Freedom Friday

Fiona Uncategorized

(Image Credit: Freedom Counseling Center)

Mid-spring, and already it feels like early summer. With a strong El Niño now underway, those Pubsters who dwell in the colder (during winter) states may have seen the last of the winter chills for a while. From one perspective, it is nice to be free of shivering in the ice house where I live; on the other hand, the prospect of extreme heat doesn’t entice either.

What other freedoms are worth noting this Friday? Well, there’s the (comparative) freedom from football of various descriptions, in Australia, at least. As I’m not a passionate follower or a passionate loather, I’m pretty much indifferent. However, my commiserations for those of you suffering withdrawal symptoms, and my congratulations to those who can now enjoy respite for a few months, or weeks . . .

My personal freedom is that the lease on my mother’s flat ends at midnight tomorrow night. The cleaning is just about done, there are a few small items to remove, but otherwise that’s that.

The other freedoms to be celebrated this Friday evening are the freedom to enjoy each other’s friendship, to play our favourite music, to be the life of the party or to relish quietness. Freedom is so precious, and we are lucky that one of the freedoms we seem to excel at is the freedom provided by our toleration of each other.

So, feel free to make yourselves at home at The Pub and to do what you will this evening (within the bounds of toleration, it goes without saying)!

(Image Credit: Country Place)

719 thoughts on “Freedom Friday”

  2. joe6pack

    Welcome home.

    You haven’t missed a thing, really. Some rich bloke reckons he has his money hidden in the Cayman Islands so he can pay more tax here and the MSM seem to be lapping that up, but otherwise, same old same old.

    I’m looking forward to your synopsis.

  3. Joe6pack,

    Both your hounds have special insights. which could be revealed.

    However, an alternative arrangement is possible . . .

  4. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/devolution/2015/10/heart-left-head-right-contradictions-inside-snp

    http://honisoit.com/2015/10/whats-next-for-adam-goodes/

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/15/what-do-the-industries-slated-for-penalty-rate-cuts-have-in-common-women

    http://www.nature.com/news/teeth-from-china-reveal-early-human-trek-out-of-africa-1.18566

    http://blog.longreads.com/2015/10/14/i-would-rather-be-herods-pig-the-history-of-a-taboo/

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/qilt-website-league-tables-under-fire/story-e6frgcjx-1227569138980 no paywall

  5. A post from Darn over the road. How bat shit crazy deluded are the RWNJs ?

    I tuned into comedy central again this evening on 3aw. Steve Price and Andrew Bolt were asking their listeners to nominate who would be more understanding of the needs of ordinary working people, Malcolm Turnbull or Bill Shorten. All of them nominated Turnbull.

    But the laugh of the evening came when one of the listeners asked the hosts who they thought would best understood working people – and both of them said Tony Abbott.

  6. Kaffeeklatscher,

    How batshit crazy deluded?

    To the extent of being unable to distinguish between feet of sand (or, at best, clay) and a person who went to Beaconsfield pretty much as soon as the mine disaster happened, and did not leave until the two survivors were rescued and being cared for appropriately.

    But then, Pricey’s and Bolty’s listeners will nevah evah be in the position of miners, because that job is (oh dear) beneath them – because they are too old, and before that couldn’t have endured the danger, or the sheer hard yakka of that job.

    I don’t have great credentials to criticise, but I have scrubbed toilets and floors, and then polished those floors, for money (no, not at home) in my time.

  7. Welcome home Joe. Good to have you back.

    Away for an hour: dogs fret, bark and slather.

    Away for a week: dogs go crazy.

    Away for a month: They’ve never seen you before in their lives.

    It’s nothing personal. It’s how dogs, and not echidnas, got to be Man’s Best Friend: the ability to swap best friends when the need (and the feed) arises.

    Makes it easier to go away next time, too.

  9. Bushfire Bill,

    Disagree.

    My darling Imp was beside herself when we collected her after eight months at the vet’s (when my parents were away on their Eurasian adventure). That was even though she had been part of the vet’s extended family.

    She was just so glad to be home: explored the entire place, then before I went to bed had ensconced herself where she had always slept – until (as previously) turfed out to her own little kennel by my parents when they retired.

    That was a pretty good move. She had a sneaky habit of snuggling up, so that I would move to accommodate her, until she had almost the entire bed to herself.

    Next experienced when DD shared our bed for the first 15 months of her life. I know many people disapprove of “co-sleeping”, but it worked brilliantly for us – in that we all managed to get some sleep . . .

