Silly Saturday

Fiona Uncategorized

My imagination has failed me.

All I can suggest is a Silly Saturday, where we can share ridiculous things from our youth, or middle, or older, age.

Or not, as we choose.

405 thoughts on “Silly Saturday”

  1. Melbourne pro-Trump rally outnumbered by police and counter-protesters

    Far right United Patriots Front and True Blue Crew demonstration at Parliament House draws just 40 people rather than the predicted 1,000

  2. Ben Sandilands (“Plane Talking” blog) looks at Michael Gilbert’s updated theory of what may happened to Malaysian Airlines MH370.

    MH370 researcher updates alt+pilot flight crisis scenario:
    https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2016/11/19/mh370-researcher-updates-altpilot-flight-crisis-scenario/

    Revised MH370 research brings in a known 777 control issue:
    https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2016/11/19/61415/

    How it could have all come undone for MH370:
    https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2016/11/19/come-undone-mh370/

  7. Discussion back there about Andre Rieu bringing people to classical music.
    My own introduction to classical music was via the Stones’ “She’s a rainbow” with that delicious little piano solo in the middle by Nicky Hopkins. I subsequently realised that back in the day they used to write music that sort of sounded like that & investigated.
    “A white shade of pale” was an influence too.

    • For me all music is connected. Having a bit of knowledge of the ‘serious’ stuff gives a better appreciation of everything else.

      I think the reason I don’t care for Andre Rieu’s brand is that he presents nothing new. I don’t want to hear the same old things over and over. Some people might love that, might like what is familiar, might enjoy clapping along at his performances, might not mind that his performances and DVDs are just the same old limited repertoire repeated again and again. That’s not for me.

  8. Jaycee…..freefall852
    Glad you got the book, hope it’s of some use to you. I bought it at Glenrowan some time in the middle ’70s ,it’s lain around since then & it’s obvious I’ll never read it now, so I hope you do.

    • Yeah…It’s got some details of peripheral events that had effect on further actions later in the escapade..Thanks again..I keep it by my side to read in bits and pieces .

  9. Scary as – the thought people with money think The Witch From The North could win government in Queensland.

    Jamie Walker at the Oz reports Melbourne property devel­oper, Bill McNee, is one of the major bankrollers of One Nation.

    [McNee’s] company, Vic­land, funded a year’s rent on One Nation’s headquarters in Brisbane as part of a donation package worth nearly $70,000, financial returns filed with the Electoral Commission of Queensland show.

    He stumped up at a critical time for Senator Hanson last year when she was rebuilding the party from scratch, helping lay the platform for her return to federal parliament at the head of a team of four in the Senate.

    Confirming his financial support for One Nation yesterday, Mr McNee said: “We wanted to be involved if they were to take government in Queensland. That was the basis of our decision.”

    One Nation is likely to be a key player in the next Queensland election. McNee had wound back donations after reportedly donating $150,000 to the Liberals and $70,000-$80,000 to the ALP since 2014

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/nov/21/turnbull-government-negotiations-parliament-coalition-high-court-politics-live

  10. New union to challenge ‘shoppies’ after massive wages scandal

    The SDA has played an important role in social and moral debates, slowing the progress towards same sex marriage and opposing abortion and euthanasia.

    But the recent wages scandal has badly damaged its reputation in the labour movement and among its members.

    For five years Michael Johnstone has stacked shelves and helped customers at Woolworths in Brunswick where he is also an SDA delegate.

    He says he was disappointed to discover his union was actively opposed to same sex marriage. That disappointment deepened when he read that SDA-negotiated agreements had left his colleagues underpaid.

    Mr Johnstone said he had already sounded out many workmates about joining a new union that stood up for members. “There’s been a lot of positive response. They understand that no worker should be worse off under new union agreements.”

    Mr Johnstone said the SDA leadership had for decades resisted demands for change. “It’s now in the hands of the workers. They now have a choice.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/new-union-to-challenge-shoppies-after-massive-wages-scandal-20161119-gsszlr.html

    • They sound like the old ASC&JofA (Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners)…a bunch of no-hoper RW “union” spivs..I have a story writen many years ago..one of my first attempts..at a “sordid affair on the Job” that involved that “union”..boss’s crawlers they were..I wrote a piece of abusive doggerel and sent it to head office, if I recall…
      I might try to dig that story out and give it a re-write..just for the social history of it.

  20. The flock of currawongs that have been caroling here for the last four hours are making more sense.

  22. The Member for Capriconia has a lovely bright outfit. Mesma could learn from her. The LNP guy talking now has one awful illfitting suit. Stitching puckering everwhere.

  27. Not only was Dutton being extremely offensive to our Lebanese community today, he was also dead wrong.

    He seemed to think people of ‘second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background’ had been allowed in by Fraser.

    Rats to that.

    I can’t speak for the other capital cities, but I’m very familiar with the Lebanese community in Sydney and I can tell Dutton that immigration from Lebanon began long before Fraser. Lebanese immigration goes back to the late 19th century. The ‘second and third generation’ people he refers to are more likely to be fourth or fifth generation Australians of Lebanese descent. A lot of them are not Muslim at all, they are Maronite Catholic, if they have any religious affiliation at all. This bastard has inferred that all people who are recent immigrants from Lebanon or are of Lebanese descent are terrorist.

    In giving the answer, Dutton said it wasn’t fair to define the majority of one group based on a small minority. But by naming the group, he has just defined them

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2016/nov/21/turnbull-government-negotiations-parliament-coalition-high-court-politics-live#comment-87879090

    I’m sick to death of Dutton and his filthy lies and manipulations, designed only to stir up hatred.

    • I don’t think there ever was a plot to be lost.

