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11-10-02
How's
this for a dumb idea
Sasha Castel points
out a classic piece of really
stupid thinking.
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Cock-flavoured Soup
I really wanna ask
for cock soup in a restaurant someday.
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William Shatner ate my balls
Actor, celebrity,
ball-eater
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Charming
Australian
Muslim spokesman Keysar Trad - who presents himself to the media as a
soft-spoken moderate - pens this
creepy essay, lecturing us all on our depraved western nature, and
proclaiming an Islamic society to be the only solution. It's the typical
grab-bag of Islamist hypocrisy. I especially loved this bit...
....
from the Muslim viewpoint, our ideology is the best salvation for the
people of Australia, and the people of the world in general. Yes, we
are a threat to the culture of drunkenness, paedophilia, and mostly
we are a big threat to the culture of ELITISM.
....not
to mention a threat to homosexuals, women who don't want to be wrapped
in rugs, people who practice other religions or no religion, people who
like drinking, swearing, rock n' roll, free speech, Playboy, democracy,
TV, science, art, movies and pretty much everything else people actually
enjoy in this country.
Oh,
then there's this stunner;
The
criminal dregs of white society colonised this country, and now, they
only take the select choice of other societies, and the descendants
of these criminal dregs tell us that they are better than us. And because
we are not elitists, we tolerate them.
Oh,
you tolerate us, eh? Such a magnanimous nature. I wonder how tolerant
the islamic community would be if they became a majority? Well based on
the evidence supplied by every islamic society on earth, the answer
is "not very".
Tolerance
and peace are not things Islamic communities are particularly well-equipped
for, being that Islam is the most prehistoric, paranoid, repressive and
brutally intolerant of all religions. Time to drag your sorry asses into
the 21st century fellas, and stop blaming the Zionist-Kafir conspiracy
for your own cultural neanderthalism.
(Link
via Professor Bunyip)
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Peaceful religion watch
You gotta love this
website - Islamic Truth.
Some fun features to be found within.....
- the founding of
a single worldwide muslim state...by force that is
- the
destruction of all non-muslims and the overthrow of all non muslim
governments & institutions
- The Internet is the
most evil man-made invention second to television!
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Why do americans love this quack technology anyway?
One
of the things that's always baffled me about the USA is the widespread
acceptance and use of the pseudo-scientific line-your-hat-with-tinfoil
voodoo known as the polygraph.
Columnist
William Safire gives this idiotic machinery a well-deserved
bollocking.
(Link
via Hot Buttered Death)
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10-10-02
Youth
whinges Eternal
Trust The Age
to print this
load of assnuggets.
A 25-yo self-righteous
postgraduate student - Michelle Almiron - squeals about how nobody is
listening to her generation, and how she has to deal with the everyday
issues of life, like bills, debt and working for a living. Oh, the pain!
Of course, as with
most agonized leftist twits, she doesn't understand that she is
being listened to. The thing is, nobody cares.
Some choice excerpts.....
I am 25 and part
of the invisible generation. I am in full-time education (still) accumulating
a HECS debt that I will have to repay as soon as I earn more than $21,000
a year.
Oh dear. Fancy being
forced to contribute a portion of the cost of your seemingly never-ending
education which everyone else is subsidising.
The likelihood
of my partner and I becoming either home owners or parents is non-existent.
We have other needs and aspirations for the moment.
Yeah, non-home ownership
and cost of having kids is a problem exclusively for the young. Gimme
a break.
You oppressed "youth"
could always move outta Melbourne, and - you know - go somewhere cheaper.
It's simple:
as a group, generally, we don't have a mortgage, children or full-time
career jobs. So John Howard has little motivation to listen to our voices.
We are a generation that speaks to brick walls.
Christ almighty. Somebody
fetch the Kleenex. You have as much power to make John Howard listen as
anyone else: you can vote. It's called democracy. Don't
start crying about being unfairly ignored when your vote has the same
weight as an older person.
