IN RECENT DAYS there’s been some argey bargey about Rupert Murdoch’s intervention in the election campaign, so early and so viciously.
He sees himself as a kingmaker who can, from distant New York, even after voluntarily relinquishing his citizenship for financial gain, call the shots in an election campaign in faraway Australia.
Kevin Rudd is fond of saying that Murdoch has “a democratic right” to direct his newspapers to go in hard against the government, but he does not. He has no more “rights” regarding Australian politics than any other foreigner.
Indeed, it could be argued Murdoch has less rights than other foreigners, as he gave up his Australian passport willingly, as a mature man, not by some accident of birth. He made a deliberate decision to deal himself out of Australia in any moral sense of the word. And he did it for the least honourable reason of all: to make money.
Australia became too small for Murdoch’s ambitions, so he left it. Now he wants to style himself as an Aussie, and come back to his homeland, again to make money.
Nevertheless, it is Australia that spawned Rupert Murdoch, a pox on the world’s media and its culture. and Australia has a lot to answer for, to the world.
Our nation is still a small place, where the odd billionaire or two (particularly if they own the lion’s share of its media) can push politicians around to effect beneficial changes (beneficial for themselves!) in the national agenda.
Under attack for unethical practices everywhere else, Murdoch seems to have retreated to his spawning ground where he can still kick butt and be thanked for it by cautious lawmakers, anxious not to get on his wrong side. Call Australia “Murdoch’s Last Redoubt”.
With his brittle newspaper businesses approaching terminal decline, propped up by other parts of the News business empire, particularly Foxtel in Australia, Murdoch has nowhere else to go. It’s “Australia, or bust” for Rupert Murdoch. Australia is where he’ll make his comeback, and show the world he’s still top dog.
The bottom line of Murdoch’s opposition to Labor being re-elected is this: he owns a media company specializing in news, publishing, music, sport, television and film.
The NBN will render that investment almost worthless.
Of particular concern must be the Foxtel division of his Australian enterprise. It relies on outdated, proprietary technology and linear programming, delivers moderately high performance only for a premium price, is shedding customers, and is under threat from ubiquitous ultra-fast broadband – and all the television, sport and cultural opportunities it offers – about to be installed Australia-wide, in the form of Labor’s NBN.
Beleaguered as it is, the Foxtel monopoly still qualifies as Murdoch’s Australian cash cow. It props up his beloved, but loss-making newspapers here, giving the News operation in this country the vague appearance of being a proper business, instead of the plaything of a sentimental old man yearning for the smell of printer’s ink, and the aphrodisiac of naked power.
Murdoch has stripped himself of his young wife, has acceded to the forced break up of his international News Corp conglomerate, has cut a swathe of retrenchment and sackings through long-standing and loyal staff members, has spent millions buying up TV rights from such diverse organizations as the AFL and the BBC, and has generally cleared the decks for action.
Ever styling himself as an “anti-Establishment” figure, he is out to prove that he knows best. Australia, his last redoubt, is the laboratory where he intends to prove to the Establishment naysayers and bean counters of New York and London that he can still cut it, that the old ways of influence peddling, monopoly and political bastardry are still the best way to operate a corporation.
A large chunk of everything that is shown on our cinema screens, bought in a bookstore, played on a cricket or football pitch, written about politics, or viewed on Pay TV pays a tithe to Rupert Murdoch for the privilege. He has a finger in every pie, perhaps an entire fist.
The NBN – Labor’s NBN – will kill that stone dead. Not today, not tomorrow… but the funeral bells are tolling.
*************************************
The story of modern technology is about personalization and down-sizing, customization and a somewhat counter-intuitive return to cottage industry, where mass customization will be the norm.
Ten years ago, for example, hard disk “non-linear” film editing technologies were so expensive and scarce that companies such as AVID scored special film credits at the end of blockbuster movies, right up there with Kodak, Panavision and Dolby.
Today, there are thousands of such software packages, available for as little as $50, running on PCs or laptops that are an order of magnitude more powerful than the special hardware platforms that companies like AVID used to lever their editing software into the major studios.
