Felicitations Friday!

Fiona Uncategorized

Memrise

This is definitely a knees-up Friday.

Another grandchild for BK

Party City

Another brilliant post from Bushfire Bill (and equally brilliant renaming thereof)

Amazon

Another unbelievable week from this agile, innovative, exciting regime that seems to be losing its wheels at a smart clip

Car Crash

More than high time for a good carouse (and I will finish marking the assignments tomorrow).

220 thoughts on “Felicitations Friday!”

  1. At this ‘sad’ moment in Australian politics I think it is only fair to remember the ‘vast’ list of achievements brought about by Bronwyn Bishop in 22 long years in the federal parliament.

    1- The introduction of Kerosene Baths for elderly residents of nursing homes,

    2- A tenure as speaker of the house of reps widely acknowledged as the most partisan, chaotic and dysfunctional in living memory,

    3- An appearance in front of signs describing Australia’s first female PM as a witch and a bitch and,

    4- An infamous helicopter ride that has gone down in history as one of the most egregious examples of entitlement and wastage of tax payer money.

    This ‘impressive’ list of accomplishments was achieved in only 22 years in the parliament.

    If only she was given another term in office. Imagine the great things she could of achieved for the Australian people.

    Truly a political ‘giant’

    What a terribly sad day for this country. 🙂

    • Stony,

      I’ve been trying to decide whom the most reviled Federal MP might have been. I still think it might be WM Hughes, but bronnycopter /broomhilda /dame kero sure gives him a run for his money.

      (Note my care to excude state MPs – too many there!)

  2. Fiona,

    I am too young to remember Hughes but from all accounts he was utterly hopeless.
    Bronwyn Bishop certainly belongs at the top of my list.

    I don’t think i’m overstating when I say her tenure as speaker in particular was one of the darkest periods for democracy in this country.

    She will be able to console herself with the knowledge that her utterly ineffectual and nasty reign as member for Mackellar will give her a hefty pension to live off at the expense of everyday people in this country that she spent her career trying to shit all over.

  4. Stony,

    All I can say is that Billy Hughes had a longer tenure in fed parliament (I still suspect jwh was trying to outdo him).

    That said, bronny was, is, and always will be, a nasty piece of work.

    I wish her many a long and warm to tepid kerosene bath in her golden years.

  5. Love it!

    The Sweat and the Furrow was Silas Weekley being earthly and spade-conscious all over seven hundred pages. The situation, to judge from the first paragraph, had not materially changed since Silas’s last book: mother lying-in with her eleventh upstairs, father laid-out after his ninth downstairs, eldest son lying to the Government in the cow-shed, eldest daughter lying with her lover in the the hayloft, everyone else lying low in the barn. The rain dripped from the thatch, and the manure steamed in the midden. Silas never omitted the manure. It was not Silas’s fault that its steam provided the only uprising element in the picture. If Silas could have discovered a brand of steam that steamed downwards, Silas would have introduced it.

  6. I adore classic crime fiction.

    If I had a desert island choice of author, I’d be torn between Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey.

    They are both superb writers.

    I particularly love Tey’s spareness.

  9. This quote from Bishop has a real sting in its last line; it explains the contempt that her ilk have for the great slice of society that is not able to exercise the choice and privilege that she enjoys…

    ““History showed me that the world had two groups of people: firstly, it had those who were part of the decision-making process and actually had some say in the direction that the nation in which they lived took. The second group of people were those who had decisions made for them.”

    • The stupid fool could not see that the situation she described was a result rather than a cause…the first lot had siezed power and were exercising it..the second were waiting opportunity to overturn the former…Bronwyn must now be so much the wiser for personally experiencing BOTH examples!

  10. Good morning Dawn Patrollers. A bit late this morning – and slim pickings to boot

    This is the sort of man our Treasurer is.
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/scott-morrison-to-share-australian-christian-lobby-stage-with-antigay-extremists-20160415-go7k3e.html
    Stephen Koukoulas introduces some of those pesky things, facts, to the debate about taxing.
    http://thekouk.com/blog/election-facts-which-side-taxes-the-most.html
    The conduct of our SAS troops comes under investigation. Not a good look as Morrison’s Toy Soldier pooh poohs the allegations.
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australias-elite-special-forces-being-investigated-over-disturbing-stories-of-conduct-and-culture-20160416-go7wuh.html
    The seven sacred cows of Australian politics.
    https://independentaustralia.net/article-display/the-seven-sacred-cows-of-australian-politics,8891
    Another Liberal war casualty.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bronwyn-bishops-career-over-after-her-party-dumps-her-20160416-go8180.html
    Peter FitzSimons on the $5 note and other things.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/cringeworthy-moment-putting-queen-on-new-5-bill-20160414-go6z9e.html
    Charles Waterstreet on the onset of old age.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/waterstreet-life-nothing-is-gentle-about-going-towards-that-good-night-20160415-go7vbb.html
    It’s time for Turnbull to follow Victoria’s lead on domestic violence.
    https://newmatilda.com/2016/04/14/victoria-is-taking-the-lead-on-domestic-violence-its-time-for-turnbull-to-follow/
    Mark Knight on Channel 9’s motives regarding Beirut.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/5df5791d85892d741345e773624bcea4?width=1024&api_key=zw4msefggf9wdvqswdfuqnr5

