Groupthink

Archive for October, 2009

Vegetarian cyclist hits back

Oct 31

Posted by Scott Bridges in Media | 13 Comments

Last week Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine wrote a piece about how cyclists are all bastards who have no place on the road and how motorists would be justified in running them over and how she hopes they will all just fuck off.

Whoever made up the Roads and Traffic Authority’s 1990s slogan ”the road is there to share” has a lot to answer for. It’s a big fat lie. The road is not there to share. Roads are built for cars. Pretending otherwise is unfair to motorists and cyclists alike.

[...]

The ideologues who have fostered the road-sharing lie must think a few dead cyclists and pedestrians are a small price to pay for getting cars off the road, because that is their ultimate aim: to make driving so unpleasant, slow, expensive and fraught with hazards that motorists give up.

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“The world of Google” – a chilling vision of things to come.

Oct 30

Posted by Molesworth in Technology | 6 Comments

The Google™ Clock buzzed. Damien opened his eyes, frustrated to be awoken from his recurring dreams of threesomes in Parisian bathtubs.

“Good morning Damien!” intoned his Google™ brand coffee machine.

“Latte!” he barked, for he cared not for the feelings of this emotionless consumer item. The machine whirred into action.

“Emails!” he shouted.

“You have (4) new emails!” buzzed the coffee machine. Damien switched on the monitor of his Google™ computer and logged into his GMail account. Three emails were from supermodels desperate to make use of his enormous genitals. He groaned and marked them as “spam”. The fourth email was far more interesting – would be interested in a Google™ credit card?

Why, indeed he would.

Twenty minutes later new credit card arrived, courtesy of Google™ post. How thoughtful of Prime Minister Tuckey to remove the stranglehold of Australia Post he ruminated. With interest of 6.5% for the first year (453% interest p.a thereafter), this deal was unbeatable. The cavalcade of thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his Google™ Phone.

“Damien!” Alicia shrilled into the earpiece “Have you taken your Google™ Viagra yet?”

“Curse you woman, for you are insatiable” he boomed into the receiver “I only just woke up.”

Damien didn’t even wait for a response before slamming his Google™ Phone down. He sighed, before slipping into his Google™ dressing gown and settling down to work. Since signing up for the online Google™ Drive, Damien had no reason to go to the office anymore. Allowing Google™ to sift through the contents of his hard-drive in order to target his advertising more effectively was a small price to pay for avoiding a fifteen minute commute in his chauffeured Google™ Car. Sipping on his Google™ latte he pondered on the existence of the Googleverse™ (formerly “Universe”) and everything that it contained, before springing to his feet with barely controlled glee.

“I can’t believe I just worked out the meaning of life!” he shouted. This was it. Now he would finally be featured in the Sunday Life lift-out – the culmination of a life well spent.

A knock on the door interrupted his jig. Damien answered it, only to find two Google™ Law Enforcement Agents – a most unwelcome surprise. His brow furrowed in annoyance.

“How may I help you officer?” he asked, an air of indifference masking his inner frustration.

“We were legally sifting through the contents of your Google™ Drive when we came across some…. forbidden material.” The agent elongated the last words more than Damien felt was necessary. “As a consequence we’d like to have a brief friendly chat down at the Google™ Re-Education Centre.”

Damien gulped.

“I’m afraid I’m busy” he said, his meek voice belying his muscular frame and hulking presence. Damien turned just as the agent cleared his throat.

“Perhaps you misunderstood” was all that was said before Damien was promptly tasered in the rear.

When he came to he was strapped to the outside of a Google™ Rocket aimed directly at the Sun.

“You’ll never get away with this!” he roared to no-one “One day people will learn of the folly of putting all their trust behind a search engine! Who could have foreseen Google going mad with power and taking over the planet? WHO?”

“Launch sequence initiated, in 5, 4, 3, 2….”

“THE PEOPLE WILL NEVER STAND FOR THIS!” he shouted above the roar of rocket engines. This seemed an expensive way to dispose of an Enemy Of The State.

As the rocket launched Damien squeezed his eyes shut, and in the last moments before plunging into the nuclear furnace he fervently wished he’d voted for Apple instead. At least he might have gotten an iPhone.

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I am not a deadshit. Buy my new book to find out why.