A good example
is the furore caused when Kirsty Ruddock had the courage to voice her
objections to her father's actions. She was readily dismissed for failing
to appreciate the responsibilities involved in managing such a weighty
portfolio. I can just imagine Philip Ruddock shaking his head - I admire
her zest but, ah, the innocence of youth.
Ah good: she didn't
forget the required dig at the Evil Nazi Howard Government, irrelevant
as it is.
Alternatively,
when we are not ignored, we are patronised. Reports abound about our
lack of savings and our love affair with credit. We don't buy houses,
preferring to spend our money on mobile phones and travel. There seems
to be a hysteria that surrounds this notion of young Australians travelling
the road to economic perdition.
Interestingly, she
can give no specifics.
In reality, there
is hardly any room for us to put our finger in the financial pie. Who
can afford a house when you have a $25,000 HECS debt?
Valid point, but so
what? You expect to be a home owner at the age of 25 while you're
still a full-time student? How about getting a job, and
paying off your debt, before you start crapping on with your righteous
spiel about how evil older people and the government are.
Next, Michelle - the
Gulag Oz inmate - cries censorship;
My generation
is recognised for labels. We're the indy-media types, hanging off the
end of the Xers, labelled as "generation Y", "generation
tech" or the first "global generation". I understand
that labelling is necessary. But, in effect, it acts as masking tape
over our mouths.
Um, how?
This imposed
silence encourages accusing snarls that we are an apathetic bunch with
no cultural clout or direction. But this couldn't be further from the
truth. Australia's youth are more than an age bracket. We have views
on politics, lifestyle and social justice.
Australia's youth
have opinions. Well, fuck me. Who would have guessed?
This imposed
silence encourages accusing snarls that we are an apathetic bunch with
no cultural clout or direction. But this couldn't be further from the
truth. Australia's youth are more than an age bracket. We have views
on politics, lifestyle and social justice.
What "imposed
silence", you clown? To start with, you are able to get a piece this
bad published in a major broadsheet newspaper, for chrissakes. And you
can hardly go a day without the TV news showing the members of the Unwashed
Student Stinky Platoon protesting and screaming "fascism!!!"
about something or other.
The Youth Parliament
was in session last month. Mandatory reporting of child abuse by religious
leaders, reproductive rights (the availability of the morning-after
pill over the counter), compulsory blood donations: these were some
of the bills discussed by Australians aged 16 to 25.
Well, the ones aged
18-25 can vote and register as political candidates if they want, just
like anyone else. What the hell is it that you are complaining
about?
There are many
other places to find us discussing and enthusing. Go to any spoken-word
event on a weekend at a pub or other venue and you might be surprised.
Uh, no, we're all
quite used to the sight and sounds of boring university students lecturing
us all on our evil ways thank you. Oh, and I bet you don't count young
libertarians/conservatives as part of your generation.
Walk down Swanston
Street and you might be asked to sign a petition and become involved
against the mandatory detention of refugees or against war on Iraq.
Visit any of the university corridors and catch the conversations of
students running to class from part-time jobs. You might find us discussing
how our education is deteriorating, how daily living is becoming more
expensive, how lacking in human compassion our political leaders are.
Oh, we know all this.
Problem is that at election time, we couldn't give a rat's ass about what
you have to say. People have a right to have different opinions to yours.
You are not being silenced or oppressed - other people are making decisions
of their own. I realise that as a leftist this idea of freedom of
choice is a scary one, but you'd best deal with it, Whitlam-girl.
There is a rich
array of young voices striving to be heard. Yet these voices rarely
penetrate mainstream politics and culture.
Says the words printed
in the The Age, and similar voices being spoken on a certain taxpayer
funded nation-wide
radio station. Never mind, I guess the Zionists are brainwashing the
unwashed masses against you.
Naomi Klein suggests
that one of the reasons that youthful voices do not permeate the mainstream
is because as soon as our cultural movement awakes, baby boomers come
along and steal it to make "cool" ads - which they then try
to sell back to us. This never happened to the baby boomers. They had
time to revel in their movement and explore it before it was sold off.
I think I'm gonna
barf.
It's a shame.
Our generation has an important contribution to make to Australian society.
