Blot Gets Testy

I’ve been banned from Andrew Bolt’s website more often than I’ve had hot dinners, but either “banning” is temporary or he doesn’t have the resources to actually keep a record of those banned.
Given the drivel he posts, it would be a very long list.
Every now and again I get posted, and am usually abused roundly by his acolytes who obviously inhabit the feral end of the political spectrum. For these lost souls, Andrew says “jump” and you know the rest. Other references to the pre-ordering of excremental colour will be well understood by ex-soldiers.
It is amusing, and helps to pass the time.
Sometimes, some brave soul has a go at him, and occasionally – just occasionally, he responds. These responses are always shouty (bold) and often border on the apoplectic.
He doesn’t take well to disagreement – does our Andrew. His appearances on “Insiders” are characterized by the curling of the lip, aggressive body language, and frequent put-downs of the other panel members.
For your amusement see below. This is a sequential extract from a response by a brave soul called Naomi on one of Bolt’s (or is it Blot’s) rants about the stolen generation.
I’ve also included my post – which of course was snipped – but there’s a screen shot. Click on the image to enlarge.
The funniest part is how his spelling and grammar degenerates in the face of debate or disagreement. Or maybe the timing was significant. It was Saturday, and the typos could have had post-prandial origins.
Anyway – here it is. You won’t see it anywhere else.

Noami’s post –
The suggestion that no child was taken from a family who loved and wanted to protect him or her is an absolute denial of reality.
The only fraud I can see is that fact that you are called a journalist. I looked through a few of your previous columns where you have focused on Manne’s refusal to name ten names off the bat as an indication that ten children were not taken primarily because they were Aboriginal.
That he returned to you with some 250 names apparently was not considered. Instead, you appealed for help establishing that 12 of those cases were cases of neglect. Manne did not “fail” to answer you. He gave you a considered response which you basically ignored.
This is only one instance of your inability to engage in a discussion about the Stolen Generation in an informed and considered way. Your refusal to engage with the evidence before you on a meaningful level is not only blinding you to the fact of what occurred, but is patronising to your readers.
Just another thing - the idea that the “myth” of the Stolen Generation has left Child Protection workers reluctant to take away Aboriginal children away for legitimate reasons does not sit well with the fact that Aboriginal children in Victoria at 13.5 times as likely to be in out-of-home care if they come to the attention of Child Protection [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, January 2010, p 46]
If I had the slightest inkling that you would actually like to engage in this debate, without childish arguments or a desire to actually debate, it would be worthwhile to systematically demonstrate every point at which you can be contradicted with evidence.
Naomi (Reply)
Sat 30 Jan 10 (01:54pm)

Bolt’s shouty reply – (Note the spelling/typos) -
Your first sentence is completely false. I say and suggest no such thing. Your second is just silly abuse. Your fourth is false - I’ve dealt with that several times, pointing out the list comprises children deemed by a court to have been neglected, children who’d been found sexually abused or suffering from sexually trams,itted diseases, and children who’d actually been evacuated (often with their parents) from the Northern Territory during the World War Two air attacks by Japan and had been later returned. Your fifth and sixth sentences are false, as are mopst of the rest. (In fact, I’ve quoted instances where children were left in dangerous - and somethings lethal - danger specifically because of fears of repeating the “stolen generation. The cases include the notorious one of a raped girl at Aurukun removed from her white foster parents by social workers citing the “stolen generations” and returned to her town, where she was pack-raped again.)
Please do me the courtesty, and truth the respect, of checking my claims before immediately assuming they are false.
If you really think Manne has provided as many as 250 of the names of children stolen just because they were black, please just give me just 10 of the names you think best contradict me. Just 10.
If you cannot, will you return and apologise?
Andrew Bolt
Sat 30 Jan 10 (03:34pm)

My censored comment (See the screenshot).

