Billablog: November 2015

29 November, 2015

Thinking of linking

This week I have been mostly reading...

Australia:
Julie Bishop had eyes in coup meeting plotting against Tony Abbott

Australian all-electric bus drives into record books – 1,018km on one charge

Hunters & Collectors frontman Mark Seymour condemns use of Holy Grail at Reclaim Australia anti-Muslim rallies

Face of Reclaim Australia rally Nathan Paterson insists: I'm not racist - How horrible it must be to be judged on how you look

Tax transparency: full list of exempt companies revealed as Senate battle looms

Angry Liberal MPs question Tony Abbott 'resistance movement' and Monkey Pod lunches

Masters director Melinda Smith resigns as D-Day looms for Woolworths - "Labour costs are different in Australia to the US," she said. "Christmas in the US is in the middle of winter, which is different to Australia." File under 'Ya think?"

I am a tax cheat – and the Tax Lady is after me

Clubs NSW backs down, drops defamation case against Wilkie

Clive Palmer says Mal Brough asked him to help 'destroy' Peter Slipper

Windfall for wind farm watchdog: PM's part-time commissioner to nab $600,000

'Classic Ponzi scheme': Sydney house prices cost 12 times the annual income

Bad reception for PM: The Lodge’s renovations interfere with neighbours’ mobile phones

US:
AP FACT CHECK: Most GOP Candidates Flunk Climate Science - File under "Ya think?" part 2

‘More men named Mike have killed people’

Ike’s Advice: How to Avoid a Multiplicity of Fears

America Is Too Dumb for TV News

Trump almost got it right: Some people were arrested for celebrating 9/11 — but they were Israeli

A White Male Terrorist Shot More People Today Than Refugees Have Since 9/11

UK:
Why are the Mersey tunnels closed at night?

Cameron doesn't know what he's doing so he shouldn't go to war

World:
WhatsApp messages show Israeli soldiers knew they were about to kill a child

Society:
'It's not enough to consider ourselves good men because we don't bash women'

Media:
The Katering Show Announce New Season For ABC; Are Very Worried About The Internet Crushing Them

Climate Spectator closes

Music:
The Age Music Victoria Awards Hall Of Fame Concert

Tech:
How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name

Faith:
The Islamic men feeding Sydney’s homeless

Art:
At first light: the most iconic camera-less photographs – in pictures

How 10 Famous Artists Would Plate Thanksgiving Dinner

Humour and satire:
Perspective Advisory System

The week in stupid:
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi mistakenly quotes American neo-Nazi

The least boring photo on my camera roll:

Bill Shorten presents “That’s Who I Am”

I heard Bill Shorten speaking on Insiders this morning. In the clip from earlier this week, he said:

“Just so people understand, and people should expect: I never give up because I won’t, because I don’t. That's who I am.”

And I wondered if I was hearing a speech from the leader of the opposition or a Taylor Swift song.

So that made me wonder how one would work as the other…

22 November, 2015

Thinking of linking

This week I have been mostly reading...

Australia:
Bishop rebukes Abbott on ground troops

Why is Tony Abbott making so many media appearances while Malcolm Turnbull is away? - Political journo surprised Tony Abbott broke a promise. Bless.

Shane Warne's charity under investigation

AFP raid Mal Brough over Slipper

'No sniping' Tony Abbott's pot shots at Malcolm Turnbull plumb new low

Fact check: Was superannuation designed to get people off the pension?

Northern Territory Speaker survives spill attempt after government MP flips

Anti-Muslim extremists: how far will they go?

US:

America’s politicians are feeding the Islamic State narrative

After Years Of Insults, US Conservatives Now Express Solidarity With France

In Light of Paris Attacks, 26 GOP Governors, One Democrat to Refuse Syrian Refugees - Hundreds of gun attacks every year, but one fake Syrian passport is found on a terrorist on the other side of the world, and the home of the brave shits itself. Just embarrassing.

Obama on Syrian refugees: Republicans 'scared of widows and orphans coming into' US

994 mass shootings in 1,004 days: this is what America's gun crisis looks like

My white neighbor thought I was breaking into my own apartment. Nineteen cops showed up.

Here’s how much of your life the United States has been at war

Why Bobby Jindal’s Candidacy Failed

World:

Countering ISIS by going off-script

What ISIS Really Wants

How Islamic Is the Islamic State? Not at All. What The Atlantic got wrong about ISIS

What The Atlantic Gets Dangerously Wrong About ISIS And Islam

I was held hostage by Isis. They fear our unity more than our airstrikes

Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

Wahhabism to ISIS: how Saudi Arabia exported the main source of global terrorism

To Defeat ISIS, We Must Call Both Western and Muslim Leaders to Account

Saudi court sentences poet to death for renouncing Islam - our allies in the war against extremism.

