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Random Notes - Idle ThoughtsRandom Note #176,593 — The Mainstream Media
What the anti Trump brigade and the main stream media still have difficulty wrestling with, (pardon the pun) is the observation by Alena Zito when she wrote during the campaign that:
“Trump supporters take Trump seriously but not literally. The media and his detractors take Trump literally but not seriously.”
Random Note #187,652 — Labor recognition of Palestine — Number 2
After 40 years, we discover that multiculturalism is no longer just about the exotic customs and traditions, the dress, the dance and cuisine but also about the bollards in Martin Place and the importation of a mindset inimical to Australia, combined with the panoply of internecine religious, sectarian, tribal and cultural problems from the Middle East.
Random Note #187,651 — Labor recognition of Palestine — Number 1
The misty eyed, misguided and facile advocacy of the likes of Turner and Bob Carr betrays and underscores their ignorance or deliberate fudging of the diabolical complexity of the problem and ignores the ingrained, mothers milk mindset of the Palestinian leadership which filters right down to the classroom. This dictates the violent and total destruction and elimination of the state of Israel.
Doubts George Pell can get fair trial due to damaging publicity — Chris Merritt, The Australian
In Victoria, where Pell has been charged with historical sexual offences, “adverse publicity” barely begins to describe what has happened to this conservative Catholic cleric. Tearing him down has almost taken on the trappings of an industry. Yet now that the justice system has become involved, the frenzy of the past few years is supposed to be set aside and forgotten, particularly by those who would sit on the jury that will decide his fate In the view of some, that is little more than a heroic assumption from another era. The state’s justice system has a range of tools at its disposal that are aimed at ensuring that Pell’s trial will be fair. But in the face of the modern world, the effectiveness of those tools has been questioned.
Libs struggle for control of party’s soul — Paul Kelly, The Australian
Corporate Australia is just starting to awake from its dreamland. The federal and South Australian bank taxes are the start, not the end. Political power in Australia is shifting. The narrative from McManus is that “the greed of the few” must be met by “more power for the many”. It is essentially British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s slogan of “for the many not the few”, when he campaigned for an end to austerity, higher taxes, more spending, redistribution and an embrace of socialism not seen for more than a half-century
Random Note #169,593 — Turnbull and the wisdom of LBJ, Michael Corleone and Napoleon
After reading Gerard Henderson column in The Australian, ‘Mistake not to promote Abbott’, it strikes me that Turnbull really screwed up on political strategy and tactics 101 with respect to Tony Abbott.
Rule 1. President Lyndon Johnson’s observation that ‘it’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in.’
Rule 2. In not giving Abbott a cabinet position as Abbott did for Turnbull, as a shadow after the 2010 election, which restricts a Ministers ability to speak outside his portfolio responsibilities and adhering to Cabinet solidarity, Turnbull is flying in the face of the Michael Corleone, Godfather maxim of ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’
Meanwhile Bill Shorten, with a bucket of popcorn is kicking back, enjoying the show and following the advice of Napoleon. ‘Never interrupt your enemy while he’s busy making a mistake
The Dull, Boring and Predictable Left — Christopher Akehurst, Quadrant
Like most news junkies, I wade through a lot of total dross and dreary stuff at times but now and again you find a real nugget. A real gem. This is one such piece that totally lambasts, skewers and shreds the self righteous arrogance and pomposity of the left.
“..Annoyingly, Leftists have infected everyone with this tiresome grievance-classification jargon, thus straitjacketing public and much private discourse within Leftist concepts. That’s fine for Leftists, whose conversational range is limited to their current hobbyhorses but pretty ho-hum for the rest of us. Leftists are boring because they relate everything to themselves. The old Left of fairness and compassion for the underdog has gone. The new Left is about posing as compassionate at no cost to oneself, preferably towards some “victim” safely at arm’s length – an Aboriginal township-dweller or an “asylum seeker” over on Manus Island…”
This is one such piece that totally lambasts and skewers and shreds the self righteousness and pomposity of the left..
Random Note #187,742 — Has the Liberal Party reached its use by date? — ‘lazy, self-indulgent’ Liberal Party facing ‘existential crisis’ — John Poskam: IPA
Has the Liberal Party in its present form been so hollowed out and aimless that it’s reached it use by date? It’s meandering all, over the road, no particular direction and doesn’t seem to know who or what it is or what it stands for. Even the basics like free speech. Ask David Flint or Ross Cameron, kicked out of the party for having an opinion or in Flint’s case speaking to the wrong people. Me. The Liberal Party doesn’t seem to have a purpose except to mimic the Labor Party, so what’s the point of it?
LINO Takeover — David Flint — Spectator
Professor David Flint is now officially an “Outsider” That is, outside the Liberal Party. He’s been forced, like Ross Cameron before him to do a Captain Oates who, as part of Scott’s Antarctic expedition decided to “take a walk in the snow and might be gone some while.” Similarly both Flint and Cameron are now both in the freezer. It’s getting rather crowded in there. This is an unbelievable story and it seems that I, one J Ball, am unwittingly, central to it. As I often say when shocked, astonished and amazed, this seriously sucks the oxygen out of the room. Suffice to say that next time you hear the Liberal Party banging on about their core beliefs like freedom of speech and freedom of communication, understand that it is all just so much hot air, hollow rhetoric and shallow sentiment. This is the story about how Professor David Flint was cast out of the Liberal Party. His crime? His misdemeanour, was talking to me.
Gerard Henderson on Louise Milligan on George Pell
“..As readers will note, Louise Milligan went under-the-bed and refused to answer questions concerning (i) her allegation that Cardinal Pell has an “ugly secret”, (ii) her use of anonymous sources to level the most serious charges about her subject, (iii) her attitude to accepting as totally accurate the memory of others, (iv) her policy with respect to reporting decades old recollections in direct speech, (v) her assessment of time, (vi) her allegation about Allan Myers QC,..”