  10. joe6pack,

    Welcome back to Oz, now deemed generally to be the backside of the world.

  11. Kaffeeklatscher,

    Wouldn’t it be bliss to put a pick-axe into both sweating pairs of hands and see how they’d survive in a road gang for a week!

  12. My comment on The Musketeers which started tonight.

    The first episode was very true with a few bits of humor that those in the know would appreciate.

    Very good, ABC BBC.

  13. I’ve already seen all of The Musketeers (2 seasons so far) on Foxtel. It is outstanding.

  14. I hope all those deluded people who thought Turnbull would change government policy and save the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of coal mining are feeling like proper idiots tonight.

  16. The hippie wanderers return !…How was life in San Francisco?..did they really wear flowers in their hair?

  22. Mark Kenny indulges in some wishful thinking – did anyone really believe Turnbull would be any better than Abbott?

    Voters ready for change under new PM Malcolm Turnbull, poll finds

    The 1407-strong online survey found that even those voters who identified as Liberal supporters mostly want to see Mr Turnbull overcome a reluctant party room to enact more humane asylum seeker policies, get going on marriage equality, strengthen the response to climate change and the take-up of renewable energy and to lift funding to schools.

    Across all voters, the results suggest Mr Turnbull would have majority public support for progressive policy changes, even where internally he would encounter major, potentially career-limiting problems from changing course.
    Asked if he should take “stronger action” even in the face of internal opposition, 55 per cent of voters said yes to more humane asylum seeker policies, and 76 per cent backed improved schools funding

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/voters-ready-for-change-under-new-pm-malcolm-turnbull-poll-finds-20151014-gk9h8l.html

  23. More wishful thinking – and Labor won’t help, even though a Labor government got us involved in this protocol. Labor, to their shame, supports everything this government is doing. The secrecy, the inhumane treatment, the forced returns, the whole horrible lot of it.

    Medical bodies call for all places of detention to be opened up to scrutiny
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/16/medical-bodies-call-for-all-places-of-detention-to-be-opened-up-to-scrutiny#comment-61496455

  25. I am going to raise the issue of food and food consumption tonight…so all you “foodies”..sharpen your little grey utensils for a topical discussion on volume v’s taste.

  26. A great piece of work by some Egyptian artists on the set of the Homeland episode just aired. They had been hired to write graffiti in arabic on the set which was supposed to be a Hezbollah run refugee camp. Unfortunately for the producers they were part of a group of artists who object to the stereotyping of Arabs in the series. So what was actually written all over the set were things like “Homeland is Racist” and “Black lives matter”..

  30. This was nice. Peter Wicks of Jacksonville (and Lawler Creek) fame saw a post I wrote across the road the other day and says “Thanks”.

    Wixxy is one of our great journalists. It’s just that he doesn’t work for a “reputable” outfit.

    Good on you Peter, and “Thanks” back.

  31. Yes, Quentin Dempster did say that, on 22 November 2014.

    The noted casuist Malcolm Turnbull has said the incoming prime minister’s pre-election statement that there would be no cuts to ABC or SBS has to be taken in the context of his and Joe Hockey’s prior warning about efficiency at the broadcasters. Tony Abbott said unequivocally and unconditionally: “no cuts to the ABC or SBS”.

    A casuist is a person, especially a theologian, who attempts to resolve moral dilemmas by careful distinction but ultimately false reasoning.

    In the Australian vernacular that means: Bullshit. Malcolm Turnbull is a bullshit artist.
    I remember him once promising never to tell a lie to the Australian people.

    Let me recalibrate this .. Malcolm Turnbull is a bullshit artist … who has now compounded Tony Abbott’s lie

    https://www.alliance.org.au/quentin-dempster-s-abc-rally-speech

  32. Hadley has taken up the cudgels on behalf of Turnbull’s Cayman Islands investments.

    He’s saying Labor is attacking Turnbull “for being rich”, and for no other reason. Everyone has a bit of luck (“Including me,” says Hadley), including presumably the luck to engage an accountant who knows someone in the Caymans.

    “Labor are a bunch of duds and clowns, and Bill Shorten is a dud and a clown,” he goes on.

    Remember: Hadley doesn’t like Turnbull one little bit.

    If they’re prepared to get Hadley – a known Turnbull hater, right down to the way Turnbull wears his collar in that “Eastern Suburbs wanker” fashion – spruiking the brilliance and righteousness of investing in the Caymans to his pensioner listeners, who are about to see their incomes reduced by a government led by Turnbull, and who daily are told they are welfare bludgers and leeches on society in the Tele, then they must be pretty scared of Labor’s attack.