So get out there and
make it, and stop fucking whining about your poor, silenced self already.
This would mean however, you have to join the real world the rest of us
live in, where we have a lower tolerance for middle-class welfare brats
like you.
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9-10-02
More
paranormalist bashing
CSICOP has
a good article on "psychic" scumbag John Edward and his
filthy ilk. Thanks to Bailz
for bringing my attention to it.
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Surrealist fun
Go here,
and type your name of choice in the text box. Here's my result.........
Tex
is a CD player that cannot be removed from your house! It produces 240v
of electricity and probably won't work.
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8-10-02
Here
comes Aaron
One of my regular
correspondents - Dr. Aaron Oakley - has lept into the blogging business
with Bizzare Science.
It's only been going a few days and it's already impressive. An ex-greenie
himself, Aaron takes on the paper-thin scaremongering of the eco-lobby.
He's not bad at putting the boot into left-wing media types either. I
happily welcome him to my links list.
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Check this one out too
Clubbeaux
is run by Dave Sims: "Current events, religion, business, sports,
entertainment and invective from david sims, one harp seal who's not taking
it anymore."
Heh, it's a winner
already. Wotz a harp seal anyway?
Fortunately, Dave
has the necessary writing skills to support his invective. I especially
liked this;
And in point of
fact Americans never did take out their anger on “innocent”
American Arabs and Muslims, since Americans are truly peaceful. Americans
genuinely do not like war, when it must occur we want it to be quick
and effective and brought to an end and the enemy reconciled with –
World War II enemies Japan, Italy and German are today three of our
closest allies, closer than World War II allies France and Russia, we’ve
even effected a workable reconciliation with Vietnam.
This is the polar
opposite of Islamic societies, which irrevocably demonize their enemies
and consign them to a perpetual state of war. Today Christians are being
brutally murdered in Indonesia and Pakistan for the offense of being
Christian. I haven't seen accounts of any anti-Muslim backlash in America.
Yes.
Dave's no blind, stars-n-stripes
nationalist either. He's capable of staring fearlessly at the true black
heart of the USA: namely, the godawful
beer.
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Where would the blogosphere be without The Guardian?
George Monbiot gives
us another article of mind-numbing
idiocy;
For the past eight
years the US, with Britain's help, appears to have been seeking to prevent
a resolution of the crisis in Iraq. It is almost as if Iraq has been
kept on ice, as a necessary enemy to be warmed up whenever the occasion
demands. Today, as the economy slides and Bin Laden's latest mocking
message suggests that the war on terrorism has so far failed, an enemy
which can be located and bombed is more necessary than ever. A just
war can be pursued only when all peaceful means have been exhausted.
In this case, the peaceful means have been averted.
Yep folks, Saddam's
warmongering, genocide and sponsorship of terrorism is naught but an illusion...
all capitalist propaganda to distract us from the fact that it's all
Dubya's fault.
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Wot he sed
Damian Penny on the
IDF
raid on Khan Yunis
Frankly, I don't
know what to think. You don't have to be pro-Palestinian to admit that
while the Israelis may not target Palestinian civilians, the IDF has
sometimes been careless - if not negligent - in trying to avoid civilian
casualties. And yet, the constant, steady barrage of completely baseless
accusations flung at the Israeli armed forces is enough to turn one
from ever believing what the Palestinians have to say. Stories of a
nonexistent Jenin "massacre" are still being spread; poor
Mohammad Al-Dura is still portrayed as a victim of the Israelis, long
after it has been definitively proven that Palestinian gunfire killed
him.
I want to feel much
more sympathy for the families of those who died last night, yet I find
it difficult to do so. And in a way, that scares me.
Indeed.
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7-10-02
More
Fart than Art
..... or How I learned to say "Fuck The Opera"
In today's tedious
S.M.H. column, enternal whinging feminist and culturati Anne Summers
joins the ranks of very silly people who demand we spend even more millions
of taxpayers' money on arts funding.
'Tis
suits, not genius, that strut the stage
Artists such as Simone Young create something priceless, yet it's profiteers
that are idolised, writes Anne Summers.
