6 - # of Straya threads or # of times we've changed Prime Minister in a decade?

[Kieran McConville]

Seriously, the only thing a Fairfax broadsheet from thirty years ago and from today have in common is their logo and Ross Gittins.

 

[Axver]

I wasn't meaning to make a comparison there, just a lament for the Age. I still check it frequently every day... but to be honest I only do that when I'm in Melbourne, for local news. Just five years ago I would still pop onto the Age's website in the morning when I was travelling, both to check in on what was happening in Melbourne and for their reporting more broadly. Last time I was out of the country I don't recall even checking it.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I think the last time I even looked at it was probably a link one of you posted in this thread.

 

[intedomine]

Online content on The Age has deteriorated quite dramatically in the past 12 months or so. The home page is saturated in blatant clickbait (I now hover over the articles to get better detail about what the link contains), and the headlines are dominated by lifestyle (relationships), housing and television show recap stories.

The look and feel of the online Age website has probably kept me quite loyal over the years, although the past 3-4 months or so I've started to use ABC News as my main website for news. Reliable and trustworthy enough,




Sent from a barge floating through the docks of Dublin

 

[Kieran McConville]

If Interference ever decides to engage the services of "Outbrain" to tell us what's what around the interwebs, I'm gone.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Fuck, what am I saying. For all I know U2 owe Outbrain a private concert for some horrific favour or other.

 

[Axver]

the headlines are dominated by lifestyle (relationships), housing and television show recap stories.

The TV show recaps I just don't get. If you're interested enough in the show to click the link, wouldn't you, well, have watched the fucker already? It's not as if Masterchef has such a convoluted plotline that a summary afterwards may be handy.

Fuck, what am I saying. For all I know U2 owe Outbrain a private concert for some horrific favour or other.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I'm reluctant to go into FYM to say this, but was I the only absolutely sickened by the fawning over that photo of Michelle Obama hugging Dubya?

Fuck, and you can see all these people sighing 'oh, Dubya wasn't so bad ...'

Horrifying.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Dubya has already been partly rehabilitated, in a variety of ways. The Bushes collectively coming out against Trump this year probably didn't hurt either.

The man belongs in prison.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Agreed.

You could make a good argument for each and every living US president belonging in a prison, to be honest. Especially if you use the criteria the US applies to certain enemies.

 

[Kieran McConville]

That's not untrue as far as it goes, but at this point, I think the 2003 invasion - and dismantling - of Iraq in particular is rapidly shaping up as the crime of the century, a real Sarajevo moment.

I sense it's already been largely forgotten in some quarters, there's this sort of blank incomprehension as to why 'those people' are the way they are, and not nice People Like Us. Their whole fucking world is in flames. Knock away every strut underpinning civil society in America, bomb it to hell, and see how well the voices of democracy and reason do there, is what I'd say.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Undermine even vaguely progressive forces in the region over decades, eventually weaken them to the point of irrelevance, then complain about the rampant conservatism/reaction that fills the void.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Well yeah, it's a 'be careful what you wish for' situation. Back when socialism, or socialist-flavoured national-development pan Arabism, or Soviet-alignment was the big bogey, it was two legs good, four legs bad. Now it's wahabbist inspired Islam (Saudi Arabia remains America's great friend and ally for some unaccountable reason), again, two legs good, four legs bad, just in a different way.

 

[Kieran McConville]

On a more prosaic note, man am I done with this winter. Yes, winter. Now, don't mistake me, weather is not climate and I know that full well, but anyhow, here in Toowoomba, at the end of September, hardly a day has yet topped 20 degrees. It's 19 right now. It's nearly October and I'm still cold all the time.

Not to mention that dry air, then swinging wildly back to damp and humid, then right back to dry again, three or four times in a week, is absolutely murder on my skin. I can hardly go out in public.

 

[Axver]

On a more prosaic note, man am I done with this winter. Yes, winter. Now, don't mistake me, weather is not climate and I know that full well, but anyhow, here in Toowoomba, at the end of September, hardly a day has yet topped 20 degrees. It's 19 right now. It's nearly October and I'm still cold all the time.

Bloody hell you Queenslanders. If it were that warm I'd be complaining endlessly. I'm annoyed it's now getting warm enough that we rarely have days below 14-15. On the other hand, I'm glad it's not now 1-2 degrees when I go for my morning run.

