Big Bad Auntie
24/06/2011 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaToday the serpent awoke to the grating whining "I'm the toughest princess ever" tones of our very own Queen of Swords - Julia Gillard
She was pretending not to celebrate one year as prime minister of Oz.
Last year she was still snarky and quick witted and took great relish in gloating at certain prime ministerial wannabees on the other side of the House - The Mad Monk and Bitchy Bishop in particular
She then inflicted the public with her "Moving Forward" speech where a certain phrase must have been used about 20 times. Unfortunately this turned out to be the Empress Julia we got more and more of as the year went on. The former quick and cool Julia got replaced by a wind up doll or some sort of infernal boring droning zombie
This morning she excelled herself with boring wooden soulless delivery. It was excruciating to listen to the smug stupidity. It was obviously scripted by the focus groups and she did not deviate once from the program Tough Times ahead no matter how often the interview tried to distract her with reminders of the Night of the long knives
Reading it is bad enough. Listening is unbearable
Will save the serpent verdict of the govt performance for a later date. But being interested in all things green, insulation, solar panels and assorted global conspiracy theories - had a particular interest in many of the unintended but easily forseeable consequences of many of their environmental policies. They'd change rules as quickly as they made them and with minimum notice and with no regard whatsoever for people who need to be able to plot and plan in industries very affected by their decision making. Not everyone out there considers long term to be a period of around 3 months
Guess it was more than six months ago when Julia and co tried to do deals with East Timor as a quick political fix for the Asylum seekers issue. Just announced this policy out of thin air and never even bothered asking the opinions of the East Timorese government before going public with these bright ideas of sending asylum seekers landing in Australia off to detention centres in East Timor
This seemed like a mixture of plain incompetence and bullying as well as using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. The 'invasion of illegal aliens' - also known as boat people is an Australian variant of "Law and Order" issues that are always favorites among rabble rousers and populists.
Due to the difficulty of getting here (although getting to the shores of Christmas Island also counts as landing in Oz in spite of the island being nearly an outer suburb of Jakarta) the numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Australia is tiny compared to places like Sudan, Pakistan, South Africa, Malaysia and countless other countries who can much less afford to look after them. But that perspective does not sell papers or win votes
The East Timorese along with the New Zealanders have far more dignity and decency than their Australian neighbours. They refused to be bought or bullied. They, like their Kiwi counterparts realize that there are some values higher than the almighty dollar. The differing positions on live animal exports has proved that beyond all possible doubt
The ABC also had another juicy title for a certain anniversary
"Do we still need to talk about Kevin?" which reminds Izzie that she needs to get the original from the library again and pick up from last time.
But talking of Julia and Kevin and assorted politicians brings to mind a most wonderful and amusing interview with one Jon Ronson who sounds like a British version of Woody Allen. His latest book is called "The Psychopath Test" and he did the test on himself as well as going on the road in search of Mr Chainsaw himself - the infamous Al Dunlop.
Had fits of hysterical laughter when he describes Dunlop as trying to turn the traits of Hannibal Lector into "Who Moved My Cheese"
Could see what he was trying to say but that mouldy miserable lump of cheese is one of the most disgusting and pathetic things ever put in print. It makes "The Secret" and "The Celestine Prophecy" look like highbrow literature.
Was relieved that Barbara Ehrenreich spilled the beans on the secret of the stratospheric rise of this very stinking specimen of cheese to international fame.
It had been on the top of certain book sales lists for ages which led Izzie to wonder just how many morons there must be out there in America.
It turned out it was not a bunch of dumb Americans who had adopted this nonsense as the gospel thereby putting it on the best seller list but a bunch of corporations who bought it by the container load so they could slip in free copies with all the pink slips they were handing out around the same time.
One of the stories in the psychopath interview was about a man who acted crazy to get a reduced prison sentence but 8 years after he would have been released from mainstream prison for his crime he is still in some prison mental hospital with no hope of release at all. He claims that once you have convinced people that you are insane, you can act as normal as you like after that and you will never be able to convince them that you are sane.