Having a howling error
in the first line of a column is never a good sign. It's obviously escaped
the attention of Summers and other culturati dingbats that big-money executives
have rather a bad image in Australia right now. Hello Anne, heard of OneTel
& HIH?
What
kind of country are we that our largest companies can find more than
$50 million to throw at past-their-use-by-date departing CEOs, yet we
are unable to dredge up a mere $2 million to hang onto the internationally
renowned music director of our national opera company?
A country where there
are some very stupid people in corporate life who are willing to spend
big money on bad CEOs. Welcome to the world of freedom of choice and private
enterprise. Then again, none of us is forced to pay for those pricks,
whereas we can do nothing about the millions of our tax payments that
fund your middle-class cultural welfare.
The
sacking of Simone Young by the board of Opera Australia last month highlights
an alarming trend in Australia to financially reward mediocrity or incompetence
in the corporate world but to punish striving for excellence in the
performing arts.
Punish? She was being
paid with my fucking money!!! Who the hell asked our permission to shell
out our money to subsidise the entertainment of the Opera crowd?
The
decision of the OA board not to renew Young's contract was, according
to board chairman Rowena Danziger, financially motivated "by a
need to ensure the national opera company's sustainable development".
Specifically, it has been reported, Young's artistic plans for the 2004
season exceeded the budget by $2 million.
The
person whose hiring just three years ago was hailed as such a coup for
OA, and whose musical vision promised to elevate our opera to new standards
of excellence, was let go for want of a couple of million dollars.
A couple of
million dollars over and above the millions of dollars
of our money that is already being used to keep this unpopular
art form afloat.
It
was not the artistic vision as such that was at issue - Young delivered
what she had promised in terms of improving the orchestra and expanding
the repertoire - it was just that the OA could not afford it. Nor was
Young's own remuneration an issue. She just wanted to produce a fabulous
season.
A "fabulous season"
which is so popular with the public that it cannot survive on its own
financially. That's some vital art form you got there.
Of course, the likes
of Summers and other art-industry bludgers like Leo Schofield never suggest
the easiest and most obvious solution: that the opera audience should
pay for it themselves. You know, like people who like (gulp) rock and
roll. Ah, but that's not culturally important is it?
[...a whole paragraph
of examples over overpaid execs follows. Zzzz...]
These
financial excesses point to a shameless self-aggrandisement among our
corporate elite. They take home salaries, bonuses, interest-free loans
and all kinds of other perks that are unjustifiable on any terms.
What, so companies
shouldn't be allowed to offer their money and perks to attract
talent, and improve performance, but useless individuals like Simone Young
can take my money to fund her art form whether I'm interested in it or
not? The art-left love using everyone else's money to fund their interests.
In
Europe and the United States, opera companies attract significant donations
from bizoids anxious to improve their cultural cred. Not so here. It
is almost impossible to get our wealthiest individuals to give money
to the arts (unless it's to buy stuff to increase in value while it
hangs on their walls). They support medical charities, up to a point,
but overall we lack a philanthropic tradition. And while we expect governments
to subsidise everything from sports training to the price of pharmaceuticals,
we are far less demanding of our financial elite.
Ah, here's the rub:
the evil capitalists aren't giving enough of their money to the beloved
Opera, so they should be forced to.
Yet
if as a society we want the performances at the Sydney Opera House to
match the bravura of the building - and we claim we do - we need to
find the funds to do it.
How about fucking
paying for it yourself!!!! And this society of ours clearly doesn't
want it: if the audience was there to support it, you wouldn't need our
fucking money to prop it up, you dopey asscow.
The
board of OA has a clear duty to be fiscally responsible, but it has
an equally important mandate to nurture excellence in the company. Its
mission statement includes the undertaking: to "attract, develop,
challenge and retain people of the highest calibre within an organisation
that is effectively led, well-informed and in which their contribution
is respected and celebrated".
The
Young episode represents a failure to meet just about every one of these
goals.
Oh, heaven forfend!!
The poor opera crowd, already bloated with millions of dollars of taxpayers'
money, expresses outrage that the board of Opera Australia would actually
exercise some restraint in spending money it doesn't have on an artform
hardly anyone wants.
