Slattsnews

SLATTERY Richard Joseph. Died peacefully at McKellar Centre, North Geelong, September 29, aged 85. Loved husband of Elizabeth (dec).
Loved father of Susan Anson, Bernard, Richard, Barbara Collier, John (dec), Timothy, Jillian (dec) and Peter and their families.
Proud veteran of 2/14th Battalion AIF.VX15901.

He was all set to cheer the Cats on to victory.

Whether it’s massive twelfth century Chinese ships, Portuguese explorers of the Victorian coast or killer bugs from outer space, my old pal Noel Murphy has probably written about it. Murph has such a deep fascination with the weird and whimsical, he’d sit well on the editorial board of Ripley’s. He scored about a squillion clicks this week when the Drudge Report picked up his piece for the Geelong Advertiser on bacteria growing meaner in space.

Well, the battle colours are fluttering, the tribal totems are assembled and the hordes anxiously await the conflict.
Seems only the pulseless are not making some commitment to the blue and white in Geelong this week. I’ve seen shopgirls in streamers, old codgers in beanies, punks on striped skateboards and that worst of all looks, paunchy middle-aged men in hooped footy guernseys.
It appears that a shopfront without some sort of Cats theme is begging for a silent till.
Here’s some shots from my neighbourhood: (Click to enlarge)

Good Lord, wonders will never cease. Media Watch has exposed a Phat Phil Phib. Were they
ashamed a fellow lefty had stretched the truth further than his underpants elastic? Not when there’s the opportunity to snipe at the enemy.
And no, MW had nothing to say about the best-known global news wire service — Reuters — and dozens of news editors worldwide distorting by intent or incompetence the comments of Dubya at a White House press conference.
Maybe it was not a serious enough breach of journalistic practice for the guardians of media purity. Or did it occur too late in the news cycle for MW’s Monday night airing? I mean, I didn’t learn about it until as late as Saturday morning. These things take time in the sheltered workshop.

UPDATE:
Amazing. Media Watch has been caught indulging in something dangerously close to racism. Certainly redneck-style ignorance. From MW’s message board:
I’m glad you raised the issue of the Pumpkin story. I note that MW identified Councillor Andrew Nguyen as
‘a prominent member of the Chinese community.’
He is ,as most Australians would recognise from the name, a member of the Vietnamese community.
Fairfield City Council Minutes 18/09/2005
Councillor [Andrew ] Nguyen:
‘As a … Councillor of Vietnamese origin on Council’
Do you guys at MW ever do any research? Was it too hard to find a prominent member of the Chinese community who was in fact Chinese?

He lives in the next suburb, he was kind and friendly to my son at their school, he’s modest yet articulate, and he loves his mum. And he’s the best footballer in Australia.

Observa, who often comments here, makes sound points about grand final preparations, but declines to hypothesise on the outcome had my Magpies encountered his in the finals. Wewoodadunemlikeadinna!!!

Geelong deserve to win the flag on their performance this year but alas Bernie, as a Port man I can’t go along with that now. They are generally 8 goals better than the closest if they all bring their best footy to the game but GF’s don’t always turn out that way.
Watching the Brownlow count I couldn’t help thinking it mightn’t aid the preparations of two young stars in Bartel and Ablett. On that score and given the winner often has to play in the GF, perhaps they should move the count to the first Monday after the home and away season.
As for the prelims, it is always more tense for the rest week teams as the challengers come with no expectations or pressure and can play their natural game. That’s what Collingwood could do, whereas Geelong were uptight and it showed. I know the feeling in Port’s premiership year with the Saints at home nearly raining on the parade. Geelong nearly upset Brisbane too you might recall. OTOH you made it easy for us by thrashing the Kangas first up. After that mauling, when push came to shove, they were never going to believe they were good enough to win the flag. Sure they wanted to save some face against the Hawks, but they had run out of petrol by the time they met us. Consequently, I’d discount the prelims as a form guide for the GF. Geelong are still the best form side, but Port are running on adrenalin and have some experience about the big day to instruct the new kids on what to expect and how to handle it. That could prove telling, if Brownlow favouritism and the actual medal prove too much additional strain for the preparation of 2 brilliant young engine room players. We’ll see.

Here’s a reasonable analogy from George W. Bush at a White House press conference:

There is local reconciliation taking place. I had a fascinating conversation in the Roosevelt Room earlier this week with members of provincial reconstruction teams from around Iraq who talked about how people are sick and tired of murder and violence, and that they expect their local governments and their central government to be more responsive to their needs, and local governments are beginning to respond.
Part of the reason why there is not this instant democracy in Iraq is because people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule. I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas. He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families, and people are recovering from this. So there’s a psychological recovery that is taking place. And it’s hard work for them. And I understand it’s hard work for them. Having said that, I’m not going the give them a pass when it comes to the central government’s reconciliation efforts.

Whether or not you agreed with him, you’d have to be pretty stupid to read into that anything other than Bush declaring there are tragically few Mandela-type inspirational leaders on the ground in Iraq because Saddam got rid of them all.

Well, it seems the office idiot has struck news desk duty at Reuters:

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader’s death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

Only to have his/her howler grabbed with glee and run with by the stupidoes at Larvatus Prodeo

Even when their howler is pointed out, the LP retardos take even more of their clothes off:

Bush said “Mandela is dead”. Mandela is NOT dead. He is 89 years old.
Bush thought Mandela had died, otherwise he would not have used his name in this context. Bush is stupid because he is a head of state who does not know that one of the most famous men in the world is still alive and dancing.
Using Mandela’s “death” as a metaphor for Saddam’s murderous actions simply does not work. Anyone who thinks it does is stupid too.

