Archive for category Foreign matter

Dickhead of the Year Award Already Won

by Trevor McDonald on 17 February 2010
Categories: Crime, Environment, Foreign matter, Media | Tags: , , , ,

Compare and Contrast:

1. Gob from the hit DVD show ‘Arrested Development’ decides to become the centre of attention and breaks into jail and gets locked up then let out. Gains notoriety by featuring on the cover of coveted magic magazine “Poof”. Everyone laughs.

2. ‘Captain Bathune’ formerly of the decapitated ‘Ady Gill’ decides to become the centre of attention and breaks into the Japo whaling ship to perform a ‘Citizens Arrest’ on the Caption of the ship. Gains no notoriety, no front page, is a prisoner for the at least the next 2 months with no soap-on-a-rope. Everyone laughs.

Being a topical debator who can weigh up the twos and fros of port and starboard in both sides in a debate I would like to ask some pertinant questions in the ionosphere of the Internet. One being who gives a flying fuck about the Ady Gill dickhead? Two being did he watch the famed Police Academy movie “Citizens on Patrol” too many times? And more importantly, where are the David Hicks fan club and Get Up when he needs them?

Now, this whaling business is all over the news channels. And the Japs are being harpooned in our media for killing a fish. So? When Wayne and I did a tour of Werribee zoo when we were kids we hadn’t been fed by Wayne’s step mum for a few days. We saw an antelope walking around with a wound in it’s side and a bit of blood. Wayne and I were following that antelope around with our tongues hanging out waiting for it to drop dead so we could bring something home to eat. Did Africa try to put a citizens arrest on us? But I digress sort of.

Now I’m glad this hilarious tale of Captain Buffoon hasn’t been followed too much in the media and the David Hicks fan club haven’t rallied demanding Buffoon’s release. I hope those Japs are serving threee square meals of rare endangered whale for breakfast, lunch and tea. Maybe he will be released looking as fat as David Hicks. Further in the excellent Herald Sun article it’s investigative journalist also notes that Captain Buffoon handed the Japo Captain a bill for a cool 3 million. Is this where I insert the imaginary typewriter joke? LOL.

To sum up this debate I will like to end with a quote from the article in question:

“[Buffoon] opened the door and walked into the wheelhouse… that’s the last we’ve heard from him” a save the whales home and away actor said.

As the internets would say; Sea Shepherd FAIL, Captain Buffoon FAIL, Ady Gill FAIL, Debt Collection FAIL and Whaling WIN!

This is Trevor signing off.

Trevor.

7 Comments

We are all sub-editors now: results

by Scott Bridges on 28 November 2009
Categories: Caption comps, Film, Foreign matter | Tags: ,

I know I promised to judge the caption competition, like, ages ago but sweet Jesus I done been busy. Plus it was my birthday yesterday so there’s a bit of hangover action going on right now. Anyway, a bunch of quality entries has produced the following results:

In third place is Ant Rogenous.

SUCKHOSEY: An ’ard man is good to find, no?

EASTWOOD: French toast please.

Ant wins the entire Clint Eastwood back catalogue on Betamax.

In second place is reb.

You can let go of my arm now Mister President. That’s your prostate exam all done for another year.

reb wins the piece of Berlin Wall that Sarkozy reckons he chipped off on the day of its fall.

And our winner is David Bonnici with this corker.

Clint Eastwood is shocked to discover that his orangutan co-star from Every Which Way But Loose is actually a surrender monkey.

Clint Eastwood is shocked to discover that his orangutan co-star from Every Which Way But Loose is actually a surrender monkey.

David wins Clint Eastwood’s orangutan co-star from Every Which Way But Loose.

Well done, everyone!

1 Comment

A story that ought to be told

by David F on 24 November 2009
Categories: Crime, Foreign matter, Society | Tags: , , , ,

For materialists, ideas, ‘culture’, etc, are derived from, or, at the very least, have a basis in social and economic relations.

We know that relations socials and economic have changed greatly over the couple of decades, and nowhere more so than in those states formerly behind the Iron Curtain. The push toward what Australia’s PM calls ‘neoliberalism’ – namely, the alliance between government and capital against workers – has occurred everywhere, but has arguably been most ruthlessly pursued in many of the ex-communist states.