    I stick with my prediction that in the long term it won’t wash. Every time some new tax measure is imposed on the poor, or every time some tax advantage is given or maintained for the rich, the punters will wonder why they are being instructed to love Turnbull by their hero Hadley.

  33. The Press Gallery are rushing to defend Turnbull and accuse Labor of class warfare, of desperate tactics. They have missed the point, yet again. Remember how they dismissed Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech? Remember how they wrote up Kathy Jackson as a hero? And of course, they just adored Abbott and excused every act of lunacy, telling us almost up until his dethroning that he needed a bit more time to ‘grow into’ being PM. They didn’t understand that all of us, no matter how we vote, hated him and had realised long ago that he was not up to the job at all.

    Annabel Crabb apparently wrote some piece of crap the other day begging Tony to stay because she would miss him if he left parliament. I can’t say anything about it because I don’t read Ms Crabb’s giggly, immature scribblings. But it’s about what you’d expect from the PG. Standards lower than a snake’s belly.

  34. BB

    Such a nice thing for Wixxy to do, and what you would expect. He is a true journalist, unlike others I could name.

  35. I’m really quite happy with the way this Turnbull/Cayman Islands thing is turning out. We’ve not only got the Liberals and almost the entire media flat out telling us that the ALP line of questioning “base” and “shabby”, but they’re taking every opportunity to tell us that it’s not working.

    It means they’re worried.

    It also means they’re keeping it in the spotlight. They’re doing most of the ALP’s work for them. Everyone’s talking about why it’s ok for Turnbull to keep on being fabulously wealthy by off-shoring his money. The ALP merely raised the topic, and now the press gallery can’t stop talking about it.

    The reason is that Turnbull’s explanation is threadbare, and won’t survive unless there’s heavy support and some return fire. But then all the press gallery can do is keep shouting “so what?” “class envy” and “broke no rules!”. That’s not nearly enough from the same team who hounded Gillard with endless cries of “questions to answer!” long after she’d answered all of them.

    They know it’s tarnished Turnbull. What we’re seeing this week is mostly sandbagging.

  36. Just wait until the government decides to cut the deficit by raising the GST and bung it on everything. There’s a whole election campaign right there – pensioners have to pay 15% extra for their fruit and vegies while Turnbull avoids paying tax by stashing his millions in off-shore tax havens.

    No wonder the MSM is worried.

  37. Over the last few weeks I’ve been following the Canadian election, mainly because Lynton Crosby had been hired to help Stephen Harper’s campaign, and his fingerprints are clearly visible given that the tories have been using dog-whistle tactics and wedge politics on the niqab. However today it has been revealed that he has abandoned Harper, perhaps he knows a sinking ship when he sees one.

    http://thinkpol.ca/2015/10/15/lynton-crosby-abandons-harper/

  38. Crosby is a vile person. Here the UK , Canada wherever he goes it is dog whistling and demonising the poor on a national scale. The sort of person that almost makes one wish there was a hell.

  40. Aguirre

    Yes, the lib mp on 774 in the wrap with Faine, was scathing about Labor on this. If the rest of the media is like this, I’ll be interested in any poll that asks the questions to the public. Note, there have been no online polls about it, at least none that have been posted on my twitter line.

  43. Aquirre

    Do you really think that “the entire media” are so opposed to Labor that they would be “worried” that Labor might look good on this and so go into overdrive to condemn them? It was Labor who brought it up so the facts should be given by the commentators. I think a lot of people here and on PB are showing they are genuinely unaware of the realities of overseas investment, or muddying the waters in desperation. Labor is not looking good on this, there was never much chance that it could IMO.

    I was in a wrap account, as a great many of Australians are, and I noticed -with some concern at the time – many years ago, that a fund I was in was registered in a known tax haven, and it was a major fund. It is not clear that there is any tax advantage either. Since then it seems that if you wish to invest overseas, most likely the fund you choose will be domiciled in some tax haven. And you do this with your eyes open, and give consent. Whilst some higher-risk funds are only open to individual “sophisticated” investors with large deposits, they are open to all members of the wrap accounts for small $ values. And I think many in self-managed super funds would also access the same funds directly. Remember the Australian stock market is tiny in global terms. Only a fool would confine his investments to Australia. Example, the Future Fund.

    I fear that Labor has shot itself in the foot, big time. Not everyone, except a few here, are wrong on this. And it may be pivotal.