To those few half-brains still hanging around in the Left: close the door quietly on your way out and turn off the lights. The darkness does not bother them.

I suppose it’s some consolation that your immediate world is a happier place when your team goes down by five points in the preliminary final. Smiles beamed in every direction beneath a cloudless blue sky in the Geelong West shopping strip this morning. Quite a few of them smiles of relief, I’m sure. Yes, the Pies were gallant in defeat, but still, it was defeat, outski, hoo-roo.
The Geelong Advertiser set up a blog to deliver a blow-by-blow account. None of that objective reporting nonsense, footy’s too important for that: Leon Davis spins, turns, misses! Phew! Fine work, nevertheless.
Two predictions: Geelong will win the 2007 premiership handsomely; Collingwood will win the 2008 premiership.
Thomas the Tout’s message in comments below prompted me to take this shot of a famous Geelong landmark — voted by Mick Molloy a few years back, to the delight of its owner, as “Victoria’s seventh most shithouse place”.

Here’s some welcome news for the lefties in our midst:

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said the United States was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in a new video released Thursday, the latest in a series put out by the terror network.

Welcome but inaccurate. But then, when was the western left ever concerned with truth?

This sounds like the sort of place these folks would have us inhabit: Tim Johnson writes that it is an oasis of cleanliness, order and quiet. There is almost no litter: Every item is used to exhaustion. In the countryside, rivers and streams run clean, and forests dot the landscape.

Johnson says the city at night is eerily silent and inky with cyclists relying on streetlights and dim bike lamps to guide them in the darkness.

Some sort of greenie Utopia? Er, try North Korea.

Here’s McRingtail’s take on green fanatics.

This was a feel-good moment. The son and heir performing with my best mate at my nephew’s wedding at the weekend. While you’re at the link, have a look around, it’s a historic tour through western Victorian popular music land.
And here’s the happy couple. Click to enlarge.

Pity you can’t find anything as good as this in Australian blats. Hat-tip to John Ray. Click on images to enlarge. More terrific toons here.

This case is so disturbing on so many fronts that you truly wonder whether those heading some of our institutions have gone completely bonkers.
A LESBIAN mother demanding compensation for having IVF twins instead of one child has lost her capacity to love, her partner told a court today.

A delivery from “With friends like that” for Hillary Clinton.

It’s telling enough that the ranks of ALP federal members are saturated with former union hacks. Now it seems that if Labor were to take power, there would be a government job for every former shop steward, branch delegate and dues collector.
The Australian today publishes (not online yet) a huge list of new bureaucracies that a Rudd government would create. They comprise two new departments, 21 new agencies or centres, seven offices, 17 advisory groups, seven new commisar-type positions and 96 reviews.
Krudd’s army would include a Department of Innovation, a National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, a Climate Change office, a Green Car Innovation Fund Taskforce, an Ambassador for Older Australians and a Review of Genocide Investigatory Resources.
It makes the Whitlam government look like a model of minimal administration. This threat of a tsunami of shiny arses could well be the beginning of the end for Krudd.

And a fine example of life imitating art. Er, well life imitating Billy Connolly.
LINCOLN, Neb. – The defendant in a state senator’s lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He’s everywhere.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he’s trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

We’ve been relaxing down the coast for a few days and have consumed little news other than the Pies’ exciting triumph over the Weagles on Friday night.
So I tuned into ABC TV news at 7pm last night expecting a factual report of weekend activities across the nation. Fat chance.
The first word of the bulletin, and probably the last that should occur in any professional journalists’ copy: “Rumours. . .
Yep, the national broadcaster led with iffy speculation. And not even an original hypothesis — it was yet another wank-whisper from the gallery suggesting that Howard would step down in the next 24-48 hours. Howard denied it, Joe Hockey said it was frog droppings but still the ABC continued to present as news what is essentially an untruth. Come on, Auntie supporters, defend it.

Seems they’ve got all sorts of socialists in the British government. Even the type that once ran Germany. You know, the German socialists who blamed the Jews for everything wrong in the world.
Yep, according to former Blair Government minister Clare Short, Israel is to blame for global warming (or as we know it round here, Goebels’ warning).
Short made the crazy claim last month that no progress was possible on climate change treaties because Israel “undermines the international community’s reaction to global warming”.

There’s something wrong if you can’t raise the slightest of smirks from this.

Paddy was in New York. He was waiting patiently and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted: “OK, pedestrians”.
Paddy allowed the traffic to pass.
He had done this several times and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk.
After the cop had shouted “pedestrians” for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said: “Is it not about time ye let the Catholics cross?”

And you don’t need me to tell you there’s something wrong in the socialist state of Britain where they have people like Cornwall County Council’s equality and diversity officer Ginny Harrison-White.
This professional offence-taker launched a boycott against a Catholic parish magazine because of tame Irish jokes like the above, forcing the Ulster-born Catholic editor to resign.
The humourless harridan complained that the use of the names Murphy and Paddy in jokes in the magazine was racist and wrote to schools asking whether it was appropriate (always that gutless word) to have their news printed alongside ‘such derogatory material’, calling for headmasters to boycott the magazine.
Ex-editor Denis Lusby was justifiably irate:

He said: “I have spent my life being non-racist and anti-racist – and to have somebody accuse me of being racist is really hard to take.
“IRA bombings were going on, so I reckon I know a lot more about racial prejudice than she does.
“The magazine evolved out of the church notices and grew over the years but I’ve always put in the odd joke or two.”
Mr Lusby, who is chairman of St Breward’s parish council, added: “It had all sorts of jokes, not just Irish, but in her letter this lady complained about the use of the names Murphy and Paddy, which is funny because Patrick is my middle name.”

Funny? We can’t have funny in a nanny state.

This type of determination should be bottled:
The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said.