Maggie Thatcher, one of the leading practitioners of neoliberalism, famously quipped that ‘there is no such thing as society’. Perhaps she is being proven correct, in that societies have teetered on the brink of collapse directly in proportion to what geographer David Harvey calls ‘the commodification of everything’. Harvey argues that ‘the destruction of forms of social solidarity … leaves a gaping hole in the social order’, for which the ‘inevitable response is to reconstruct social solidarities’ leads to a revival of nationalism, fascism, and ‘authoritarian populism’. This blowback is the corollary of universal freedom of enterprise.

It is apropos of economic turmoil and social collapse that I bring you this story from Bulgaria, concerning a 23-year old Sydney man named Jock Palfreeman. The media has given Palfreeman’s situation little coverage, but The Daily Telegraph had this story:

Read the rest of this entry »

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We are all sub-editors now

by Scott Bridges on 16 November 2009
Categories: Caption comps, Film, Foreign matter | Tags: ,

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Groupthink’s first ever caption competition. Pretty simple, really: just submit your caption in the comments by 5pm Wednesday, and the panel of judges (me) will announce first, second and third places on Thursday.

Today’s photo comes from over the seas; a place the locals call “France”. In the photo, “French” President Nicolas Sarkozy is giving a movie star named Clint Eastwood (from some country called “the USA”) a medal for making movies or something. Clint Eastwood says that “France” is his second home, even though he doesn’t speak “French”, and Nicolas Sarkozy says that movies bring the two countries together even though they don’t really like each other.

Have at it!

eastwood

20 Comments

The smelliest tongues

by Ross Sharp on 13 November 2009
Categories: Foreign matter, Media, Politics, Society | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Steve Clemons, who writes “The Washington Note” has closed comments on his blog and remarks –

The comments on my blog have grown increasingly vile — and are not in any way constructive, civil, fair-minded, or policy-oriented. I am turning them off …

… I’m off to Havana Cuba for a research trip for a few days and have no interest or time in playing hall monitor for folks who need to grow up …

… I have emphasized over and over again that I am too busy to blog, do my New America Foundation work, and be a nanny for those who are not mature enough to be able to manage a civil discussion here …

… Eventually, I will review the last few weeks of comments and remove every one of them that went over the line with extremely crass and demeaning language …

… If you folks grow up, we can turn this on — but it takes shared commitment and responsibility. I won’t tolerate those who can’t be civil — on all sides of these debates …

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Shocking proof that the BNP is right

by Scott Bridges on 4 November 2009
Categories: Foreign matter, Politics, Society | Tags: , , , ,

The British National Party has been getting a lot of press in the UK and around the world recently, and more worryingly it’s been attracting a lot of extra votes as well. Emboldened by the increased attention, BNP members have been speaking a little louder than normal, perhaps deluded in the belief that their xenophobic and intolerant views might be a little closer to the mainstream than they once were.

A couple of proud British chaps from a south Wales branch of the BNP have made a video which they claim shows the true state of Britain. In it they cruise down the main street of Wembley in a car and shoot out the windscreen, describing the scenes as “horrific” and proof of “colonisation, not immigration.” At one point our patriot claims, “There’s hardly any British people left here,” but of course, what he meant to say is, “There’s hardly any white, non-Muslim people left here.” Finally, disgusted, they claim that the main street of Wembley is the fault of all three major UK political parties and “no British person gave them permission to do this.”

This is the kind of horrific scene that is typical of the video:

The funniest bit, however, is right at the end when the host stands in the middle of the main street of Wembley in broad daylight and speaks Welsh to camera (complete with subtitles) because “it could be dangerous for us here.”

Although the dude in the background looks very dangerous indeed, could these BNP nutters be any more paranoid if they tried?

But don’t just take my word for it — have a look at the video for yourself. (One of the best bits is when the host says, clearly sickened, “There’s a guy here with pyjamas on”).

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Nutosphere Field Guide Part 1 – Human Events

by Jason on 29 October 2009
Categories: Foreign matter, Media, Politics | Tags: , , , ,

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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