Naomi
Not only does Bolt demonstrate an inability to engage in debate on this issue - he censors anyone who disagrees with him, with a few exceptions (such as yours), which provide him with an opportunity to vilify.
The "Show me 10" argument is a complete red herring, as he knows that publicly naming anyone removed is legally perilous.
The scary part is that given the fact that he often loses it (in terms of spelling or keyboarding)
- trams,itted
do me the courtesty
somethings dangerous
these responses are obviously the product of indignant anger.
How dare anyone disagree with Andrew?
Cour-testy indeed!

Update
I posted another comment - see screen shot (censored of course). Naomi may enjoy it if she reads it. Meanwhile my post has attracted a vaguely piratical comment from someone called whitlam (lower case). Not censored - of course.

If you can't be bothered enlarging the screen shot, my comment reads -
Naomi
This won't of course be posted, but I can capture the screen shot for my blog - where it will be. I admire your courage, just as I deplore Bolt's cowardice and reluctance to engage on this issue. This person wouldn't recognise journalism if it jumped up and bit him on the bum.
And he still hasn't fixed his typos.
It must have been a long lunch.....

Possum Magic and Accommodation

I don’t usually use this site as a rental agency, but one of my sons needs to sort his accommodation hassles pretty soon.

Two people out of four he’s been sharing with have taken up out-of-Brisbane job offers at short notice, and left him and another guy with a lease on a house. The two of them (both twenties – both students) are looking for two others (of either gender) to share a four-bedroom house in Buranda in a quiet street near the PA hospital.

It’s a two-up two-down situation, (bedrooms that is) with a deck out the back and great access to bus and train. Fridge etc is already there. The deck is good for barbies.

Neither are smokers nor have vices that would make sharing accommodation problematical, unless computer gaming (with benefit of earphones so as not to disturb the neighbours) is an issue. Both are studying multimedia. They’re both pretty nerdy actually.

Rent is $220 per fortnight, with electricity and internet not included.

There is garage space for one car.

Pictured is another tenant – the resident possum.

He camps during the day in a space downstairs at the back of the house and doesn’t carouse at night – seriously. I’ve stayed there a few times and slept soundly, without a peep from the possum. Except for his tail being visible in the daylight, you wouldn’t know he was there.

If any Brisbane readers are interested or know anyone who might be, email me on 1735099@gmail.com and I’ll relay details to son.

Flagging Loyalties

I wonder when we will be mature enough to have our own national flag – a flag that doesn’t symbolically kowtow to another country?

We are, after all, one of very few counties in the world that appropriates someone else’s flag as part of its own.

In the case of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 independent sovereign states, besides Australia, only New Zealand and Fiji are still attached to the symbolic apron strings.

Fiji has the Union jack on its flag – but then Fiji was suspended from the Commonwealth on September 1st 2009, so maybe it doesn’t count.

The question needs to be asked. Why is the Union Jack on our flag? Sure, we were settled/colonised (use whichever term causes least offence) by the British. But that was over 220 years ago, and the world has changed a bit since then.

I doubt that the majority of Australians see the symbolism of the national flag as a high order issue. The only time it’s flown by Joe average is on Australia day, and often the way it’s done (wrapped around a boozy Bogan or stuck in the door frame of a ten year old Commodore on a Made in China marketing exercise) does no-one any credit.

My ancestors are Irish. They came over in the 1860s, driven from their native land by a combination of famine and British indifference. I feel no loyalty to anything or anyone from blighty.

I feel more affinity with the traditional Irish song Foggy Dew, about the Easter Rising of 1916. An extract –

“Oh the night fell black and the rifles' crack Made perfidious Albion reel".

Not much loyalty expressed there.

The English, after all, reneged on the Treaty of Limerick of 1691, which ended the war between the Catholic Jacobite forces and the English loyal to William of Orange. The terms of this treaty were relatively favorable to the Irish. Catholics were given freedom to worship, own property and carry arms.

The English went back on their word in the Penal Laws of 1695, and the Irish were treated as second class citizens for centuries.

Why would I feel any loyalty to them?


My preferred flag is on the title page of this blog. The Eureka flag represents an authentic proud and courageous response to tyranny.

It's good to see Ray Martin agreeing with me. Thanks Ray.




