commenters who sometimes read Blair’s site feel alienated and therefore are less likely to read the blog which uses these terms in future, or if they do, may respond in kind with insults, thus justifying the description. It also helps to classify all ones ideological opponents as being similarly vicious.
Thus normally affable commenters like Jeremy can get away with describing commenters at Tim Blair’s as ‘the turds who frequent that place’, and not be criticised for their obvious hypocrisy.
There is no implicit approval of any comments: Published comments are not necessarily endorsed or supported by this sites author or management.
Besides which, there are many comments in that thread from the delightful Ant and his friends. Do I implicitly approve of those, too?
Re cancer jokes: forgive me for misunderstanding. I must have been confused by all the laughter, and the fact that my illness was raised (hes been weakened by cancer) in the context of an imagined cage fight. And as for Ants accusation of stalking … how many posts have you run about me? Hmmm?
The jokes: Timmys been weakened by cancer … he could throw his colostomy bag at Andrew!
But it was nothing personal: We were laughing at the mental image of somebody throwing a colostomy bag at another person.
And you call me disingenuous …
Sounds pretty distasteful to me, I have to say.
Tim can spin it anyway he wants, some of the comments were disgusting. Why someone should feel anger towards me because I admitted I turned to heroin after my wife died is still puzzling me. I admitted it was the wrong thing to do and took full blame for it.
Looking back over many other comments from previous posts, it is pretty clear that it was my politics that encouraged such nasty comments. I am almost certain that if I was on their side of politics, his readers would not have called me a liar, loser, an utter, utter f*ckup, a classic case of Narcissistic Fuckup Disorder, Terry the junkie, his mental state is currently too fucked up, treat the truth with disdain and make lying an art form, self deluded junkie, getting a dose of his own medicine, degenerate fuckup junkie, very skilled at bullshit etc.
If this is what Tim Blair wants his blog to be like, and defends it as such, then that’s decision.
Terry
You’re best just ignoring them and not descending to their level. Engaging them on any level just encourages them. It’s classic bully behaviour. Fortunately they’re not physically proximate and as well as being bullies they have low boredom thresholds and will soon move on to the next target Tim points them towards. That said, I still think colostomy jobes directed at Tim are repugnant. People who engage in that really do drag themselves willingly down to the level of the Blair comment brigade thugs. It certainy lowers “ant rogenous” in my eyes if he was involved in that sort of garbage.
SL, I am going to go out on a limb here, but I believe it is sage to assume thatMr Blair applies Three Monkeys Mental Judo to Andrea and other violently agreeing denizens of his comment threads.
FTR I don’t think Skeptic and Skepticlawyer are the same people.
Ken – Niall made a very nasty joke about Tim Blair’s cancer too on the thread where you wrote that nice piece about Tim. I assume you didn’t notice it. If anyone had accused you of endorsing Niall’s joke because of that oversight I’d regard them as a tool – now consider Blair who has far far lengthier threads. As for Andrea Harris, she and Tim are not the same people, not even in the same country.
Jason: Wow, I didn’t even notice it was ‘Skeptic’ rather than ‘Skepticlawyer’; the brain is both a brilliant machine and a dumb piece of shit.
oops correction, amphibious made the nasty comment, not Niall
http://clubtroppo.lateraleconomics.com.au/2008/01/20/blair-under-the-knife/#comment-227887
Still my point remains. you can’t expect Blair to write annotations associating or disassociating himself from every commenter in his thread of 100s
Jason
I wasn’t condemning Tim, I was suggesting that quite a few of his commenters are nasty thugs who are in the habit of going and monstering people he mentions on his blog. Obviously he knows they do that and some on this thread argue that he’s therefore responsible for them. I don’t accept that proposition and certainly don’t accept that one should be forbidden to write snark lest some dickhead readers may go and monster the objects of the snark (although it’s not conduct I like, admire or encourage). I know there will be lots of readers here who disagree with me, however.
However, Jason “double standard” Soon thinks it’s just fine for him to attribute to me comments posted at my blog.
Ken,
At least in my one experience, Tim incites his readers to go and tear up a thread – as he did with this thread into which he tipped a bucket of brownshirts. A thoroughly nasty business, but an education for me.
Brownshirts, Nicholas? It seems to me that this language is odious. Its the language of indulging ones hatred. It is also of course the language of dehumanisation.