But now…
Kodak is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Film is hardly ever used to shoot movies, and more and more is being phased out of cinemas for projection purposes.
Panavision, long famous for the quality and expense of its camera equipment and for setting standards that others could only hope to emulate, finds itself now as just one of many companies offering high quality optical gear to the film-making community.
Today, from JB Hi-Fi, you can buy a camera more powerful and of higher quality than the flagship Panavision kit of ten years ago, for under $1,000. Editing software is ubiquitous. Ditto for color-grading software, used to make the output of these cheap cameras look “more film-like”.
The only thing out of reach of would-be modern film-makers – and they’re just one small example – is easy access to the means of distribution.
Enter Labor’s NBN.
*************************************
A little-commented aspect of Labor’s NBN is that upload speeds can be as fast as download speeds, if the user upgrades and uses the extra bandwidth. An upload speed of 100 mbps per second is easily fast enough for an ambitious film-maker to stream his or her latest creation, not just to a select paying audience in cinemas, but to the world. The NBN will be offering speeds of up to 400mbps to users who have a use for that bandwidth.
Once every home in the nation is enabled as a potential filming, editing, special effects and broadcast facility, Murdoch’s domination of cinemas with his trashy blockbuster product can be bypassed.
Of course not every homeowner will turn into Cecil B. De Mille, but enough might to take the edge of Foxtel and FTA television profits.
You BET he doesn’t want the NBN.
But there are other uses for the NBN besides making movies or documentaries destined for a wide audience.
Writers can completely assemble learned works, text books, novels, or whatever they fancy on a home laptop and publish it via the internet, to be read on Kindles, or just with a browser.
Bye-bye Harper-Collins.
Citizen journalists can write about politics or sport, or cooking, or travel and publish their efforts from wherever they happen to be at the time of publication.
Another nail in Murdoch’s lumbering old-technology coffin: his domination of news.
His empire, based on control of several anachronistic means of production that only Big Money can presently provide – printed newspapers, bound books, cinemas, subscription television broadcast – is under direct threat from Labor’s NBN. It is a killer app, as far as Murdoch’s business model is concerned.
Publishers of all kinds of creative material will no longer need to pay the Murdoch ferryman for a ride to the other side of the river. The NBN is a bridge across that river, and its being built with public money, for the benefit of the public.
If Australia’s Labor NBN is built, other countries will be quick to emulate it, lest they be left behind.
*************************************
It’s not just Murdoch, and with him other publishing companies and television enterprises, that are threatened by an NBN.
Lazy Big Business movers and shakers, the pin-striped “bizoids” so beloved of the financial papers, too used to being similar large fish in the small Australian pond, as Murdoch is, will see their rent-seeking ways challenged as smaller, tech-savvy businesses go around them, under them or straight through them.
In my own area of expertise I can source metric standards from the internet, develop new software to crunch the numbers, create 3D emulations of the particular part, send a 30 megabyte “build file” via email off for 3D fabrication and have the a practical, working part in my hand in a week… without leaving my office.
Thousands of small businesses and creative designers are doing just this, right now. Labor’s NBN will permit hundreds of thousands more to join the bandwagon.
As parts and applications get bigger and their distribution to various fabricators becomes more intense, Labor’s NBN – eventually, with only modification to switching gear at exchanges, capable of many hundreds of times it current advertised speed of 100 mbits – will easily cope with this increased traffic.
By contrast, the Coalition #Fraudband, copper-based system, which may well meet current demands, will fall over within a few years, too clogged with the extra data to be effective.
Faced with the obsolescence of the “sheep’s back” as the national economic standby, the end of the mining boom, and the imminent desertion of Australia by international car makers, what does Australia have left to fill the manufacturing and technology vacuum?
Should we continue to bribe car manufacturers to stay here? Should we pass special laws to limit wage increases as a regressive way of increasing the profits of vested interests and their tired business models?
Or should be increase productivity and innovation, not just by tweaking outdated methods, but by inventing new ones, in many cases new approaches to commerce and industry that have been lying dormant, waiting for communications technology to catch up with them?