I’d rather resist than kowtow.

And then there’s the current dreary national anthem…… “Song of Australia” (tune of “Waltzing Matilda”) beats it hands down.


I know which one I’d rather march to…..

Ma and Pa Kettle?

For a number of years now I’ve been working what could be considered a second career after retiring from full-time work in 2005.

I find that for the moment at least I need the challenge and stimulation of paid work, and despite the other things I enjoy, because I’m not obliged to anyone else but myself to see them through to a conclusion, I often get bored with them. This is true for blogging, as much as anything else.

As well, these other pursuits tend to be solitary. I need to work with people in a team – I always have, and it’s hard to shed old habits.

The only downside to the part-time work is that it takes me away from home for days at a time, which leaves my bride at home by herself, because all the kids have flown the nest.

Whilst she doesn’t mind this, we’ve always looked for opportunities to work together.

One has come up, and we’ve grabbed it with both hands.

We’re a bit fortunate. As products of the seventies, when the Education Department took already qualified teachers offline for a year and trained them in post-graduate qualifications in specialised areas, we both have these qualifications and between us seventy years of experience.

My area is physical impairment, my wife’s visual impairment.

Given the enormous difficulty in filling these positions in the bush, we’ve both now been signed up as itinerant specialists supporting schools west of here.

At this stage, my bride works only two days a fortnight, but I’m hopeful that she will warm to it and be prepared to take on more. I’m happy with five days per fortnight.

If we organise it properly we will be able to travel together, thus saving the agency quite a few dollars in vehicles and accommodation, even if at this stage it will be only one job in three.

On the occasions when we work together, the question “How was your day?” will become redundant.

Having said that, whilst we’ve been married thirty-three years, we’ve never actually worked together.

Could be interesting……

I’ll keep you posted.

Hedge Trimming – Vietnamese Style

There's a fascinating story coming out of Vietnam at the moment.

Luong Hoai Nam, a senior Vietnamese executive from Jetstar Pacific Airlines, was arrested on January 7th in connection with the loss of $34 million US dollars when some fuel hedging transactions went badly wrong. Qantas subsidary Jetstar Pacific is majority owned by State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), an investment arm of the Vietnamese government.

In addition, two Australians, Qantas executives Daniela Marsilli and Tristan Freeman have not been formally charged but were forced to spend Christmas in Vietnam and are still prevented from leaving the country. They apparently were involved in the transactions which are the subject of an enquiry.

It’s doubtful that the story would have made the Australian media if locals hadn't been detained, and the involvement of the Australians doesn’t get a mention in the report in Vietnam Net.

For those of you (like me) who are either bored or disinterested in the shonky carryon that masquerades as high finance these days, this explanation by Henry Blodget writing in Slate might be helpful. It’s interesting that it was written in 2006.

The article is called - Risky Business The real reason for the latest hedge-fund disaster.

An aggressive trader places risky bets, gets lucky, and makes himself and his bosses rich. The bosses, eager to keep the gravy train rolling, let the trader make bigger, riskier bets (and, in this case, give him a reported $75 million to $100 million bonuses nd his own personal trading floor). To head off concerns that they are taking big chances, the bosses extol their risk controls and "multi-strategy" expertise. Then the trader makes some huge, risky bets, gets unlucky, and loses $6 billion in a few weeks.

So basically, extravagant risks are taken with other people’s money, and sometimes it all goes bad.

I love the spin the Australian has put on the Vietnamese story -

But there have been suggestions the arrest may be part of a wider backlash from old-school communists unhappy with the partnership with private enterprise.

If by “private enterprise” they mean the freedom to throw away hundreds of billions of hard-earned Dong*, then I too must be “old-school”.

Having lost a six-figure sum in the last twelve months in my (very cautious) super investments, as a result of the GFC, I’m old-school enough to suggest that it’s not OK to take risks with other people’s money, and when it all goes pear-shaped, to pocket your bonus and skedaddle.