Jason Soon: you cant expect Blair to write annotations associating or disassociating himself from every commenter in his thread of 100s
Clearly no ones suggesting that this is whats expected of Tim. However, the argument that he can be absolved of responsibility because of the number of comments in his many threads doesnt hold much water in the case of this Terry Wright debacle. Heres why:
Blair commenter Amos, early in the thread, read a hell of a lot more into Tims one-line post than Tim claims to have intended:
In fact, my first comment in Tims thread was very much in line with his defence of his own post here today:
Tim didnt intervene at this point, and the disgusting comments escalated from there.
Now, I accept the argument that Tim cant be monitoring all of his threads all of the time, and I understand that his administrator lives overseas and is bound by an awkward time difference.
But how is it that, today, Tim can find the time to deny here that his post was merely a gentle typo joke, mocking GrodsCorps assessment of it as something more, but then not have the decency to go into his own thread and repudiate the commenter who misconstrued his post so outrageously?
If this doesnt constitute implicit approval then its a case of sheer gutlessness — fighting by diversion.
Jason Soon: As for Andrea Harris, she and Tim are not the same people
Well, of course. But whats the use of an administrator who wont administrate in a responsible manner, or at the very least lead by example?
When Andrea finally found her way into the thread, she produced this deliberate misrepresentation of Terrys comment about what he claims triggered his drug use:
This is utterly disingenuous and beneath contempt. Again, Tim is fully aware of this comment its documented in the GrodsCorp post, which hes read. And again, instead of doing the decent thing censuring someone from his own fold who, considering her role, ought to know better — hes over here taking a swing at The Editor.
It beggars belief.
Ken Parish: It certainy lowers ant rogenous in my eyes if he was involved in that sort of garbage.
For the record, Ken, I was “Idiot Three” in that exchange. If your opinion of me is lowered because of my involvement, Im sorry to hear it. But Im with The Editor on this one: the joke might have been unfunny and in exceptionally poor taste, but there was no malicious intent behind it, delivered as it was in the middle of an absurd ad-libbed debate about the outcome of a fictitious “naked cage fight” between Tim and Andrew Bolt.
Me: But how is it that, today, Tim can find the time to deny here that his post was merely a gentle typo joke…
Sorry, there’s a confusing typo in there. What I meant to say was:
But how is it that, today, Tim can find the time to claim here that his post was merely a gentle typo joke…
Skeptic said:
When are you going to get rid of Andrea Tim?
Posted on 27-Mar-08 at 3:10 am | Permalink
Idiot Three writes: Tim didnt intervene at that point …
This isnt due to time constraints. Its because I dont believe in micro-managing comments. Im happy if things are more or less on-topic and non-obscene, and rarely intervene otherwise.
And, as Ive already pointed out above, the fact that comments are published does not signify agreement. Intervening would override that. Readers could reasonably assume that comments I didn’t correct or alter were comments I agreed with.
Tim Blair,
C’mon Tim you knew exactly how most of your readers would react. That’s why you wrote that post – as a provocation for some of your regulars to attack somebody.
You can spin it how you like, but almost everyone know’s this to be the case.
It’s fine to point at others who have made inappropriate comments but that does not excuse you for your inappropriate post.
That’s already considered by many a reasonable assumption, supported not just by what you don’t do – intervene in comments threads but by the things you actively do – like posting these little provocations in the first place.
As I said in comment 10, it’s odd that in all your years of blogging you’ve never noticed how easy it is to stir up your readers to go off and abuse other bloggers. That story is scarcely plausible – it would make you the most haplessly well-intentioned blogger around. Also incredibly stupid.
It’s no less stupid to think you’ll be believed when you protest that you had no clue that it was going to happen, when you’ve shown such evident satisfaction at the outcome in the past.
Trotsky:
How would compare the beat up on Jen Mar. on the other thread by some of the palyers…. you included? You think it comapres
a) a little
b) a bit more than a little
c) a bit more than a bit more than little
d) Just about right
e) a real real lot.
With what Tim does on his site?
l
Blair uses humor, to make a point Trotsky, unlike you.
[…] fierce on-line cock-fighting continues at Club Troppo. With luck, a new venue will present itself over the […]
Just a note that the ‘skeptic’ above is not me (Helen at Catallaxy). I am skepticlawyer everywhere I post/comment.
Hey, I rated a mention, and by the odious Mr Soon. Erroneously yet again, I note.
[…] Here’s Tim Blair in March, when he still ran a popular blog at which many people felt inclined to post comments: By the way, looking at the meaning “implied in the spaces between” The Editor’s own post, he plainly meant to write: “Nobody reads this site. Please pay attention to us. C’mon, we’ve got audio, video, the whole deal, but the only comments we ever get are from our own contributors. WE’RE DYING HERE.” (source) […]