The NBN as a means of communication of ideas, as well as finished product specifications, without having to pay a tax to the business models of the past and their indolent proprietors, is simply a no-brainer.
Labor’s NBN will enable savvy entrepreneurs to go fully peer-to-peer, cutting out the middle man.
Of COURSE Rupert Murdoch, and his bizoid mates don’t want it to be built! That’s a no-brainer, too.
*************************************
The diversions now running in political argument – it’ll cost too much, Murdoch allegedly welcomes the NBN, Turnbull’s straw men of this morning where he argued like a slick lawyer trying to bamboozle a drowsy judge with tech-speak about nodes and insinuated obfuscations about who’ll charge more – are completely beside the point.
The only questions that need be asked of Labor’s NBN are:
1. Can we afford NOT to build it?
and…
2. How soon can we get it?
Labor’s NBN will be another world first, capable of almost infinite expansion, future proofed until the laws of physics are repealed.
The Coalition’s #Fraudband is already obsolete, before the first sod has been turned.
#Fraudband is perfect for Foxtel’s purposes, as long as there are few competitors vying with Murdoch to use it.
The #Fraudband model has room for only one Pay TV provider.
Labor’s NBN has room for literally thousands, from one-man-bands to small community outfits, even to languishing experiments like Fairfax TV (languishing because they can’t get the bandwidth necessary to put out high definition product).
With Labor’s NBN, Murdoch’s antiquated Foxtel model with its klunky hardware, contract-based sign-up protocols, and absolutely shithouse, canned American program content (Pawn Star Wars or Repo Men anybody?), will be just one of many enterprises going after the viewer’s dollar. The Big Fish will be reduced to a minnow among minnows overnight.
*************************************
Murdoch’s defenders claim that he’ll still be able to control Pay TV in Australia because his buying power will allow him to gobble up premium content… so why should he be scared of Labor’s NBN?
To this, I say: “Complete codswallop!”
Once Labor’s NBN is up and running, Murdoch’s tied programming and strategic buys won’t be worth a stamp, as by-passing his programming bottleneck, going direct to the originators, becomes a national sport.
Want to watch the BBC? Just log on to bbc.co.uk. Bugger Foxtel. Problems with BBC programming being tied to UK-only viewers? Use any one of hundreds of proxy servers to bypass it. And it’s not even illegal to do so.
Want to watch the footy? It won’t be long before the various football governing bodies realize where the real action is. And, to hurry them up, someone will certainly re-broadcast their best efforts straight off Foxtel, for free (and yes, for a time, that will be illegal… until Big Footy twigs that joining them is easier than beating them).
Make no mistake, Murdoch, already smarting from his disastrous investment in My Space, and his dwindling revenue from dead-trees newspapers sold in checkout queues, a laughing stock among his fellow board members in New York, doesn’t understand the power of something like the NBN… except for one thing: he knows it’s an existential threat to his entire empire. But as much as he can expand his own business, the NBN will allow other competing businesses to expand further and faster.
Commercial oblivion is staring Murdoch in the face.
The one remaining gold brick in his withering Australian operation, Foxtel, is about to turn into a lead balloon.
And if it works here in little Australia where he can buy and sell political parties and governments, imagine what will happen once other countries – where he doesn’t have so much influence – catch the NBN bug.
Ditto, and ditto again for the other lazy bizoid types who thought digging up dirt, making cardboard boxes, buying and selling property, money lending and a host of other tired old business models were a sinecure on the path to billions.
*************************************
Once ordinary people start talking to each other, by-passing the commercial Siegfried Lines of the past, so lovingly built on bribery of political parties with trifling donations that reap hundreds of times the investment… once this happens, the death knell of old business will be sounded and we, as a nation, can get on with it. We can lead the world.
Labor’s NBN is, therefore, THE key policy of this election.
Labor’s NBN links everything else together – productivity, innovation, manufacturing, communication, health, education, social interaction and national infrastructure.
It will allow new industries to burgeon in ways that have either not been thought of, or that haven’t been possible… until now.
Don’t listen to quibble-talk about the cost of this versus the cost of that, or whether asbestos in pits should veto national infrastructure development.