Iraq warned of imminent Islamic State assaults before Paris terror attacks

Bombers, one of them 11, target Nigeria market

Deadly Mali hotel attack: 'They were shooting at anything that moved'

When armed insurgents kidnapped the author in Iraq, they interrogated him on building a propaganda machine. A decade later, they became Daesh.

Sections Of A Sphere

Related to all the above:

Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m

Sneaky stray cats break through security, take the main stage ahead of G20 summit

Media:

John Oliver Says What We’re All Thinking About the Paris Attackers in a Profanity-Laced Rant

Did the media ignore the Beirut bombings? Or did readers?

Canadian man's selfie altered to look like Paris suicide bomber

Thanks Amazon, but we don't need your solidarité

Adam Hills says government wanted him to ridicule Islamic State on Last Leg show

Andrew Bolt’s anti-racism campaign isn’t going so well

The News Corp columnist and the case of the missing grand mufti

Music:

In Memoriam: P.F. Sloan (1945-2015)

Fairlight CMI Honored Australia’s National Film & Sound Archive

“This Is Fresh!” The Secrets Of David Bowie’s ★ Album

What Sam Phillips Heard

The Phil Collins Petition Is Amateur Hour

Society:

How Fairness Develops in Kids Around the World

Call yourself a woman? Feminists take on transgender community in bitter debate

Mental health:

Why Are So Many People Unhappy?

Tech:
Anonymous Release 'How To' Hack ISIS Guide

Literature:

80 Books No Woman Should Read

Language:
Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is… 💩

Humour and satire:

As Your Governor, I Will Protect You From Mass Shooters If They Are Syrian.

I got stupid on me and now I'm wiping it off on you:

Quite probably the most amateurish piece of crap to appear in a respectable publication all year - even if you agree with it, it's pathetic.

The least boring photo on my camera roll:

18 November, 2015

Born free

I am so happy for Tony Abbott. Really, I am. He’s back where he belongs – and I don’t mean that in a nasty way.

Despite his incredible desire for the job, being the prime minister never really suited him. He wore the leadership like a like a school uniform he was required to wear when he would have preferred to be in his footy gear.

Basically, executive government cramped Tony’s style. The mundanity of having to deal with the day-to-day issues of government, feigning an interest in things that were never on his agenda, and the need for compromise that leadership brings wasn’t really what he wanted.

As David Marr pointed out in his Quarterly Essay, Political Animal, for much of his time in parliament, Tony Abbott seemed to prefer using his office to write lengthy opinion pieces for sympathetic publications, to the business of government or representing his electorate.

With Tony Abbott’s return to the opinion pages of The Spectator and The Australian, we can see now that his removal as leader was not an act of treachery, but an act of mercy. He is free now. He has been returned to his natural habitat, where he can advocate for his worldview without having to answer pesky questions or convince cross-benchers. He has the best of both worlds – a major platform to speak on how government should act, without the tedium of actually governing.

There are those who are far better at saying how things ought to be than being responsible for how things are, and Abbott is certainly one of them. Don’t feel bad for Tony. Whether he realises it or not, he’s where he always wanted to be.

17 November, 2015

Correlation is not causation

Like any other sentient being, I’ve had thoughts flying all over the place regarding the terrorist attacks on Paris over the weekend. Most of what I have to say has been said far better by many others but even so, I thought I would break things down for those who should know better.

Picking out a few characteristics of the attackers does not tell you how or why the attacks happened. It should be obvious, but from the look of many attitudes, it seems that some need reminding.

Yes, they were Muslim.
That doesn’t make it a Muslim thing. Nor does it make it a religious thing.

Yes, at least some of them were Syrian.
That doesn’t make it a Syrian thing.
It doesn’t make it an immigrant thing and it certainly doesn’t make it a refugee thing. Refugees are the ones fleeing murderous extremists.

And yes, one of them did travel as a refugee.
ONE.
Out of millions.
So if you want to use this as a pretext to reject refugees, remember that you are already 4.5 times more likely to die falling out of bed than in any kind of terrorist attack, and that is before we even factor in terrorists who specifically masqueraded as refugees. If you still think that’s something worth worrying about, you probably think Powerball is a sound investment.

If we are serious about confronting the threat – and no-one is denying the threat – we have to stop bending the situation to our own prejudices.

It’s also a fact that they were all male, as are the overwhelming majority of terrorists of all creeds. Maybe it’s a male thing?

So why aren’t men being called upon to renounce terrorism or else be presumed sympathetic to terrorist causes?

They were all in their 20s. Maybe it’s a youth thing. Maybe we should lock everyone up until they’re 30.

Or would that be ridiculous?

= = =

A couple of other short observations:

If the US wants to stand with France, as they should, they could start by apologising for calling the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys when they refused to be part of the invasion that ultimately allowed ISIS to flourish.
To those who want to blame gun control: If you seriously think that a handful of people with concealed handguns could, in a large, dark, loud room, take out a bunch of fanatics firing Kalashnikovs indiscriminately, then you probably watch too much television.