On the political topics:
- What I find interesting is the divergent trajectories of the Middle East and Latin America despite the US pursuing similar goals during the Cold War in dismantling left-wing/progressive forces that were feared to favour the Soviets (or just wouldn't play ball on the US's terms). I don't know nearly as much about Latin America as I should, so I can't speculate on why the results today are so different, but I think it's worth noting. And perhaps New Zealand should consider itself lucky that the US didn't try to intervene during the first year of the Lange government!
- It's genuinely scary that Trump makes us think Dubya wasn't that bad, or that Abbott does the same to Howard, or whatever. I have an older colleague who is furious that Malcolm Fraser in the years preceding his death was somewhat adopted by the left - I've lost count of how many times I've heard from her some variation of "I was an undergrad when he came to power! He was terrible!" It goes to show just how alarmingly there has been a drift to the right and how much the goalposts have shifted in terms of what is an acceptable part of mainstream political debate.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Bloody hell you Queenslanders. If it were that warm I'd be complaining endlessly. I'm annoyed it's now getting warm enough that we rarely have days below 14-15. On the other hand, I'm glad it's not now 1-2 degrees when I go for my morning run.

Heh, well, it's usually in the high twenties at this time of year. The high twenties is my comfort zone. Over 30 and I feel too hot, under 23 or so and I feel cold.

On the political topics:
- What I find interesting is the divergent trajectories of the Middle East and Latin America despite the US pursuing similar goals during the Cold War in dismantling left-wing/progressive forces that were feared to favour the Soviets (or just wouldn't play ball on the US's terms). I don't know nearly as much about Latin America as I should, so I can't speculate on why the results today are so different, but I think it's worth noting. And perhaps New Zealand should consider itself lucky that the US didn't try to intervene during the first year of the Lange government!

The Middle East and Latin America were very different in so many ways, but I take your point that there are some parallels.

Maybe Australia should consider itself lucky that the US didn't try to intervene during the Whitlam Govermn- oh, wait...

- It's genuinely scary that Trump makes us think Dubya wasn't that bad, or that Abbott does the same to Howard, or whatever. I have an older colleague who is furious that Malcolm Fraser in the years preceding his death was somewhat adopted by the left - I've lost count of how many times I've heard from her some variation of "I was an undergrad when he came to power! He was terrible!" It goes to show just how alarmingly there has been a drift to the right and how much the goalposts have shifted in terms of what is an acceptable part of mainstream political debate.

Yeah, time has a way of smoothing off those rough edges, doesn't it. I was around for the early Howard government, and so much of what was done is done for good, irreversible, the damage immense. The privatisation of the employment-agency-biz springs to mind (the Job Network, which is essentially a cuddlier cousin of the prison-industrial complex). The decline and fall of the ABC over these same two to three decades is another thing. It's hard to remember that the ABC used to be quite good, thinking back when I was around in the early nineties as a high schooler.

I suppose it's partly for these reasons that I don't think all change is to the good, or the 'world only spins forward' or the future is better than the past. It simply isn't so.

In some fairness to Fraser I guess he never pretended to be a man of the left, but his more humane instincts on questions concerning refugees and this country's indigeneous people, and the US alliance, simply grew increasingly out of step with a right that has no use for anything without a dollar sign on it.

 

[Axver]

Heh, well, it's usually in the high twenties at this time of year. The high twenties is my comfort zone. Over 30 and I feel too hot, under 23 or so and I feel cold.

It's too hot if I can't wear a coat or jacket, and at the moment I consider that to be about 20. When I lived in Queensland my upper limit was 25. I live in my coats. I don't even know what to do if I don't have one and all of its sweet, sweet pockets in which to store my life.

The Middle East and Latin America were very different in so many ways, but I take your point that there are some parallels.

Maybe Australia should consider itself lucky that the US didn't try to intervene during the Whitlam Govermn- oh, wait...

True. Although the policy objectives were analogous, the local contexts are perhaps too difficult to compare. Though many of the left-wing revolutionaries in both regions shared bonds.

It's odd because it's not as if the Whitlam government was that radical. Certainly not compared to what was happening elsewhere, or even to Chifley's government.

Yeah, time has a way of smoothing off those rough edges, doesn't it. I was around for the early Howard government, and so much of what was done is done for good, irreversible, the damage immense. The privatisation of the employment-agency-biz springs to mind (the Job Network, which is essentially a cuddlier cousin of the prison-industrial complex).

