Only one new poll this week, that being the reliable weekly result from Essential Research, and it’s a similarly dull tale from the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. Things are exactly as they were last week on both two-party preferred and the seat projection, and there are no new figures this week for leadership ratings. The only changes worth observing are a Coalition seat gain in New South Wales that’s cancelled out by a loss in South Australia, and an ongoing descent for Palmer United since a peak three weeks ago. However, it should be noted that Labor’s two-party lead would have been down slightly if not for a methodological adjustment relating to Galaxy’s polls. The last three polls from Galaxy have been conducted according to a new methodology which includes an online panel component in addition to phone polling, but I had hitherto been applying bias adjustments based on the historical record of the old phone-only polling. It appeared that this was causing the Coalition vote to be over-adjusted upwards, so Galaxy’s bias adjustments will henceforth be calculated according to the pollster’s deviation from the results produced by the model – which so far at least is essentially no deviation at all.
this Era.
Not much interest in the latest Oz smear campaign against Julia Gillard on Twitter ..Hedley Thomas flogging a dead horse that was buried & cremated years ago..
Much merriment and ridicule still being directed at Brandis & Abetz though.. 🙂
Lucky duck!
Ducking off to the Big Dam, eh?
CTaR1
Chewing the shot is not my fav.
Maybe the faithless duck is off to a duck orgy.
…and nothing on ABC online
If the duck looks at you from behind it’s wing, is it a Peking Duck?
Puffy
Re: orgy, ducks do have them. Mallards are ferocious in mating. Warning: sexual violence.
http://www.arkive.org/mallard/anas-platyrhynchos/image-A18946.html
On being ‘suspicious of ducks’- ‘mechanical’ ducks in particular:
[… when Mason and Dixon first encounter the French chef, Armand Allègre (a characteristically Pynchon pun: “arm and a leg”), who is being pursued by Vaucanson’s Duck. This begs a bit of explanation, but is certainly one of the book’s key moments.]
…
Armand informs Mason and Dixon,
[Armand:] “Voltaire called him [Vaucanson] a Prometheus,– to be remembered only for having trespass’d so ingeniously outside the borders of Taste, as to have provided his Automaton a Digestionary Process, whose end result could not be distinguish’d from that found in Nature.”]
I read 3/4 of this book before I even had a inkling of what it was about. So I had to start again from the start.
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/papers_ketzan2.html
Norty ducks!
What a hoot!
Guess what Bludgers?
Tim Wilson, the head of the human rights commission, reckons it is perfectly fine for people to post naked and sexual material of your partner on the internet if your relationship breaks down.
Get material, keep it stored, and if things go sour…go for it!
That was a p!ssweak attempt to distract from the government’s dreadful week. When they drag out Marge and dredge up tired old Gillard stories, you know they are desperate.
Here’s a Saturday arvo laugh.
https://twitter.com/
Centre,
Is this guy for real. How is that behaviour not sexual violence? How is it not domestic violence? How is it not reprehensible behaviour?
CTaR1
[…as to have provided his Automaton a Digestionary Process, whose end result…]
…would be merde, n’est pas?
[Maybe the faithless duck is off to a duck orgy.]
Ah, so that’s what they do there. Guess who’s ducking over to the big dam right now!
On 2nd thoughts I’ll get the binoculars 🙂
Is this ‘news’ to the Yanks?
[David Gardner in The Financial Times on why Saudi Arabia is partly to blame for Middle East extremism.
Gardner suggests that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long endorsed religious absolutism by promoting Wahhabi Islam worldwide. “Saudi Arabia not only exports oil, but tanker-loads of quasi-totalitarian religious dogma and pipelines of jihadi volunteers, even as it struggles to insulate itself from the blowback; and King Abdullah, in his end of Ramadan address, warns against the ‘devilish’ extremism of ‘these deviant forces’. Jihadi extremism does present a threat to the kingdom. But in doctrinal terms it is hard to see in what way it ‘deviates’ from Wahhabi orthodoxy, with its literalist and exclusivist rendering of Sunni Islam.” Gardner contends that this fundamentalism has inadvertently fueled extremist groups like ISIL whom the Saudis condemn as a threat to the Middle East. “The Isis rampage of destruction of shrines and mosques, for instance, continues the two centuries-old record of Wahhabi iconoclasm. Nor should it be forgotten that the House of Saud used Wahhabi zealots as its shock troops in the last century to unite by force most of the religiously diverse Arabian peninsula – won by the sword in 52 battles over 30 years. There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, and permits to build Shia mosques are rarer than desert rain.”]