  12. Maybe with all the time Bronnie has now available she could have the seventh go at her law degree.

  14. BK

    I guess the slim pickings will be made up for tomorrow, I think it will be full on until the budget from now on. Thanks again for all your efforts, we really appreciate the work entailed.

  15. Barnaby is in a spot of bother. Demanding changes to Hansard is a bigger issue than an embarrassing character assessment.

    Taxpayer funds used for legal fight to keep embarrassing Barnaby Joyce email secret

    BUREAUCRATS have taken legal action to hide an embarrassing email about acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce until after the election.

    The department of agriculture said yesterday it would go to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to keep hidden an email it had been ordered by its own watchdog to hand to the Herald Sun.

    The move means the email, written to Mr Joyce by then department secretary Paul Grimes, will not be handed over, as the Information Commissioner had ruled.

    Instead, it will be the subject of expensive legal wrangling funded by the taxpayer.

    The Herald Sun sought the email using Freedom of Information laws, after Dr Grimes wrote a robust character assessment of Mr Joyce late in 2014. He later sought to withdraw it, but the damage was done and he was sacked by then PM Tony Abbott.

    The department has kept the email hidden from public scrutiny for more than a year.

    It was written after Dr Grimes became angry about his staff being drawn into “Hansardgate’’, a political stoush that erupted after Mr Joyce’s staff changed Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings.

    The changes disguised an incorrect answer Mr Joyce had given on drought funding.

    It’s paywalled.
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/taxpayer-funds-used-for-legal-fight-to-keep-embarrassing-barnaby-joyce-email-secret/news-story/5402d931c6cbfc9835595e6a3db76890

    • Another one for the ‘They really thing we are stupid’ file.

      The members of the Press Gallery seem to have memories that make goldfish look like panel members of ‘Eggheads’.

    • I see a more insidious motivation..I see collaboration, be it out of sheer stupidity or from ideological bias or financial gain, the deceit is no more than the measure of their betrayal of the nations interest…I call ; treason!

    • “their betrayal of the nations interest”
      .
      Damned right it was. They obviously consider loyalty to Murdoch and Gina far more important than loyalty to Australia. Fetch me my tar, feathers, pitchfork and flaming torch !

  17. Someone should direct Lenore to Poll Bludger. Then ask her why mere ‘civilians’ picked all that up and demolished the Coalition’s houses of merde in “real time” whilst she and her ‘expert’ colleagues acted blissfully unaware ? They weren’t of course, just demonstrating how putrid the press cesspool is.

  20. Reason it out..: The likes of Albrechtson and Kenny et al NEVER argue their point with articles on a social media outlet, if they did they’d get torn to pieces for their bullshit!..Then again ; take away their employment and wages they get from Murdoch and i would guarantee they would fade from the news / commentary scene, giving rise to the presumption they are only in it for the money…AND THAT..is exhibit “A” of their treason…; They are only doing Murdoch’s wishes for the money and if you deliberately collaborate to demoralise the nation and undermine democratic governance for payment FROM A FOREIGN NATIONAL…you are a traitor to your nation…case closed ; no argument!

    Never forget, never forgive.

  21. Thanks for that Lenore Taylor quote, KK. That’s the kind of thing we’ve been talking about for ages. Contemporary political commentary differs from hindsight commentary in that it’s… well, I was going to say deliberately blind but that’s not strictly true. It’s more a matter of where it places its emphasis. Distinctions in policy approaches are set aside in day-to-day reportage, and the focus is only on who ‘wins’ the political rhetoric battles. That environment obviously favours a political party that spends all of its energy and time on strategies, slogans and smears.

    People like Lenore get excited when a slogan cuts through, or a coordinated attack puts a politician on the back foot.. Because they find the question of ‘who gets to make the decisions’ more fascinating than what those decisions might consist of. They’re aware of the effect on the economy, jobs, infrastructure etc. They just don’t care much about it.

    So really, Lenore’s not being disingenuous with her quote above. It’s just that she only thinks those achievements matter when the ALP are in the ascendancy and can use them to sell themselves. At others times, they’re of no interest to her.

    Journalists have no morals. None of them do. They’re only interested in what’s ‘in’, what’s newsworthy, what they can sell to readers.

    • “Journalists have no morals. None of them do. ”
      .
      I like this alternate name for journalists – presstitutes.

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