Equally
disturbing are the unattributed comments in the media by board members
and other "sources" that the board's decision was about more
than money. Opera CEO Adrian Collette wrote to the company's supporters
recently stating that "out of respect for Simone and our company"
no further comments would be made about the episode. However, this has
not stopped some insiders from briefing some journalists (not this one)
that Young was "abrasive" and "autocratic". (Isn't
criticising a conductor for being autocratic a bit like attacking a
social worker for being compassionate?) Someone else complained about
Young's "brinkmanship". She went to the wall to fight for
her vision, apparently. That's what artistic directors are supposed
to do - yet it cost her her job.
Oh, the poor dear.
She demands to go a piffling two million dollars over budget, paid
for by people like me, and she loses her job for it. Well boo-hoo.
An
especially damaging comment was made to this newspaper the day of her
termination: "Her vision was going to cost a bundle and she had
to bring something to the party, but this wasn't happening." I
would have thought she brought her name, her reputation, her musical
vision and her skills.
And how about an ability
to recoup the fucking costs?
In
the same vein, critics of the board's decision have been trashed by
OA management. People who wrote critical letters to the press had their
names run through the OA data base. Less than 10 per cent of them had
bought tickets in the past seven years, said Liz Nield , the company's
marketing and communications director.
As
if members of the public are not entitled to comment on decisions of
an arts organisation that receives substantial taxpayer funds. This
exercise reveals a level of petty vindictiveness that is, sadly, all
too typical of arts management in this country.
Strange that she uses
a dozen or so letters from the "public" the prove her point,
yet is unwilling to admit to herself that the vast majority of the public
has no interest whatsoever in financially supporting the opera by paying
a fair ticket price. I guess the culturally unwashed amongst us shouldn't
be able to decide how to spend our money.
Young's
leaving is not just a reprise of the departures of other talented and
demanding artists whose vision was deemed to be "unsustainable"
by their managements - think Meryl Tankard, Maina Geilgud, Barrie Kosky
- it also has depressing parallels with the history of the very building
in which Young worked.
A whole roll-call
of people who produced monumentally boring art nobody gave a shit about
or wanted to spend money on. Good fucking riddance.
In
1966, the NSW government failed to retain the services of the architect
Joern Utzon, whose bold and brave design for an opera house had been
commissioned by the previous regime. In 2002, a new opera board has
sent packing the brilliant and visionary musician recruited by its predecessor
a mere three years ago.
The
problem for the future is that it will be next to impossible to recruit
a stellar replacement for Young. Who in their right mind would take
a job that is now internationally branded as being, artistically speaking,
for the vision-impaired?
Hopefully, the answer
is "nobody". You want them here? Pay a fair ticket price for
the shows you attend.
When us rock n' roll
fans want to get U2 out here, we support promoters by paying big-ass money
for our tickets. Why don't you do the same for your damned opera tickets?
Why should your upper-class twat-art be supported with our money?
I wouldn't be as pissed
off with the likes of Summers if they were are least consistent about
it: they should bloody well spread the arts funding around to help fund
fund big rock tours and give us cheaper movie tickets. These things, of
course, are nothing but coarse, low-rent cultural pollution, whereas you
guys are artistic and cultural, right?
Maybe
the board should rethink - and perhaps put the wood on some of those
overpaid corporates to fork out some of those millions to keep Young
at the helm of our national opera. Perhaps one or more of them might
volunteer.
Lowy
has said he intends to donate his $11.9 million salary to charity. Frank,
here's an idea: donate it to Opera Australia and ask them to renew Young's
contract. With almost $12 million in the coffers they could more than
afford her next three seasons and Australia would not lose another stellar
artist to more generous overseas pastures.
Anne, here's an idea:
maybe he could give the $12 million to such horrid, culturally irrelevant
endeavours like the Smith
Family, the Red Cross, the
Royal Flying Doctor Service or the
Hollows Foundation. (Ah, but
where's the culture?)
Piss off and use your
own money for a change.
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