Don’t take any notice of Turnbull’s disgraceful and hypocritical lawyer talk about the details on page 45 of the third appendix to the NBN subcommittee report (or whatever piffling detail he’s using as a smokescreen on the day).
Take no notice – especially if you live in a regional area and are using the NBN – of Warren Truss’s dissembling about how no-one in regional areas has the NBN, or will get it in the future. They do and they will.
And, by the way, if you DO live in a regional area…
… consider the possibilities that the NBN will bring to your town as businesses either remain there, or migrate to it, to sample the delights of innovation in the beautiful environment you are so justly proud of. The Holy Grail of decentralization will be one of the NBN’s greatest benefits.
I say again: the NBN is a no-brainer.
That simple statement is all that Labor politicians have to say, to cut to the chase on this issue.
They have let themselves get caught up in the undergrowth of fear, uncertainty and doubt about costings, alleged pork barreling, and rollouts.
Labor needs to talk about the forest, not the trees.
“It’s a no-brainer” is all they have to say. You’ll be able to hear a pin drop as that simple concept sinks in, and heads start nodding eagerly in agreement.
Of all the prizes up for grabs at this election, the demise of the Murdoch empire via the NBN is the most glittering of them all. Two birds with one stone. Throw in the end of Abbott, and you’ve won the trifecta.
You only need half a brain to realize that.
THE PUB 
Meanwhile there’s this poll, where the ‘No’ vote has been slowly creeping up all day and is now No-55%, Yes – 45%. Oddly enough it started out 50/50 with thousands of votes registered as soon as it appeared. Rigged? Of course. But the voters for a decent Australia have been busy out-voting the Liberal spambots and Menzies House voting team to get the current result. Vote now, vote often.
http://www.theage.com.au/polls/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/coalitions-new-asylum-seeker-policy-20130815-2rzea.html?rand=1376604341752
BB, it is difficult to know how much of these msm articles and polls can be believed. However, Labor’s campaign is rat shit so far and is depressing to watch. It is even more depressing to think the party fell for the Mr Popularity’s ability to save some furniture so that they dispatched a bloody good leader. At any rate, Beattie is just a media tart with a very big mouth and the people of Forde might well be out to punish Labor for replacing the candidate who apparently was a hard worker – they may not have been willing to elect him but people are apt to take umbrage at his removal.
Jaycee,
No one wants the future, they want the past. Sadly. That is what they will vote for in droves.
A truly infantile government for a truly infantile nation.
A sentimental gesture for the LNP. machine…(sorry it had to be with such a nice song!)
The discussion of GD’s Mac OS problems is way more interesting than the sackcloth and ashes outpourings. And I run Windows!
Am reading the Stalking book.
Looking at the Pricesses’ lacklustre campaign I can only weep for what might have been. Policy is how to run rings around “Soundbite Tone.” Somebody better tell the princess to swallow his pride and beg Gillard for details of how she would have campaigned.
Two consolations if Tone becomes PM:
1. The myth of Libs being better economic managers will be shattered—and Costello will be mixed up in this via his botch–job Audit report.
2. The Milky Bar Kid will finally fuck off for good!
By replacing Gillard, the ALP demonstrated that they were indeed what they had been accused of being – an empty vessel.
I certainly hope that all the nervous nellies on fine margins are truly appreciative of the Great Kevin’s campaigning skills.
I am reminded of the South Park election episode.
Latika’s on the ball today. She’s spent most of the afternoon on Twitter telling Albo she’s “totes jelz” (that’s ‘totally jealous’ for the non-infantile) that he’s hosting Rage.
I’m not sure I’d enjoy watching an episode of Rage programmed by someone who uses words like ‘totes’ and ‘jelz’.
Does anybody else see this asylum seeker demonisation akin to the “Jewish Problem” fixated upon in the thirties? We have a minority group, mostly of a different religion, with different cultural habits, being portrayed as bludgers on hard-working Aussies……the only thing missing is the accusation that they are dragging “our” clean-living society down…oh!, wait!
Show me the positives Ducky.
