You know, Obi, the last bloke who likened himself to “the Father”, well, let’s just say things didn’t turn out so swimmingly.
Now unless you actually do have sons (unlikely), saying shit like this makes you come across as an egotistical socialist douchebag, just like it did with the last guy.
“The first bill I signed — a bill that said that we’re going to have equal pay for equal work because I want my daughters treated the same way as my sons.”
It need not matter that the current GOP primaries contenders are merely attacking each other rather than also attacking Obama.
He’s doing a good enough job of that himself.
*Many teleprompters died to bring us this information.*
Via JM Heinrichs who notes, “Obama is not at all smart/articulate.”
So some senior Japanese politician has apologised on NT soil for the Japanese bombings of Darwin in the second world war.
OK, that’s fine I guess.
But was it really necessary?
It was 70 frickin’ years ago, done to and by people who are mostly long gone or enjoying their senior years eating cat food.
This apology doesn’t change my feelings towards Japan one single iota.
I still love them, can’t get over how neat and clean the place is, give thanks for all their electronics and cars and Samurai swords, and still think they’re kind of crazy… but in a good way.
Rather than give an apology that has about as much relevance to 2012 as this link, why not do something concrete like devoting more than two pages of school history textbooks to WWII?
Two pages that basically say, “Yeah, there was a war and we lost.”
When I lived in Japan, I made more than a few jaws drop when I told Japanese friends at the time about some of the stuff they actually did during WWII.
They didn’t know because that period has been completely whitewashed.
Not that I really give a shit anyway for reasons stated above.
It’s like former PM Kevin Rudd’s vacuous apology for the mythical Stolen Generations.
Not just because of a lack of media reportage, but also that it’s cold in Melbourne in summer.
Despite being 39C the other day, Melbournians are now having to crank their heaters as snow molly coddles the edges of the city.
In summer.
Yet…
How can this possibly be seen as a win for the “sceptic” mob?
It’s summer and there’s snow.
In Australia.
I’ll be very surprised if the Al Gore goon squad don’t jump all over this like black plague fleas jump on your tasty ratburger.
They will say that this is that mythological tipping point they’ve been scaring the crap out of children with for years.
And now they have their proof.
Rather than celebrate…
Brace.
All this, however, will not freeze my hot juicy… my Bacon Castle.
*Tell that to school kids still being made to scribble global warming posters.
What I think is the most brilliant lesson here is that, yes, climate changes. It gets cold sometimes. I gets hot sometimes. And thank fuck people who are better than you or me (it’s “me”, not “I”) came up with heaters and air-conditioners…
…Lest you freeze or melt your dumb ass whilst hugging a Prius or any other dumbass fingerbang-the-planet vehicle…
We get $470 mil spent by Indonesia on Russian war planes.
We get thousands of illegal boat arrivals that come from Indonesian ports.
And we get PM Gillard and Foreign Minister Rudd, busy trying to fuck each other, actually, effectively, lining their pockets and instead fucking Australia.
Jizya:
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah (Arabic: جزية ǧizyahIPA: [dʒizja]; Ottoman Turkish: cizye; both derived from Pahlavi and possibly from Aramaicgaziyat[1]) is a per capitatax levied on a section of an Islamic state‘s non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria. The tax is/was to be levied on able bodied adult males of military age and affording power,[2] (but with specific exemptions,[3][4] From the point of view of the Muslim rulers, jizya was a material proof of the non-Muslims’ acceptance of subjection to the state and its laws, “just as for the inhabitants it was a concrete continuation of the taxes paid to earlier regimes.”[5] In return, non-Muslim citizens were permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to Muslim state’s protection from outside aggression, to be exempted from military service and the zakat taxes obligatory upon Muslim citizens.[6][7][8]
Well?
Our “aid” money is being spent on fighter jets. And not American fighter jets, but Russian fighter jets.
OK. OK. So in a sense, that’s a good thing. After all, they’re Russian fighter jets that would have their arse handed to them by an F22 or F35.
But that’s not the point is it, my darlings?
Our “foreign aid” is a crock and is effectively pumping up the Indonesian military, a military that is doing jack fuck all to help stop illegal immigration not into Indonesia – oh, no, no – but into Australia… via Indonesia.
And all Julia Gillard can do is tax the fuck out of us thanks to mega deficits created by the most wasteful ideas a government has ever sprogged, and all Kevin Rudd will do is come up with names like “spanky Banky“.
Actually, I’ll give him credit for that one coz the UN sucks even more (despite the fact that Kevni wants to suck it even harder – somehow – by leading it).
Yet meanwhile, Australia keeps getting its BBQd ring hole handed to it on a trashy made-in-Indonesia paper plate.
Efforts by the EU to save the planet are resulting in emancipated seals.
It involves lawyers.