No link as it’s ‘fire-walled’.
Puffy
I remember Andrew Ettingshausen (former Sharks footballer) successfully suing for hundreds of thousands for having a photo publicised of him in the dressing sheds with a bit of his dick showing.
Now we can have shit posted of the net like Tod Carney’s and it’s all fine!
I think Carney should be allowed to sue.
And it’s not just the blokes that post the stuff. There are some crazy bitches out there believe me.
Bw
[…would be merde, n’est pas?]
Sorta, but fake.
CTaR1
It would be ‘news’ to the punters, IMHO, who would have difficulty finding the arabian peninsula let alone being able to tell one lot of jihadis from another.
OTOH, the Beltway has been doing schtumm for half a century.
(Did you see the snippet about the Russians sending half a doz Su-25s down to help the Iraqi Government out with their spot of bother? Air traffic control around Mosul/Erbil must be a hoot, ATM.)
CTaR1
Yeah. We have reached the Future. And everything is unreal.
Bw – Yep the Su-25’s registered with me.
In case you missed it I have real concerns re’ the Mosul Dam. (I’ve been boring the hell out of the indulgent commentators here (and the Poster probably) on this.
CTar1
[David Gardner in The Financial Times on why Saudi Arabia is partly to blame for Middle East extremism]
Partly ? !!! Fuack what an understatement.
[ CTar1
Posted Saturday, August 9, 2014 at 1:58 pm | Permalink
Is this ‘news’ to the Yanks?
David Gardner in The Financial Times on why Saudi Arabia is partly to blame for Middle East extremism.
]
——————————————————–
WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists
Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.
MORE : http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-saudi-terrorist-funding
What an absurb suggestion from Tim Wilson. Do any of the IPA blokes think how their thought bubbles will affect us.
Surely private photos are just that unless both parties agree to release them.
CTaR1
Cf Mosul Dam:
I trust that all the wannabe downstream Noahs have their animals sorted in two’s.
Setting aide the Mount Ararat Option, the baddies appear to have sorted it out that being in a position to cut off the Shia’s water might turn out to be handy.
ALSO :
The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
The others were from the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt and Lebanon.
This article by Jonathan Freedland who is the Guardian’s Executive Editor, is a hilarious load of confused thinking. I think the problem is a confusion of “cause”.
The “logic”, as far as I can understand i, seems to be:
1. A couple of paragraphs on the terrible things happening to Yazidis and Assyrian Christians in Iraq which may lead the tender reader to doubt the “progressive” view that religion is a spent force as the cause of anything etc. So:
[From the vantage point of avowedly secular Britain …….. the persistence of religion is indeed one of the 21st century’s great surprises. For so long, progress and the decline of faith – what enlightened types prefer to call “superstition” – were thought to be symbiotic if not synonymous.]
2. As a result …
[…….it is tempting to believe this is indeed the curious fate of our supposedly modern era – that we are being drawn back to a medieval or pre-medieval world of holy war and wholesale slaughter in the name of religion. The irony of it seems so rich: that just as technology is accelerating, making once impossible feats of connection routine, so the clock is turning backward, towards a new dark age of beheadings and enslavement, a fearsome army threatening a tiny sect with that ancient ultimatum – bow to our god or die.]
3. But have no fear:
[Yet neat though it is to see return to holy war as the motif of our age, it might be wrong.]
Note the use of “might”, in fact the writer assures us it “is” wrong. The “holy war as the motif of our age” is, I think, a rhetorical unicorn.
[…what’s driving IS, or at least making its phenomenal success possible, is not pre-modern religious zeal so much as a pre-modern absence of state power.]
Note the use of “or” to describe two propositions as if they are mutualy incompatable when they are not only mutually very compatible, but are likely to be both true. Namely Islamic State “might” be driven by “religious zeal” (the final cause) AND its immediate success might be (at least partly) due to the absence of an opposing power (an efficient cause).