From ALP supporters, all I’ve seen is snatching at Abbott’s gaffes, as if they weren’t what everyone expects of him now anyway, and a desperate plea for the press to look at the LNP costings, which didn’t happen until way too late last campaign and looks to be on the same trajectory on this one.
Three weeks left and the ALP campaign looks like a campaign for a local government election.
This might cheer us up – from Crikey. it’s locked, so i’ll post bits –
“The latest newspaper circulation results offer a grim reality check for both Fairfax and News Corporation Australia. Fairfax’s metropolitan papers continue to bleed sales, despite the shift to commuter-friendly compact formats. News’ biggest-selling papers recorded unprecedented double-digit circulation drops year-on-year. And monopoly status is offering no protection for regional papers, which are rivalling their big-city brethren for circulation declines……
…Fairfax Media recorded another poor quarter. The weekday Sydney Morning Herald was down 17% year-on-year to 141,699 and is now outsold by southern sibling The Age, which fell by 16.2% on weekdays to 142,050. The Saturday SMH (once overflowing with classified ads) slumped by 20.2% to 233,335; The Saturday Age fell by 14.7% to 203, 753. The SMH and The Age also shed copies quarter-on-quarter, showing any circ boost from the shift to compact was shortlived. Perennial under-performer The Sun-Herald fell by 20.4% and The Sunday Age slipped by 11.7%.
The Australian Financial Review fell by 6.8% to 66,220 on weekdays and by 14.7% on Saturdays (reversing an anomalous jump in the previous quarter).
Circulation for Fairfax’s regional papers also plummeted: The Canberra Times fell by 8.4% Mon-Fri to 26,153, The Newcastle Herald by 11.5% to 36,368 and The Illawarra Mercury by 15.7% to 18,229. Here are the average daily print circulation figures for the June quarter, compared to the same quarter for the previous year:”
And the best bit-
“It was almost as demoralising at News Corp: no wonder Col Allan has been shipped back from New York to wave his supposedly magic wand. The Australian fell by 9.8% on weekdays year-on-year to 116,655; The Weekend Oz slumped by 10.8% to 254,891. A full 19% of the Oz’s sales are still in the accommodation, airline, education or bundled categories (compared to 13% at the AFR).
Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph posted its first double-digit year-on-year declines: the Tele fell by 11.2% on weekdays to 310,724 and by 10.6% on Saturdays. The Sunday Telegraph shed 11.2% to 541,749 a week. It was almost as ugly in Melbourne, where the Herald Sun dropped by 10.3% on weekdays to 416, 027. On Sundays the Hun was down 8.2%.
Brisbane’s Courier-Mail declined by 8.8% to 173,095 Monday to Friday while Adelaide’s The Advertiser slipped by 10% to 155,635. The Hobart Mercury was down 7% to 37,419. Seven West Media’s West Australian was down by 8.7% on weekdays to 178,385 and by 3.8% on Saturdays. Here are the News Corp circulation figures:”
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/16/newspaper-circulation-results-shocker-the-contagion-edition/
Well, when the ALP replaced Gillard with Rudd they panicked. Unlike in 2010 when they removed Rudd because he was turning the place into the Rudd Appreciation Party. So right about now:
1. The public are registering their reaction to a party which panics
2. The ALP are stuck with Rudd, who’ll be a lot harder to shift this time
3. It would be a fair call right now to say the ALP don’t know what they stand for any more.
4. The newspapers very likely lied to us when they said we all wanted Rudd back – which wasn’t too hard to pick at the time
They’re the facts of the matter. What your standard ALP voter is to make of it is their business I suppose. I had a three year window where I was happy to say I was voting for the ALP – the first time I could say that since Keating. Now I’m back to voting against the Coalition. I’ve been off the Greens for a few years now, so that leaves a bunch of major parties at the bottom of the ballot paper for me. I’ll still go with stupid over evil – now that ‘competent and likeable’ is off the table it’s not nearly as interesting for me, though.
Thanks for the advice and help, slav g and Cliff. I’ve bookmarked these pages and will go back to them. I’m a bit weary of it at present.