    Yes, it may “frame” Turnbull…you know slinging mud at him although they and we are all doing the same thing (admittedly some in default funds may not be aware of this). But this is usually a pretty poor tactic for Labor, and to do it right now, just when Abbott had departed the scene, was abysmal timing. Turnbull will be enhanced by all this.

  45. 2gravel:

    Yeah, that sounds like more of the same.

    I’ve long given up on any idea that the political media are in the business of balanced analysis or even strict reportage, and I never approach political articles in that way. You don’t find independent thought from the press gallery – what I mean by that is competing opinions, different viewpoints on a given issue. All you get are variations on a particular ‘message’ delivered by editors.

    This week’s one is “the ALP are wrong to question Turnbull’s financial arrangements: discuss.” They’re free to riff all they like on that theme, but they’re not allowed to depart from it. So there’s regret, vehemence, dismissiveness, ominous warnings to the ALP, bile, ennui, partisan messaging dressed up as logical analysis, but they’re all delivering the same message.

    There’s really not much point in saying “How can journalist X say that?” Journalist X has been paid to say that, and it just trying to find a way to say it that compromises their reputation the least.

    The major task of social media is not to beg journalists to write more accurately, but simply to point out where they’re wrong and keep saying it for as long as possible. Posit facts as a viable alternative to the PR we’re being delivered from mainstream outlets.

    It wasn’t that long ago I believed that newspapers could be salvaged in the social media age, by raising their quality and providing specialised in-depth analysis. If they offered something not available by scanning blogs and checking out Twitter, they could find a market. They’ve gong the other way, though. They’re huddling closer to their sources and backers, and demonstrating much more willingness to tell the stories they’re told to publish.

  46. Journalists are employees , they do what they are paid to do. Many are in the top 1-2% income bracket. Combine that with the shrinking MSM and you can be sure they will work extra hard to please the business owners so as to maintain an income far above what they would likely earn outside planet MSM.

  47. Lovey – we’ll just have to see what happens.

    An important point was raised recently on this issue (can’t recall where I saw it now). Nobody who likes Turnbull does so because he is rich. The days of forelock-tugging to the wealthy are long gone. Now it’s more of a neutral factor, unless said wealthy person looks to exploit his wealth or take advantage of loopholes to create more wealth for himself, in which case he’s seen as a bit of a prick.

    People like Turnbull because he is seen as something of a progressive or moderating force within the Liberal Party. They’re attaching a lot of societal aspirations to him. The party turned to him specifically because that image could be exploited. They don’t approve of progressivism per se, but they’re happy to see it exploited to keep them in power. With Turnbull they can have it both ways. They’d much rather be popular with more of an Abbott type, but that option isn’t available right now.

    Politics is perception. And this week the perception of Turnbull as “man of the people”, as progressive force, has had some of its facade stripped away. He’s one step closer to “just another bastard from the Right”.

    Re this:

    Do you really think that “the entire media” are so opposed to Labor that they would be “worried” that Labor might look good on this and so go into overdrive to condemn them?

    Yes. If they thought it wasn’t an issue, they’d laugh it off and ignore it, just let Shorten shout into the void for a while. Of course they’re worried. And they’re worried for the exact reason you’re dismissing – the concern that Turnbull will be permanently smeared as a ‘tax avoider’.

    Ineffective ALP messages barely even see the light of day. This one has been opposed with all the might of the political press.

  48. Bill will do Malcayman, methodically and relentlessly, just as he did with Tony. I enjoyed watching him stalk and take down Abbott and I have the popcorn stocked for Turnbull.

    It should be a hoot.

  50. A damned good rant at Scrote Moralscum in the comments section of The Kouk’s article in the Guardian.

    Morrison is just another example of an overly ambitious, self important, yet startlingly obtuse and limited-of-intellect parasite, suckling from the public teat whilst kicking and screaming in an ideological tantrum at all those not in his narrow minded, happy clappy church of bigots at every opportunity.

    This is a man who believes he is a policy guru because he ‘stopped the boats’, meaning he directed our national navy of high tech warships to intercept and either turn back rickety fishing boats full of bedraggled and desperate women, children and men, pay off the fishermen captains and crew to do so or bundle those same said people into cramped and expensive orange life craft, point them north and then care less of their fate from then. A child, a nasty, hateful, psychologically damaged child could have come up with that act of policy barstardy.

    In fact, one or two basically did, namely the lickspittle Morrison and his cretinous leader Abbott, two of Australia’s most small minded, intellectually limited and bigoted politicians in modern Australian politics.

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