Oct 30

Posted by Ross Sharp in Crime, Media | 7 Comments

We here at Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) have noticed the recent trend in the publication of biographies and autobiographies by and about a whole bunch of “who-the-fuck?” deadshits and we thought we’d hop on the bandwagon before the market in “who-the-fuck?” deadshits dried up and fucked off out of it.

For example, there’s this one guy who made a living pushing a ball around a paddock with his foot and had some substance abuse issues and allegedly roughed up his girlfriend who has “written” a book just to let people know he is not a deadshit.

His name is Wayne. He’s misunderstood, that’s all, and it hurts. It hurts real bad. Poor Wayne.

There’s this woman who married a fat bloke and fucked him till he got caught for killing people. She’s “written” a book about it just in case people had the wrong impression and thought less of her because of her lifestyle choices. She too would like everyone to know that she is not a deadshit.

Her name is Roberta. She’s misunderstood, that’s all, just another true-blue little Aussie battler trying to make a go of things and it hurts. Poor Roberta.

Then there’s this other guy. His name is Mick Gatto. Just because he used to hang around with crooks and do God-only-knows-what for a living, doesn’t mean Mick is a deadshit.

So Mick has “written” a book too. To let everyone know he’s just very misunderstood. Poor Mick.

Nowadays, Mick is thought of as Australia’s answer to Sam Giancana.

Australia’s answer to “The Grapes of Wrath” is “The Castle”, just in case you need a little perspective on that. Australia’s answer to David Attenborough is Steve Irwin if you need a little more. Australia’s answer to Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would probably be a couple of teenage shoplifters in fucking Minto.

Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) has always prided itself on publishing works of literature. Which is to say, books that are actually written by the person whose name is on the cover.

Fuck that for a joke.

Because it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s had the misfortune to hear any of these three “so-not-deadshits” speak publicly that none of them could probably write the word “penis” on a toilet wall without a spellcheck and an editor present.

So, bugger the literature, we’re pulping the lot, tearing up all our contracts, and putting the freaks up front.

We’ve decided to hire three ghostwriters on a permanent, rotating-shift basis and set them about the writing of books about deadshits who’ve never actually done much or achieved anything of lasting worth for anyone’s benefit other than their own and who never shut up about it.

We’re calling this series “Deadshit Dialogues” and currently have 24 “books” slated for publication during 2010, all of which will be entitled “My Life” just to keep things nice and simple for the common folk.

We here at Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) are confident that our brave new publishing initiative will bring about a much needed revolution in the book industry in these troubled times. Which is to say, the continuing publication of stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of books by and about a whole bunch of “who the fuck?” deadshits who deserve to be known and understood by squillions. That’s what they say, anyway.

So you can take “Dreams From My Father” and shove it up your arse.

Why on earth would anyone want to read about some random fucker who became the first African-American President of the United States when you can read all about the life and times of an aging and overweight ex-boxer who used to hang around with crooks in pubs and cafes pretending to be characters from a Mario Puzo novel?

That’s real life, that is. You think you know what real life is all about? You don’t know jack shit.

But now, courtesy of Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) new “Deadshit Dialogues” series, you can read all about real life and get yourself some right and proper learnings fixed to your learnin’ organ (that spongy thing inside your head, up on top).

Because books about people who actually achieve things in life aren’t worth a pinch of shit, quite frankly.

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The Animus of the Pusillanimous

Oct 30

Posted by David F in Politics, Society | 11 Comments

There’s a motif in Homer that one finds repeatedly – it is honourable to show kindness to the wanderer, noble to greet strangers with an open palm. This is the code of the free spirit, of the warrior. To fail to show kindness and generosity to a traveller is to lapse into dishonour. By living like a bug, hostile to strangers, and fearful that every passing footstep may spell doom, one not only renounces honour, joy and courage, but humanity itself.

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Short, sweet and to the point

Oct 29

Posted by Scott Bridges in Politics | 2 Comments

In New South Wales the state Labor government is about as on-the-nose with the electorate as it’s possible to be, and it’s only the comparable incompetence of the Liberals that makes an ALP victory at the 2011 election a possibility. Groupthink reader “E”, who once sent Leader of the Opposition Barry O’Farrell an email (to which she never received a reply), was bemused to yesterday receive this email — reproduced in its entirety — from the great man himself.

Consider that one extra vote, Barry.