” Labor has the policies that matter most.
If you are …disabled / carer.
unemployed.
manufacturer/ motor industry.
in education.
In technology.
In health delivery.,….and on it goes…the future awaits us…
ONWARD EXCELSIOR!”
Now write it out a hundred times!
Agree Aguirre….You MUST get back on the horse after the fall!….and if we were to lay the cards on the table…for ALL of us…they clearly show who is holding the policy aces and who is trying to bluff with a pair of dueces!
Cards on the table, Labor wins hands down…that is what must be displayed and the MSM,. who has the eye of your suburban punter is being derelect in duty if it doesn’t display the winning hand fair and square!
NDIS..= Ace.
NBN. FTTH. = Ace.
Carbon Trading. = Ace.
Gonsky. = Ace.
Four aces for a start….winner take all!
Bill Shorten @billshortenmp 12m
Pyne refusing to debate me at @PressClubAust on Tuesday 1230 – I will be there #BetterSchools
A good summary, Aguirre. I can’t disagree with any of it. I thought that was really the telling thing about the Gillard government: she gave the ALP something to stand for, which, under the spell of the NSW Right’s pragmatic populism had disappeared. I thought the values thing was the key point of the 2010 enquiry, and it was answered by that government. Now we’re back to media stunts.
Political Animal why do you think
I wish you were right, however in a previous incarnation he was known as Doctor Death, and his wife has a thriving business that can pump campaign funds into his occupational therapy – it’s a shame that Australian society has to suffer to satisfy his overweening ego
Well, I must say another absolutely hopeless week of campaigning by the ALP.
I have been out and about for my local member and if the ALP and Rudd don’t do something in a hurry they are going to lose worse under Rudd than they would have done with Julia Gillard.
I haven’t seen a more hopeless campaign since their abysmal last one, what ever they are paying their team it is about 95% too much.
And, for a master campaigner Rudd is being blown out of the water by the worse opposition in this country’s history.
bbbf,
So, you can’t see any positives? You must lead a miserable life.
If Labor wins Tone is history.
If the Coalition wins Kevvie is history.
See?
Any chance of getting Gillard back?
Say!..that’s a damn good idea for a political ad…:.Two people at the card table (one a saavy looking woman, one an evil looking villan with the Uhlmann smirk!)…a crowd around, playing for the home and family goods (perhaps the kids as well!)…He, smart-aleck like lays out a full house, Kings high and reaches for the kitty / child…she grabs his arm fiercely / protectingly and with the merest hint of a ‘Mona Lisa’ smile lays down four aces..each with those policies on them……Oh!.. the look on his face!
The Princess won’t want to be LOTO for 3 years.
Newspaper circulation and content used to be a big topic of interest for me. I don’t care any more. They’re all dying or dead. It’s a pity, because if they’d concentrated on quality, proper analysis and differentiation they might have continued to have a product worth buying. But instead they’ve reduced themselves to foisting opinions on people and sensationalising everything they touch. You can get that crap from TV, and you don’t have to walk down to the corner to get it.
At the rate they’re going, they’ll have to fold. They’ll never make any good money out of their online content – too much diversification and free product out there as it is. The one big thing that’s happening to people is that news has become pervasive, and there’s an optimum amount that your average person doesn’t want to go beyond. So they’re shrinking from news where they can. As they do, it expands in increasingly desperate efforts to meet them. There are news programs all over TV nowadays – you get it shoved down your throat from 5.30am right through the morning, again with afternoon half-hour or hour services, and then acres of the stuff after 5pm. Half an hour a day, plus a little read of what you’re interested in, is plenty for any one person.
I’ve long learnt that I don’t need to be informed beyond a certain point to know what’s going on. News is really only 5 minutes of useful information, and 25 minutes of blather. I’m being generous there. You can learn all the news you need in about 3 minutes per day. But they’ve cleverly hidden that three minutes in hours of opinion, ‘shock’, opinion, ‘colour articles’ opinion, repetition, and more opinion. Given the choice,many people prefer to remain uninformed than wade through that lot. And I say good on them.
