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. This Bob Baldwin retiring thing – been thinking – his electorate, Paterson, has been redistributed and is now marginal Labor. Baldwin was re-selected in February, he knew about the new electorate boundaries then. So what made him suddenly decide to retire?

    Liberal polling in Paterson must be really dire. That’s all I can think of. There was a thought he was so angry about the redistribution he might try another electorate, but so far, he hasn’t followed that option.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/blogs/liberal-party-need-bob-baldwin-to-win-redistributed-seat-of-paterson/news-story/8d9e6053dc3453a4e3174d4a17c1fb4a

    I suppose we will just have to wait and see what happens when Waffles finally summons up the energy to call an election.

  5. I don’t suppose Flint knows he has just said a “minor minor sin”.

    Professor David Flint, who is a friend of Ms Bishop, told AM she had done a good job in parliament, but it might be time to move on.

    “She was certainly a very vigorous and strong member of Parliament,” he said.

    “There is a time, of course, when we all have to move on from our positions.

    “She will be regarded very highly within the community, notwithstanding a minor peccadillo.”

    As for the sentiment …

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-16/bronwyn-bishop's-fate-set-to-be-decided-in-preselection/7332016

  7. Bleeping Greens.
    The Greens have announced their immigration/refugee polocy.

    They want asylum seekers processed in Indonesia or Malaysia and then flown here once their refugee status is determined. Funny that, because the Greens voted down Labor’s plan to have refugees flown here from Malaysia because – among other trumped-up reasons – Malaysia was not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention.

    Malaysia and Indonesia are still not signatories to that convention.

    Malaysia’s immigration law does not recognize asylum seekers or refugees. The government is not a party to the Refugee Convention. It takes no responsibility for the education of refugee or migrant children, and does not give refugees legal permission to work.

    The Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants law conflates trafficking and people smuggling and fails to meaningfully protect victims of trafficking. In 2014, the United States government demoted Malaysia to tier 3 in its “Trafficking in Persons” report

    https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/malaysia

    How asylum seekers get to Indonesia and Malaysia to be processed is not a concern of the Greens. Neither is what happens to those who are not found to be refugees.

    The Greens senators also voted against Labor’s Bali Process Bill, in 2012. This bill would have opened up the use of off-shore processing in countries that were part of the Bali Process. The Greens didn’t want a bar of it. Now these self-serving hypocrites want to do the very things they voted against.

  11. Hi All

    Has joe6pack given his views on this truckie RSRT matter? If so can someone plse post a link. If not, joe would you like to tell us your views from a truckie’s pov?

  14. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/16/police-intimidation-claimed-in-building-unions-complaint-to-ombudsman

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3542804/David-Cameron-not-30-seconds-PM-voters-Brexit.html

  15. Listening to BBC Australian Proms: Last Night of the Proms.

    Since my first live orchestral concert (SSO under Dean Dixon in 1964), all I can say is that the quality of orchestral playing in Australia has increased exponentially.

    • The best orchestra here, in my opinion, is the Tasmanian one, at least as far as recordings are concerned.

  25. I’d like opera much more if they all just shut up and let me listen to the music.

  26. It should be interesting to see if B.Bishop accepts this defeat and resigns, or decides to recontest the seat as an independent.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see her vote % be in single digits in that case.

  28. Gone to the big chopper in the sky…

    BuzzFeed Oz Politics
    Just now ·
    BREAKING: Former speaker Bronwyn Bishop loses Liberal party pre-selection to Josh Falinski 51-39.

  29. Leone,

    These days, a really good production has it all – brilliant singing, orchestral music, acting, and sets. In my view one of the superb artistic experiences.

    A wooden production, on the other hand, is deplorable.

    I’m off to see La Bohème in early May, and must remember to take plenty of hankies. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it – live or on screen – but I am guaranteed to break down at the end.

    • Every ‘great’ opera has an aria that everyone knows and likes, even if they have no idea what the words mean. Everyone loves ‘Nessun dorma’ and ‘Au fond du temple saint’, but how many people know what is really going on? I have quite a list of favourites, and I do know what the words mean, but I find the warbling in between the famous bits pretty intolerable at times.

      Once, many years ago, I watched La Traviata on TV, with just a Siamese cat for company. She enjoyed opera and ballet, a very cultured kitty, and she really seemed to get into the plot, so much so that by the end she had developed quite a nasty cough. As Violetta sang her final duet with her lover and slowly died the kitty coughed more and more. She was perfectly OK when the opera had ended. I put it down to an excellent and emotional performance.

  30. Bronnie can now fade off into the sunset with her taxpayer-funded pension. We will be paying to keep the old bat in luxurious retirement for the rest of her life, and she will probably live until she’s 110, just out of sheer spite.

  32. Puffy,

    If you ever have the chance to see the ballet La Bayadère I strongly recommend it, given your bloodthirsty instincts!

  33. Good to see that the preselection council in Mackellar has some sense – but what if some higher power intervenes? After all, she voted for waffles . . .

  35. It took four counts to get the Mackellar decision.

  38. There go all the free tickets to the opera, and the taxpayer funded limos to performances.

  40. Leone,

    Every ‘great’ opera has an aria that everyone knows and likes

    If you count Andrew Lloyd Webber as a ‘great’ composer of ‘great’ ‘operas’ I’d agree with you – except as far as the ‘and likes’ bit is concerned.

    I disagree about many other operas, however. Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, Richard Strauss (just to mention four) wrote operas that have delights all the way through – again, in my opinion. There are other composers of opera who leave me cold most of the time.

    However, as you wrote earlier, wtte, we don’t have to share the same tastes. Probably a good thing if we don’t – otherwise I’d never be able to afford a ticket to one of my indulgences!

  45. Plus whatever taxpayer-funded appointment Waffles finds for her. The position of Age Discrimination Commissioner will be vacant soon, Susan Ryan has nearly finished her term. Bronnie would be salivating at the thought. After all, she did say she should stay in parliament as a spokesperson for oldies.

  46. Terrorists around the world have breathed a collective sigh of relief at the demise of Bronnie.

  49. For some weird reason I would not be entirely surprised if she doesn’t do a valedictory.

    Laryngitis, perhaps?

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