I’m a lot better off than the poor sods who were caught in the Storm Financial scam – but then I wasn’t looking for extravagant profits, nor was I taking much risk. Nevertheless I was caught in the collapse, as were many other self-funded retirees. My balances are heading up again, but I doubt that the shonks (most of them on the other side of the Pacific) have taken any pain.

I’ve flown domestically (Vietnam Airlines) quite often in country. They come across as a very professional outfit, and their fleet is state-of-the-art and pretty new – mostly Airbus A321. The only exception was a trip from Da Nang to Hue on a rather noisy ATR 72. Maybe all ATRs are noisy.

There’s a great deal of money to be made catering to Vietnam’s burgeoning tourist industry. The Vietnamese are easy going, hard working and very entrepreneurial, but they can’t abide shonks.

The action of the “Communist” administration of Vietnam is quite instructive when it comes to dealing with crooks. They could teach a thing or two to governments in this country and the USA as to how to handle “masters of the universe” who lack any form of moral compass.

It’s unfortunatel that a couple of Australians were caught up in it. Having said that, iIf they behaved ethically they won't have anything to worry about.
*1 AUD = 16887.9871 VND - 09.01.10

A Whale of a Time

The current controversy about anti-whaling activity in the Southern Ocean is a great example of interest groups taking a stand on an issue at great cost to reason and logic.

In the first place, we need to look at the position of the Japanese whalers. Note that I use the term “Japanese whalers”, not “Japanese people”. This is because aaccording to an opinion poll conducted in Japan in June 2006, 69% of Japanese people do not support whaling on the high seas and 95% never or rarely eat whale meat.

So there is a distinction, and most Japanese wouldn’t be upset if whaling ceased tomorrow.

I’ve heard it said that slaughtering whales to eat their meat is an important aspect of Japanese culture. It isn’t.

Whaling in Japan began only a few centuries ago. It started at the same time as the whaling traditions of Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries. The industry in Japan is centered on a few coastal communities. Whaling in the southern ocean by Japanese did not begin until the 1930s, and was expanded massively following World War II following encouragement from General Macarthur, as a means of feeding a starving population. There’s no starvation in Japan now.

Japan has more than 4,000 tons of whale meat from its whaling program in cold storage. It can’t be sold because the demand isn’t there. If you asked a young Japanese to eat whale meat you’d get much the same reaction as you would from a young Aussie. My daughter spent some time in Japan the year before last on an exchange, and she reported that most of her Japanese friends regard the whale hunt as embarrassing and don’t like to talk about it. They see it as a stupid anachronism embraced by old people living in the past.

The fact that it is defended by the Japanese government stems from the same vein of Japanese nationalism that continues to deny the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in World War 2.

The Japanese call their whaling activity research. It isn’t.

All the data that needs to be collected about whale populations can be gathered without killing whales. Despite the signage, a glance at the specifications of the vessels they use gives the lie to the “research” myth. They are highly developed fishing vessels with massive storage and butchering capacity.

Most of the western world disapproves of Japanese conduct in maintaining a whaling fleet. Ronald Reagan had something to say on this in reference to the US Exclusive Economic Zone in 1988 -

Given the lack of any evidence that Japan is bringing its whaling activities into conformance with the recommendations of the IWC, I am directing the Secretary of State under the Packwood-Magnuson Amendment to withhold 100 percent of the fishing privileges that would otherwise be available to Japan in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Japan has requested the opportunity to fish for 3,000 metric tons of sea snails and 5,000 metric tons of Pacific whiting. These requests will be denied. In addition, Japan will be barred from any future allocations of fishing privileges for any other species, including Pacific cod, until the Secretary of Commerce determines that the situation has been corrected.

So in summary, the Japanese don’t need to continue whaling for any reason other than the assertion of national pride. They’re quite prepared to do it in the face of international opinion and in waters a long way from home.

The activists, on the other hand, are quite happy to use every opportunity to spin most aspects of their activity without a great deal of recourse to fact. They claim that the end justifies the means. Their mainpulation of the media on this issue provides a case study.