4. Rest assured the fearless writer can confirm that, what at first seemed a charicature, was not, in fact. The “progressive liberal” can remain happily reassured:
[Our world is being shaken, but the persistence of religion is more a symptom than a cause. The larger problem, as old as mankind, is power and the lack of it. For sometimes weakness can be just as dangerous as strength.]
So there we have it: the 125 or so jihadists from Australia who went to fight for IS may have thought they were fighting because of religious zeal but they went because there was a power vacuum caused, of course, by the USA.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/islamic-state-nightmare-not-holy-unholy-mess-iraq
Help!!!
If you intend to sort your animals into two’s, just in case the Baddies blow up the Mosul Dam, should that be ‘twos’ or ‘two’s’, pendantically speaking?
Polling news from elsewhere, interesting to see how they do it. As in the USA, the article has a lot of emphasis on presidential approval ratings. Then there is discussion of various policy ratings. Toward to the end, it becomes clearer that the govt is still doing pretty well vs the right opposition. Perhaps they don’t ask how will you vote in so many words? In any case the description (identified) is different.
http://santiagotimes.cl/adimark-approval-ratings-bachelets-government-hit-five-month-low/
[ Adimark: Approval ratings for Bachelet’s government hit five-month low
By Sam Edwards
Published On : Fri, Aug 8th, 2014
Education Minister Eyzaguirre suffers further slide in approval as growing numbers believe signature education and tax reforms will not pass Congress.
While President Michelle Bachelet continues to enjoy positive approval ratings despite dropping several points this month, the government registered its lowest support yet during July, according to the country’s leading pollster.
Carried out between July 10 and Aug. 2, the most recent Adimark survey of the government asked more than 1000 people throughout the country their views on the current administration, its legislative agenda and the performance of senior figures.
Bachelet’s approval slipped slightly to 54 percent this month, returning to the level registered when the president entered office in March — a notable 11 points higher than it was during the same period in her first term (2006-2010). While approval figures have remained largely stable throughout Bachelet’s second term, though, the president’s disapproval ratings have continued to rise, reaching their highest percentage yet, 36 percent, in July. This marks a significant increase on the mere 20 percent of respondents who disapproved of the Bachelet’s performance back in March.
………..
Despite increasing negativity towards the government, and to a lesser extent the president herself, though, Bachelet’s left-leaning administration continued to fare much better than the right-leaning opposition Alianza coalition in the polls.
Of those polled, 55 percent identified with the government, while though the embattled opposition saw a two percent increase on last month’s figure, the Alianza coalition still only enjoyed a 23 percent rating. Earlier this month, leaders of the RN, UDI and Evópoli party met to discuss plans to form a new right-leaning coalition in an attempt to recover from last year’s comprehensive electoral mauling at the hands of the new and more expansive left-leaning Nueva Mayoría coalition.
The Adimark poll is carried out monthly by interviewing respondents via landlines and mobile phones. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.]
http://www.adimark.cl/es/estudios/documentos/5_eval%20gobierno%20jul_2014.pdf
The full poll, lots of detail. If you don’t speak Spanish, graphs are universal.
Here is some more information on metadata, you only need months of warrentless data to paint a picture of someones life:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130702/10345623693/7-months-warrantless-just-metadata-paints-clear-picture-your-personal-life.shtml
Further:
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5858012/nsa-admits-it-lets-the-fbi-access-its-warrantless-spying-database
US Government agencies sharing information, that is warrentless.
Scary stuff.
BH
Not according to Tim Wilson. He reckons that once something gets in the public domain it should not be removed.
Bw
I’m suggesting that the Yazidi’s heading for the hills was possibly a very good idea.
My thought is not that ISIL will cut the water off, but instead may wipe Mosul and Tikrit off the map (and put 15ft of water in Baghdad) by letting the water ‘go’.
swamprat
Hmmmmmm….
How about:
The Middle Classes need a steady state and the steady state needs the Middle Classes.
Globalism is destroying the Middle Classes and with it nation states. (Destroying the Middle Class is Abbott’s Historical Mission for Australia although he does not seem to have thought it through; OTOH, Joe – with his cigar – was closer to the truth than he will ever understand.)