But the juicy goodness does not end there. There was also a story about a place with a dubious past that has now become a tourist attraction
Fremantle Prison
That reminds the serpent - must really get around to doing the twilight tour one Friday
She was pretending not to celebrate one year as prime minister of Oz.
Last year she was still snarky and quick witted and took great relish in gloating at certain prime ministerial wannabees on the other side of the House - The Mad Monk and Bitchy Bishop in particular
She then inflicted the public with her "Moving Forward" speech where a certain phrase must have been used about 20 times. Unfortunately this turned out to be the Empress Julia we got more and more of as the year went on. The former quick and cool Julia got replaced by a wind up doll or some sort of infernal boring droning zombie
This morning she excelled herself with boring wooden soulless delivery. It was excruciating to listen to the smug stupidity. It was obviously scripted by the focus groups and she did not deviate once from the program Tough Times ahead no matter how often the interview tried to distract her with reminders of the Night of the long knives
Reading it is bad enough. Listening is unbearable
Will save the serpent verdict of the govt performance for a later date. But being interested in all things green, insulation, solar panels and assorted global conspiracy theories - had a particular interest in many of the unintended but easily forseeable consequences of many of their environmental policies. They'd change rules as quickly as they made them and with minimum notice and with no regard whatsoever for people who need to be able to plot and plan in industries very affected by their decision making. Not everyone out there considers long term to be a period of around 3 months
Guess it was more than six months ago when Julia and co tried to do deals with East Timor as a quick political fix for the Asylum seekers issue. Just announced this policy out of thin air and never even bothered asking the opinions of the East Timorese government before going public with these bright ideas of sending asylum seekers landing in Australia off to detention centres in East Timor
This seemed like a mixture of plain incompetence and bullying as well as using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. The 'invasion of illegal aliens' - also known as boat people is an Australian variant of "Law and Order" issues that are always favorites among rabble rousers and populists.
Due to the difficulty of getting here (although getting to the shores of Christmas Island also counts as landing in Oz in spite of the island being nearly an outer suburb of Jakarta) the numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Australia is tiny compared to places like Sudan, Pakistan, South Africa, Malaysia and countless other countries who can much less afford to look after them. But that perspective does not sell papers or win votes
The East Timorese along with the New Zealanders have far more dignity and decency than their Australian neighbours. They refused to be bought or bullied. They, like their Kiwi counterparts realize that there are some values higher than the almighty dollar. The differing positions on live animal exports has proved that beyond all possible doubt
The ABC also had another juicy title for a certain anniversary
"Do we still need to talk about Kevin?" which reminds Izzie that she needs to get the original from the library again and pick up from last time.
But talking of Julia and Kevin and assorted politicians brings to mind a most wonderful and amusing interview with one Jon Ronson who sounds like a British version of Woody Allen. His latest book is called "The Psychopath Test" and he did the test on himself as well as going on the road in search of Mr Chainsaw himself - the infamous Al Dunlop.
Had fits of hysterical laughter when he describes Dunlop as trying to turn the traits of Hannibal Lector into "Who Moved My Cheese"
Could see what he was trying to say but that mouldy miserable lump of cheese is one of the most disgusting and pathetic things ever put in print. It makes "The Secret" and "The Celestine Prophecy" look like highbrow literature.
Was relieved that Barbara Ehrenreich spilled the beans on the secret of the stratospheric rise of this very stinking specimen of cheese to international fame.
It had been on the top of certain book sales lists for ages which led Izzie to wonder just how many morons there must be out there in America.
It turned out it was not a bunch of dumb Americans who had adopted this nonsense as the gospel thereby putting it on the best seller list but a bunch of corporations who bought it by the container load so they could slip in free copies with all the pink slips they were handing out around the same time.
One of the stories in the psychopath interview was about a man who acted crazy to get a reduced prison sentence but 8 years after he would have been released from mainstream prison for his crime he is still in some prison mental hospital with no hope of release at all. He claims that once you have convinced people that you are insane, you can act as normal as you like after that and you will never be able to convince them that you are sane.
But the juicy goodness does not end there. There was also a story about a place with a dubious past that has now become a tourist attraction
Fremantle Prison
That reminds the serpent - must really get around to doing the twilight tour one Friday