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Nutosphere Field Guide Part 1 – Human Events

Oct 29

Posted by Jason in Foreign matter, Media, Politics | 12 Comments

One of the richest seams of online gold is the worldwide network of freaky, right-wing “news” sites. A lot of them are American, sure, but here in Australia we have our own rag-tag flotilla of mysteriously cashed-up outlets, publishing fringe garbage for an audience measuring in the dozens. I’ll try to introduce you to some local and international touchstones over coming weeks.

We start with Human Events. Never heard of it? Here’s a short, introductory video.

“As long as I can remember…”

Anyhow, Human Events comes out of Washington DC, both in dead tree and Web 0.9 formats. It features a number of eminent columnists, including the one and only Ann Coulter.

Their grabby-hooky “thing” is a weekly Top Ten list, a highly original feature. This is the funnest part of this otherwise ranty, sludgy and predictable outlet, but mostly because it reveals so much about the wingnut mind.

The undisputed classic in this column was 2005′s “most harmful books” top ten, which was voted on by a bunch of conservative luminaries. The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf and Quotations from Chairman Mao are the top three, and fair enough you might say. But John Dewey? Betty Friedan? The Kinsey Report? Keynes’s General Theory?

Then you get to the “Honourable Mentions”. Charles Darwin gets two entries – The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. Poor old John Stuart Mill gets a jersey with On Liberty. Perhaps Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was no surprise, but I was a little puzzled that the brains trust had put Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed at similar levels on the pernicious-o-meter. You’re left wondering what’s on the bookshelf at the Human Events bunker. Now that Readers’ Digest has gone bust, presumably it’s just the King James, Conscience of a Conservative and Atlas Shrugged.

That should show well enough what we’re dealing with here. All of the other top ten lists are also directed at correcting Liberal Bias. A couple of weeks back they took on sex scandals. They got Bill Clinton and John Edwards in there, along with every Democrat pantsman ever. They only mention one (liberal) Republican, Nelson Rockefeller, who died on the job, (like our own late, lamented Billy Snedden).

Why? It’s not like this year alone hasn’t produced enough Republican sex scandals to fill out half the top ten. Just for starters, there’s John Ensign, the Nevada senator, and his extramarital affair, and the fact that the freaking Governor of South Carolina went AWOL on Father’s Day to tryst with his Argentinian mistress.

And then, of course, there’s Alan David Berlin, a long-time aide to a Republican State Senator in Pennsylvania, who was arrested in May this year. What did he do? Well, he

contacted a fifteen year old boy over the internet, and offered to “yiff” the boy in a panda outfit, while his parents weren’t home. The parents discovered the graphic emails on the boy’s computer and called the attorney general’s child predator unit sometime in May. Police raided his home and discovered various furry outfits such as a wolf costume, as well as a cat outfit; all complete with two holes cut out at the undersides of the costumes. He is now arraigned in Dauphin County jail on a $250,000 bail.

Now why would Human Events leave that one out?

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Rundle Rail: nowhere fast

Oct 29

Posted by Bob Dumpling in Media, Politics, Society | 9 Comments

There’s something desperately wrong when opinion writers get all fired up and lambast pollies for stupid suggestions, but concurrently make the same suggestion.  Guy Rundle has chastised Anthony Albanese’s “lack of  infrastructure” and his alleged rock bottom performance on Monday night’s Lateline.

The crux of Rundle’s ire is that the problem with our cities is not the need for fast rail but rather the need for new cities and towns, about 20-odd.  According to Rundle, the much anticipated population bomb will make our current cities unliveable and require a significant branching out, with brand new populaces.

There’s always a rich, sweeping melodrama to Rundle’s writing. And he’s not afraid to tip his hat with passing references to anything which can populate his tomes with colour and add some ballast. But frankly, there are two things that spleen me about his latest.

One is the suggestion that we don’t actually need fast rail but must instead create these new cities with links just 30 minutes from where you would rather be, by (you guessed it) fast rail.

Secondly, these new cities and towns should not only be eco-friendly (whatever that entails) and designed by the best architects around but also not elitist. Unfortunately you really can’t have the name Gehry and the words ‘not elitist’ in the same paragraph. And by not elitist, Rundle means “low-income creative types, from painters to punk bands, can live there and transform them as they go.” Really, I think transition towns will be over-run before government starts planning Punktown. Why not just be elitist and say, “Not poor and uninteresting people”?