      They just make crap up on a daily basic, usually to cover up for the catastrophy caused by the previous lot of crap they made up.

      Lurching from one stuff-up to another, that’s our government.

  32. Deserves a full post imo.
    ”
    An open letter to The Australian, regarding their coverage of the 18C debate.

    I write to you from a bunker in Tasmania, too afraid to step outside my door as a 50-something white man of some means, worried that the Human Rights Commission will see me and bundle me in a van.

    Presumably they will issue me with several 18C lawsuits and wrap me and my family in red, or heaven forfend, green tape. Maybe they’ll even make me Not Say Really Racist Things.

    But seriously, being a straight white bloke in Australia certainly isn’t getting any more difficult. Not that this fact is often made clear in your newspaper, especially in your coverage of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Which is why I’m writing to you today.

    Honestly. Give it a rest.

    Crikey recently calculated that your newspaper has dedicated around 135,000 words to this topic. Bill Leak has managed to draw 20 cartoons about himself.

    Were one to read those 135,000 words aloud, it would take more than 17 hours to get through them.

    That’s longer than the duration of a flight from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth. Imagine someone banging on about the same topic for an entire long-haul flight. That’s how tedious it is to pick up a copy of The Australian these days.

    Your newspaper is now that drunk uncle at Christmas lunch who no one wants to talk to because he gives unsolicited opinions about ‘New Australians’ and ‘women these days’.

    Interestingly, 18C has not led to the mass incarceration of racist uncles. Perhaps you should ponder that conundrum when you’re tucking into your Christmas lunch.

    Maybe, just maybe, you could deploy your newspaper’s considerable resources and very capable journalists into more coverage of other issues.

    Here are a few suggestions:

    How 2016 is likely to be the warmest year on record and what that means for Australia
    What to do about rising inequality
    How we could better treat asylum seekers and refugees who have sought Australia’s protection
    The need for more investment in productive infrastructure
    But it’s not just the volume of words that prompted me to write this response.

    Your coverage of this issue has been biased and self-serving.

    The sheer vituperation and malice with which you’ve attacked your imagined opponents in this debate, particularly Gillian Triggs, has been shameful.

    You have used your editorial columns as a bully pulpit.

    Indeed, your newspaper’s previously admirable coverage of indigenous affairs has been literally whitewashed by a bunch of blokes who seemingly just want to use racist slurs without consequence.

    You have cherry-picked a few cases to pretend that freedom of speech has disappeared, and that yours is the sole voice of reason in a world gone mad.

    If you were actually the warriors for freedom of speech that you have styled yourself as, you’d be campaigning for a Bill of Rights, defamation reform, abolishing the secrecy provisions of the Border Force Act, and banning SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation).

    Instead, the continuing presence of Bill Leak at your paper, not to mention your publication of the frightening eugenicist views of Gary Johns, make it clear that freedom of speech on race issues is under no serious threat at Holt Street, Surry Hills, or anywhere else in the country.

    If you doubt this, spend a few minutes checking out the comments on one of Pauline Hanson’s Facebook posts.

    Best,

    Nick McKim
    “

  39. Jonathan Green, on some angry right-wing men pinching the name ‘Outsiders’ for their little show on Sky.

  40. ” Mesma is wearing fake snakeskin fabric”…. We will ALL know that LNP hubris has peaked the day Mesma struts onto the house floor like it’s a Dior catwalk , dressed in a skin-tight red lame and leopard spotted outfit wearing a Armani brooch with a “rock” in it as big as the Ritz!

    • A sad and dismal set of circumstances..a shame on Oz….a disgrace on Oz…We as a nation are JUST NOW starting to climb out of a gutter-past treatment of the indigenous peoples to now descend BACK into the morass of racist slander and humiliation…a shame..a crying shame.

  44. Dutton not going down well –

    Peter Dutton Just Linked Terrorism To Migrant Grandchildren
    The Immigration Minister has stepped up his attack on Malcolm Fraser’s immigration legacy.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/11/21/peter-dutton-just-linked-terrorism-to-migrant-grandchildren/?ncid=fcbklnkauhpmg00000001

    Peter Dutton Linked Terror Related Crime To Third Generation Migrants
    Dutton doubles down.
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/dutton-doubles-down?utm_term=.ccKlGkN25#.goppx5W7k

    Dutton failed to mention how many of those 33 people arrested for terrorism offences were eventually released with no charges laid against them.

    It’s like the alleged CFMEU offences – they all fell in a heap but have been useful to a dog-whistling government that loves flinging around accusations but keeps schtum when it all comes to nothing.

  49. The fat lady has sung

    The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party’s Philip Donato has won the Orange byelection after a recount of preference distributions in the New South Wales electorate.

    Donato took the seat by just 50 votes ahead of the National’s Scott Barrett after riding a wave of disenchantment with the state’s Baird government over issues such as the aborted greyhound racing ban.

    The result comes after the former Nationals leader Troy Grant stood down in the wake of the byelection, following an unprecedented 34% primary vote swing away from the party in the previously safe seat, which it had held by a margin of 21.7%.

    A recount was granted by the New South Wales Electoral Comission {sic] and was carried out on Monday.

    Donato, a police prosecutor, won with 18,593 votes to Barret’s 18,543 and will become the party’s first MP in the state’s lower house when he is officially sworn in.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/21/shooters-party-wins-orange-byelection-by-50-votes-from-nationals

    Greyhounds must be more newsworthy than local government amalgamations.

    • Orange is now the most marginal seat in NSW.

      Shootin’ and Fishin’ idiots are just as bad, if not worse than the Nationals, but that’s what you get when the electorate is full of brain-washed country bumpkins.

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