Globalism’s dross is (a) stateless super wealth and (b) stateless, nothing-to-lose, wannabes. The latter might badge themselves religiously but it does not really matter because, whatever they call themselves, they are going to be ever more numerous and ever more angry.
I don’t know what Tim Wilson is thinking or what his ideology may be?
Maybe don’t do anything kinky or you will get caught who knows?
The bloke is a fucking fruit loop and it is shameful that a twisted dork like him is head of the Human Rights Commission.
CTaR1
Yes, that is what I was thinking you were thinking. Moselle et al, but done properly.
But I had not realized 15ft in Baghdad. The Sunni Bagdhadis in particular would feel a tad cheated should they end up being whisked down the Euphratres to the Gulf (surely, with all those arabs floating in it) of Arabia.
Perhaps if we all ignore it, it will all go away by itself.
Centre
[The bloke is a fucking fruit loop]
Unfortunately he has a heap of equally nutty auxiliaries.
swamprat
which raises a point about the access we now have to information – that we can mistake ‘having more information about what’s happening’ to ‘what’s happening is happening more often’.
It’s highly likely that the level of religious violence is less than it was decades ago. But the average person didn’t have much information about incidents of religious violence, say, a decade ago. Now every incident is not only flashed around the web, but is supported by a level of detail – photos, videos, etc – unseen before.
[Centre
Posted Saturday, August 9, 2014 at 2:23 pm | Permalink
I don’t know what Tim Wilson is thinking or what his ideology may be?
Maybe don’t do anything kinky or you will get caught who knows?
The bloke is a fucking fruit loop and it is shameful that a twisted dork like him is head of the Human Rights Commission.]
May I suggest that this is intemperate?
Mr Wilson is following libertarian thinking to its logical conclusion. I hope one day to be entertained with Mr Wilson’s partner(s) following his advice to its graphical conclusion.
But, then again, maybe not.
Re Wilson.
>>>>>>>>
Wilson got that job because he was big with the IPA,and a major spokeman for them pre the last election
They rate highly with Abbott and Co
He get’s a huge salary..$30O.OOO plus… and can say and do just about whatever right-wing views come into his head
He’s is Gay however and that must ruffle some conservative feathers in the Coalition
Bw
If done, in twelve months time, the Tigris Valley will be a very ‘Fertile Crescent’.
Electricity supply in what’s left of Mosul would resume in about 2 decades time.
Boer war, would you be able to repost that long list of Abbott’s broken promises you were compiling?
Boerwar
‘twos’ or ‘two’s’?
Many people have a habit of inserting an apostrophe before a plural ‘s’ especially after an abbreviation or a number. For example: MP’s. The 1930’s. CV’s. All wrong. Less is more.
Lunch was half a glass of Windy Peak (Yarra Valley) chardonnay and fried prawns with freshly grated ginger and lemon juice. I FEEL BETTER NOW.
CTaR1
Ah. Yet another Dark Ages in that neck of the woods.
OTOH, it would be good for the ducks.
Bw
[I hope one day to be entertained with Mr Wilson’s partner(s) following his advice to its graphical conclusion.
But, then again, maybe not.]
I’m with you on the ‘not’ concept.
Boer
Please, you don’t want people chundering if they’re unlucky to come across something like that on the net.
lizzie
[I FEEL BETTER NOW.]
Good.
Is there a tune in that? 😀
Bw
[OTOH, it would be good for the ducks.]
Mechanical ones in first. You never know what duck aggressive diseases may arise from the past.
[lizzie
Boerwar
‘twos’ or ‘two’s’?
Many people have a habit of inserting an apostrophe before a plural ‘s’ especially after an abbreviation or a number. For example: MP’s. The 1930′s. CV’s. All wrong. Less is more.]
Oh. I was wrong, then.
I should have posted that all the Noahs getting ready for the Great Euphratres ISIS Mosul Dam Flood of 2014 should be arranging their animals in ‘twos’, not ‘two’s’. Damn it.
[Lunch was half a glass of Windy Peak (Yarra Valley) chardonnay and fried prawns with freshly grated ginger and lemon juice. I FEEL BETTER NOW.]
Hah! I did much better than that. I had three pieces of toast, one each with (a) vegemite (b) apricot jam, and (c) peanut butter (crunchy). So there.