I sort of feel sorry for Rundle. His coverage of the Obama campaign was enriching and you couldn’t help enjoying his relish, knowing that this was going to be the most interesting thing that ever happened in his life. Staying up to critique Albo on Lateline — whether he looks like Doc Evatt or not — must feel crushing in comparison.

It’s not really worth getting so worked up about. Albo clearly doesn’t have much interest in trains, ports and roads. He’s much more worried about Carmel and the forthcoming bloodbath in NSW. But Rundle can do much better than this. This was like reading Catherine Deveny with a cock and an idea.

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The gayification of men x2

Oct 28

Posted by Trevor McDonald in Society | 12 Comments

Don’t be so reckless to correct me if I am wrong but be prepared to lay down you’re guns if I’m right. It was only yesterday that I brought a new topic to the debatosphere, “The gayification of men”.  And it was only last night when I was at the local gymnasium and I went to have a leak before doing boxing and I was confronted by this in the mens dunny.

Now I am not one to kick up a stink but when I am a bloke the sight of a hairdryer in the male dunnies can be quite purterbing.

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Little-known acts of parliament – Part I

Oct 28

Posted by David in Media, Politics, Society, Sport | 5 Comments

  • Excise Tariff Amendment Act 1999 (frock up, drink and gamble to prove your patriotism)
    The work of State and Federal Government to promote responsibility and moderation in alcohol consumption and gambling, and to discourage excessive consumer spending will be temporarily suspended in the weeks leading up to and during a major horse racing carnival.
  • Aesthetic String Ensemble Act 1984
    It shall be mandatory for all female string players (violins, violas and cellos) in orchestras and string ensembles be attractive in an academic-but-hot manner. No less than 25 per cent of female string players shall be of Asian or Eurasian appearance.
  • Sporting Stadium Renovations Act 1978
    At least one major sporting arena that hosts Cricket Australia sanctioned international cricket matches during summer, must undertake major construction work during the cricket season to ensure crowd inconvenience, and unsightly images on the television coverage.
  • Foolish Driver Identification Act 1992
    It will be mandatory for all stupid drivers who speed, tailgate and are unable to stick in one lane during the morning and evening peak to wear baseball caps and/or fluorescent work wear to identify themselves to other drivers that they are indeed dim-witted cunts. The mandatory period for such attire shall extend to all times when the said drivers are in charge of the following motor vehicles – VL, VN and VP Holden Commodore, Subaru WRX, Nissan Skyline, Toyota Supra, any form of trade vehicle.
  • Automatic Teller Machine Intentional Delay Act 2001
    To stem the flow of money flowing from Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) and to give people time to consider whether or not their intended transaction is necessary, a system shall be put in place whereby the person who is at the ATM first shall take an amount of time to complete their transaction that is beyond the possible time needed to conduct a transaction that the ATM is capable of.
  • Coffee Awareness Act 2004
    In an effort to stimulate Australia’s multi-million dollar coffee and café industries, and to increase productivity in the workplace by ensuring employees are alert through caffeine’s mild stimulant properties, all broadsheet newspapers will henceforth be required to publish stories about the location and availability of the best coffee/cafe in their readership area at least once a week.
  • Homosexuals and Hollywood Information Act (Amended) 2005
    Only homosexual males* are allowed to be Hollywood reporters on morning news and chat shows on Australian commercial television. This is to compensate for the lack of opportunities for homosexual males in television sports coverage (excluding diving, figure skating, synchronised swimming and Rugby League).

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Turnbull’s leadership: The Book

Oct 28

Posted by Scott Bridges in Politics | 17 Comments

Time for the launch of Groupthink’s first competition, and this one’s going to be interesting.

With the Coalition seriously lagging behind the government in poll after poll, and with constant white-anting of leader Malcolm Turnbull within his own party, it’s a reasonably safe bet that Turbull will never be Prime Minister of this country. Not only will it take a miracle for the coalition to win in 2010, it will take a Herculean effort from Malcy to remain Opposition leader until 2013. So with that in mind, Groupthink has opened a Book and it’s time for you to take a punt: on what date will Malcolm Turnbull lose the leadership of the federal opposition?

Place your bet in the comments of this post, ensuring that you nominate a full date: day, month and year. For bonus points, also nominate the person you think will take over as leader upon Malcolm’s departure. The eventual winner will win something that will be determined at the time of the winning. A mystery prize, if you will.

Have at it!

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