Horrified by mental images of baby seals being clubbed to death by merciless Inuit, the EU a while back banned all seal products being imported (even from countries states within the EU which technically means those products aren’t being “imported”… but anyway).
This earth-saving gesture did not only destroy one industry in Greenland – the baby seal clubbing industrial complex – but it also wrecked havoc on the fishing industry, a not so trivial pursuit for people who live on a freezing island with bugger all animals and bugger all in general… except fish.
And ice.
And I hope someone is sending them tartar sauce.
Not killing seals equals more seals which equals less fish.
Bad luck if you’re a tartar sauce magnate.
But where the Tabasco really starts to get pumped down the dickhole, is that the progressive EU has also signed various scraps of toilet paper affirming indigenous peoples’ rights (seriously, who the fuck isn’t indigenous on this planet?)
The Danish commonwealth (Denmark owns [the Danish own] Greenland’s arse*) is legally bound to protect, in essence, the baby seal clubbing industrial complex but it can’t because the idiots signed up to the EU which banned the baby seal clubbing industrial complex run by indigenous peoples whom the EU are also legally bound to protect, and by “protect”, we mean allowing those said Inuit to continue their time-honoured – sacred? – tradition of clubbing baby seals.
*Do you fucking get it yet???
You’d think the polar bears would just eat the seals, but remember, they are endangered.
And not even polar bears want to live in Greenland.
Thus, efforts to save the planet have resulted in precisely… lawyers.
And people unemployed.
And starving baby seals.
And on this day, the planet did not give a single fuck.
Because it’s a planet. It’s a rock with shit growing and living on it. But a baby seal and a lawyer are not planets.
Or sentient.
Look, I “get” the warmy argument. Life is fragile. Most planets can’t possibly hope to support life.
We fart and all life will discontinue its existence here too.
Except is hasn’t in literally almost the entire 4.3 billion year existence of this planet.
You love nature? Nature is all powerful?
Fine.
And be rest assured that if it needs to, it will wipe us all out and not a single lawyer or politician need apply for that job.
But life hasn’t been wiped out, and we are thriving better than ever.
I dunno – and let’s run with that mindset if only for a brief moment – maybe that’s Gaia actually telling us we’re doing a good job.
Or maybe, I dunno, we should be more concerned about a giant flaming speeding meteor (that’s what an asteroid is after it enters our airspace) than a fucking trace gas that occurs mostly naturally and is actually fucking essential to all life on this planet.
I digress.
Denmark?
Ditch the EU, club baby seals, airlift polar bears if you want to, and stop picking up soap in the world’s jail.
(Thanks to Nilk for the unintended, perhaps, inspiration)
*Chronic weather may be, but acute weather is not climate.*
Having just spent an hour or so watching the New Hampshire GOP Republican debate, having gleaned various tidbits over the internet since a while back, I can honestly say I don’t know.
Yet.
In comments at that link, Ron Paul’s supporters come across as a tad too fervent, as does Paul himself. He just comes across as a bit whiney. Quick to complain about a problem but a bit wishy washy with any solutions.
Romney arguably won, but he comes off as Obama-lite+religion. He’s big government but I will say he’s tending to own his opponents. He does look presidential and has the establishment’s backing… not necessarily a good thing when up against Obama who REALLY has the Establishment’s backing and REALLY (at least) talks presidential (except here where he sounds about as formidable as Julia Gillard).
Gingrich came off well but he failed to seize various moments – a knack Romney is a master of – and that, overall, made him less memorable. However, he really did come across as knowing the issues (and solutions, direction that should be taken) better than the rest, but he just couldn’t quite clinch it.
Perry sounded good and almost seized opportunities as well as Romney, but I’m not so sure America is ready for another Texan president.
Santorum: the other front-runner at the moment. Hey did OK. Didn’t seize on Romney but did identify more clearly than others that Iran is a big deal now whether you want it or like it or not. But like the others, except Romney, he kowtowed to the panel and failed to define himself properly.
Huntsman came across as more philosophical without adding any qualitative substance. He kept identifying issues without ramming home what he’d do about them. He came across more like a dictionary or Wikipedia than anything else. He explained in detail what we already vaguely knew.
They all had some good things to argue yet none of them wiped the floor.
So time will tell, and we have a few months, to who will actually seize the nomination.
Three points.
1: They are still debating, being scrutinised, still sorting it out, so don’t fall into any pundit’s trap of egging on any one nominee just yet. That is folly and akin to gambling on a horse in the Melbourne Cup when it’s the only bet you make each year.
2: Any one of them will be a better choice than Obama who thanks to these debates is finally, sort of, being scrutinised himself, if not BY the main stream media, at least ON the main stream media.
3: The nominees have proved stronger and more worthy than the MSM and the Right blogosphere have led me to conclude thus far.
UPDATE
Although Romney’s narrative may not have been the best, the point is he managed to iterate it better than the others, despite whatever question was posed.
*
