buggery.org

From the federal Department of Bloody Silly Ideas comes the news that a panel of highly-paid “experts” have suggested we stop calling the drought a drought because it “makes farmers feel bad.” Instead, the government’s hand-picked Drought Policy Review Expert Social Panel suggests we use the word “dryness”.

“Words like drought … have negative connotations for farm families,” the report said.

“There needs to be a new national approach to living with dryness, as we prefer to call it, rather than dealing with drought.”

This is the sort of outside-the-box think that Australia desperately needs. Instead of dealing with permanent water shortages, rethinking agricultural policy or (gasp!) actually doing something to reduce the carbon emissions that are causing global warming, let’s just give the drought a new name and all will be well.

Now instead of worrying about the endless drought we can think of it as simply “a dryness”, the sort of expression that, until now, one only heard on deodorant and moisturiser commercials. Thank you, highly-paid panel of consultants!

Unsurprisingly, the National Party has rejected the suggestion that the drought be renamed. After many years, Australia’s farming sector has made a highly profitable shift from actually growing things to focusing on collecting government drought assistance payments, and obviously if the drought is renamed their business model might dry up (pun intended!)

Speaking of which, apropos of the current fashion for nationalising business losses by partial government buyouts of debt-ridden banks, has anyone noticed the parallel between this and Australia’s longstanding policy of subsidising the farm sector during the (increasingly frequent)bad years while giving the squatters and cockies a free ride when things are good?

Telegraph:

Do you dream in black and white? If so, the chances are you are over 55 and were brought up watching a monochrome television set.

(Via Mark Pesce)

McSweeneys:

JOE THE PLUMBER: Hello, fellow small-business owner. I’m Joe the Plumber, and I’ve successfully plumbed your bathroom. I’m relevant to national politics for some reason.

SMALL-BUSINESS OWNER: What do I owe you?

JOE THE PLUMBER: More than $250,000 a year. Despite my name and salary, I’m neither a Mafia boss nor a porn star.

Howard Schweber in the Huffington Post:

We do not say that people who are child molesters, child abusers, drug addicts, or neglectful parents may not procreate. We don’t even say that such persons may not marry, on the theory that this will dissuade them from procreating. [...]

Wait, though. The argument turns out to be even worse than that. The whole point of this logic is that if a certain class of people will be sub-optimal parents, we are justified in denying them the legal privileges of marriage, right? Which makes sense only if we assume that not being allowed to be married will make them less likely to raise children (just as the argument for “privileging and regulating” sex assumed that not being married cuts down on sexual activity.) The thing is, we are not talking about a pool of existing children who might be assigned to one set of parents or another, as in the case of an adoption regulation. If the idea is that same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry so that they will be discouraged from having and raising children, the implication is that the children those couples might have if they were allowed to marry are better off NEVER HAVING BEEN BORN AT ALL.

Hot damn…