In this country, both sides of politics have used the issue as a political wedge. Labor has been more successful at this than the coalition, but in recent months, Greg Hunt has sounded very much like he’s a signed-up member of Greenpeace.

The conservative commentators look pretty silly on this issue. They poke fun at activists, which is what conservatives do, irrespective of the issue, because of an ingrained fear of subversion.. Their line of reasoning is difficult to follow, unless it derives from the notion that nothing should be allowed to interfere with the sanctity of commerce so long as something - anything is being bought and sold.

It’s the “Blackwater” defence. Any activity, no matter how despicable, when called "commerce" by definition becomes sacred, and is exempt from moral/ethical principles. Despite their loud protestations that AGW is a religion, this dogma claiming inherent sanctity of the market resembles nothing so much as a fundamentalist strain of religion.

So where do we go from here?

Some naïve suggestions –

Employ the Navy to exercise in amongst the whaling fleet. They wouldn’t/couldn’t be tasked to arrest and detain – just to run interference. With the assets they have at their disposal in terms of state of the art communications, air capability, agile vessels and highly-trained matelots, they could provide such an embuggerance to the Japanese whaling operation that it would make what Sea Shepherd has been able to do look like a Sunday school picnic.

It would be great training for the sailors, would provide them with a real-world challenge. Taxpayers dollars needed to fund fisheries surveillance would be saved. The exercise could be financed out of the training budget. In the absence of a more appropriate name, such an operation could be called “Buggerup 1”. Giving it a number would provide a message that it may be the first of many.

A medal could be issued – the Southern Ocean Buggerup Campaign medal. The matelots could wear it with pride. It would induce more adrenaline than rounding up refugees.

The Japanese couldn’t complain. Any objection from their government could legitimately be met with the response – “The RAN is carrying out training in the Southern ocean”.

This would hold as much water as the Japanese saying “We are carrying out cetacean research in the Southern ocean”.

This strategy would create a swift resolution one way or another and the whalers and the activists could all go somewhere warm. The Japanese would throw a tantrum or two, but in the end the pressure which would be brought by Japanese financiers standing to lose if their government took sanctions against Australia would win the day.

Or we could all stop buying Toyotas.

That would at least decrease the number of household appliances masquerading as motor vehicles on Australian roads.

Sanity in Retrospect

Mike Steketee writes in today’s Australian on the topic of refugees.

Towards the end of his article he compares the Fraser government's approach to the arrival of boat people in the seventies to that applying in the current political climate -

A few factors worked in Fraser's favour. One was the sentiment that Australia had a moral obligation to help the victims of a war in which we had fought. It was an argument he put forcefully, together with his admiration for the refugees. "If you embrace a positive view and embrace the courage of the people who are prepared to try and get a better life for themselves and their families, I think the political pressure starts to diminish," he says.
The contrast, of course, is with the Howard government, which pandered to the fear following 9/11 that Iraqis and Afghans fleeing by boat included terrorists (ASIO did not reject a single person on these grounds). Yet Australia's moral obligation was as strong as that following the Vietnam war: the refugees were fleeing Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, who the Howard government thought sufficiently reprehensible to wage war against. But the government never put the argument.
The key factor in resolving the issue in the 70s was an international agreement that stemmed the flow from Vietnam but allowed large numbers of refugees to go to Western countries. Such co-operation, combined with humane treatment of asylum-seekers, is the best way to cut boat arrivals.

Fraser is also quoted in yesterday’s Canberra Times -

''It demeans Australia to be having a purely political argument on this subject. When I was prime minister, Gough [Whitlam] initially opposed accepting Indo-Chinese refugees but then he changed his position and we had a bipartisan agreement,'' Mr Fraser said.
''Turning the boats back is pure Hansonism, you could well ask what has happened to the Liberal Party. Abbott said he would consult, implying Turnbull didn't, but he has announced this policy and I doubt he had a cabinet meeting before announcing it.''

I’ve blogged on this before. The tragic outcome of Howard’s behaviour in 2001 is that the issue has been appropriated by the merchants of hate. It’s interesting to look back to what was a more enlightened time.