Newspaper proprietors will never give us what we need – the information and power we need to make our own informed choices. Therefore, we don’t need them. They’ve probably figured that out by now, but because they are all insane they keep doing the same things over and over trying to get a different result.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-16/bourke-rudd-must-give-voters-a-reason-to-back-him/4892936
Rudd must give voters a reason to back him
By ABC’s Latika Bourke
Posted 7 minutes ago
Unlike his predecessor, Kevin Rudd still has the ear of the Australian public. But he just has to get his message right by reclaiming Labor’s legacy and casting doubt on an Abbott Australia, writes Latika Bourke.
Hello!….Latika Bourke’s farts are hankering to be noticed!
Final Candidate list is up
http://aec.gov.au/election/who-are-the-candidates.htm
I remember newspapers in the 70s—looooong articles, real in depth stuff, was worth buying and reading the papers! Nation Review and National Times my Sunday reading. For a long time I bought the weekend AFR, alas not any more.
[National Times]
Lot’s of facts with the opinion clear to the reader.
Missed.
Where’s the fri night raffles?…I’l have 15, 50 and 62.
and pour me a creme de menthe!….w/ twist of lime!….and a platter of proscuitto pics!……and a side dish of water crackers and Roqueford cheese!………………………please.
Jaycee
I haven’t heard anything but got your numbers down for if and when it kicks off
I’ll suply the music….
Remember this one Watty?
There’s a new FRIDAY NIGHT RAFFLE thread up, and comments will be closed here shortly.
I only read the occasional newspaper in a cafe.
Oops. Look at, I mean. There is nothing worth reading in them.
Looking at that clip…some people are shithouse at housework!
Well, I guess we could say ” how sad it has come to this ” fold our tents and go home knowing that ” this too shall pass “. I know it’s how I feel. But I can’t. Not just yet anyway. I still have to generate hope…in myself and, with luck, others.
Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Pliny the Elder
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_hope7.html#Oosw4qO6ASxsqoYe.99
Six months ago most of us were in awe of a remarkable red haired woman. We basked in her strengths and marvelled at the accomplishments of the team she captained. Genuinely, we mourned her demise at the hands of those so much lesser than she. Trite as it sounds, her legacy is worthy of our very best defence.
We can’t organise a coherent, forceful repudiation of the Abbott, Hockey, Pyne lies and spin. Yes, we can, and do, piss off some Libs on twitter and blog sites but that’s more about having fun than anything else. We wont change a vote.
Every now and then, as we blaze the trail of our lifes journey, we have a bit of a smoko, relax and look around. Sometimes we see trees. Other times…forests. On sad occasions niether, just the angst of tears, the shards of bitterness and defeat. But, always, we recognise the strength of the resolute man and woman. You’ve seen them. Might have been a ringer sitting at the bar of an outback pub, the young nurse making sure you’re comfortable, the loner enjoying a remote sunset or the quiet proud smile of a parent at the school sports day.
The strength they exude springs from the well of hope that all have, but many have sealed over. The inate knowledge that hope, along with courage and the resolute will always defeat lies, spin and manipulation.
When you’re next asked why you vote Labor….open the well, smile, then say…. Abbott lies.
Why the F**K did Rudd mess about with Carbon Pricing? …all he succeeded in doing was give credence to Abbott’s cost of living attack …as soon as I heard that ridiculous brain-fart from the messiah …I thought WTF has the ALP done…
Yesterday’s outright act of stupidity was to endorse the crazy ideas of Gina Rhinehart & her plan for a separate Northern Australian economy…. I was absolutely gob-smacked by that demonstration of Rudd panic…For many it will raise concerns that he is returning to announcing grand schemes/ideas that he won’t follow through with …just like he did before…
I’m rusted-on Labor …but I’m certain …more certain than before it happened …that rolling Julia was a fatal mistake & an act of desperate panic…
Tony Abbott will be our next PM …and the blame can fairly & squarely be laid at the feet of Kevin Rudd & his scheming/treacherous fuckwit “cardinals”…
The damage he has done to the ALP is another reason his nickname of “Dr Death” is so appropriate…