buggery.org

For all the slack, insufferable Australians who can’t get off their beach towels long enough to read Bush’s State of the Union address in full, Aaron Swartz has condensed it down to a nippy 308 words.

And you know something? You know something? Not only are we going to Mount Niggerhead, we’re going to Bald Knob and Wet Beaver Creek and Chinaman’s Knob and Dondangadale and Lake Cadibarrawirracanna! We’re going to Nar Nar Goon and Nyah and Tittybong! And we’re going to Upotipotpon and Whroo and Humpty Doo and Burrumbuttock! And then we’re going to Canberra. To take back Parliament House! YEEEAAARGH!!

Posted by: Kerry Nettle at January 20, 2004 at 07:51 PM

Tim Blair has been inviting readers to contribute their own “regional variations” on Howard Dean’s curiously professional-wrestler-esque non-victory speech.

(Despite what Senator Nettle’s highly-trained and hardworking team of researchers may think, it appears there is no “Wet Beaver Creek” in Australia.)

Union Label is a site encouraging trade union members and supporters of the union movement to display a union label on their weblogs.

“By displaying a union label on your weblog,” the site explains, “you can help support unionism while tapping in to a network of unionist bloggers and their readers.”

There are only a few sites listed so far but, for leftist readers, they’re a cut above the average.

Update, just after 1400 hrs: I’m now listed member #11 of Union Label, just after (eek!) Ensign Wesley Crusher (he’s a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild).

One for my American readers:

aidsvote.org is a new website advocating for HIV issues in the 2004 US presidential election.

Its goals are “to educate and inform presidential candidates of the concrete steps necessary to ensure our country is the world leader on HIV/AIDS and public health, and to educate and inform voters on the stands taken by the candidates on these crucial issues.”

American voters can read their full platform statement and register their support online.

Andrew Bartlett is to stay on as leader of the Dipso Democrats after his Senate “team” decided to stand by him, or perhaps to stand between him and the drinks table.

Bartlett will return to the leader’s job early next year and will lead the Democrats to the political wilderness next election, the ABC reports.

This is not especially interesting news but it does provide a convenient, if somehat flimsy, excuse for the photo … and this comment by Kirsty:

It’s the Alice Cooper look that gets me. I don’t know whether he wants to save the chicken or bite its head off on the senate floor.

No wonder Jeannie Ferris was so freaked out.

Note for foreign visitors: “chook” = Australian slang for “chicken”

Sorry to keep quoting Mark Latham at every turn but there’s just so much material! This [deliberately decontextualised] exchange from last night’s interview with Kerry O’Brien on The 7:30 Report:

KERRY O’BRIEN: What is this obsession you have with bottoms?

MARK LATHAM: I’ve no particular obsession with bottoms, it’s a figure of speech —

Another extract from the same speech:

“In his statement to the parliament, the Prime Minister dismissed the opposition to war as ‘just anti-American prejudice’. Imagine, the member for Bennelong lecturing us about prejudice: the same Member of Parliament who opposed sanctions against South Africa, who wanted to cut Asian immigration, who opposed the Mabo judgment tooth and nail, who welcomed Pauline Hanson’s first speech in this place as an outbreak of free speech. He still refuses to say sorry to the stolen generation and, to this day, cannot bear to utter the word “multiculturalism”. This bloke has a PhD in prejudice; he has no right to be lecturing anyone else.”

Latham has promised to tone down his language now he’s the alternative PM. “No more crudity” he says will be his mantra. If he needs to use more tempered language, then so be it, but hopefully he won’t stop saying what the rest of us have been thinking. That would be a loss.

Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., casts a shadow on the flag as he is introduced to speak at a rally Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, at the police station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Gephardt, faulting President Bush for “gambling with our safety,” on Monday called for spending $100 billion over five years on homeland security. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

[via Drudge]

Australia has a new opposition leader. Although Mark Latham is not my most favourite politician, I’m happy with the outcome of this morning’s caucus vote — the Labor party has Continue reading →