I wrote some overviews of research projects going on in my faculty last year and one of them was to do with the privatisation of employment agencies. It's not something I had thought about much - it happened before I was old enough to grasp the import of what was happening - and I certainly had not realised that Australia took the most extreme approach of comparable countries. Both the UK and the Netherlands maintain much greater state involvement in the sector than we do, and provide better incentives not just to jobseekers, but also to staff to maintain morale and reduce turnover. My overviews were based on interviews, and I walked into this one expecting to be bored stiff and walked out having really learnt something.

 

[Kieran McConville]

It's too hot if I can't wear a coat or jacket, and at the moment I consider that to be about 20. When I lived in Queensland my upper limit was 25. I live in my coats. I don't even know what to do if I don't have one and all of its sweet, sweet pockets in which to store my life.

I work at home and spend most of my time there to be honest, and if I have to wear a coat, it's too cold. In fact, if I have to wear a shirt, it's by definition, too cold.

True. Although the policy objectives were analogous, the local contexts are perhaps too difficult to compare. Though many of the left-wing revolutionaries in both regions shared bonds.

It's odd because it's not as if the Whitlam government was that radical. Certainly not compared to what was happening elsewhere, or even to Chifley's government.

Oh I know, and in some respects, with the first big tariff reductions, Whitlam's government could be seen as a forerunner of what would come under Hawke. Actually Australia under Whitlam was mostly just picking up where the US had been going under Johnson or maybe the UK under Wilson, but it was the seventies by then and then the oil crises started rolling on in.

In all seriousness I don't know if US contacts in the diplomatic arena were actually desperate to destroy Whitlam, but they were seemingly unsettled enough by the erratic nature of that government to prefer Fraser and the Coalition...

I wrote some overviews of research projects going on in my faculty last year and one of them was to do with the privatisation of employment agencies. It's not something I had thought about much - it happened before I was old enough to grasp the import of what was happening - and I certainly had not realised that Australia took the most extreme approach of comparable countries. Both the UK and the Netherlands maintain much greater state involvement in the sector than we do, and provide better incentives not just to jobseekers, but also to staff to maintain morale and reduce turnover. My overviews were based on interviews, and I walked into this one expecting to be bored stiff and walked out having really learnt something.

Yeah, it's odd that Australia went so far in that direction, and bear in mind this was during Howard's unhappy first term when he was an inch away from defeat. As I've said before, Howard wasn't really safe in power until after 9/11 and the Tampa business.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I see it could get down to 8 in the next couple of nights, and into mid next week there isn't more than one day tipped to reach 25, and no more than three tipped to even reach 20. Yeah, I'm fucking over this.

 

[Axver]

While I'm grumpy that Sunday is currently forecast to be a much-too-warm 22.

Wonder if Vlad is enjoying the dark in SA right now...! Lucky Port aren't in the grand final or this would be a very inauspicious omen.

 

[Kieran McConville]

The dark? What is this dark in SA? Is the Death Star in orbit?

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I'm one of the lucky ones, my power came back 20 or so minutes ago.

 

[Axver]

The dark? What is this dark in SA? Is the Death Star in orbit?

South Australia wasn't sure it was doing a good enough impression of the nineteenth century so they switched off the power.

Countdown to "I survived the great South Australian blackout of 2016" statuses/memes/shirts in 3, 2...

 

[Kieran McConville]

Oooooh, right.

Cause I was tempted to say, that even under Jay Weatherill I'm pretty sure photosynthesis still takes place.

 

[Axver]

Geez Fairfax publish some awful hot takes these days: South Australia pays the price for heavy reliance on renewable energy

Yes, SA is definitely paying the price for using renewables through an event that would have happened whether the entire state's power came from wind, coal, nuclear, cow farts, ten trillion hamsters running on little wheels, the musty odour of Nick Xenophon's populism, Christopher Pyne's smugness, or literally anything else. Quality logic.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Everyone's favourite Malcolm Roberts is stinking up the joint again.

 

[cobl04]

What have I missed?

 

[cobl04]

I like Wyatt Roy a lot.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Why, what'd he do now?

 

[cobl04]

Flew of his own accord to Syria to learn about it all firsthand, which I give him credit for. And (not surprisingly given he's in his 20s) he was pretty liberal for a Liberal.

Then Penny Wong released a really fucking weird statement demanding the Liberals explain his trip. More like Petty Wong!