The Road to Surfdom has been live since May 2002. It is a venue for discussion, argument, the exchange of information and the glorification of Chickenhawks. Anyone can comment, so please feel free to join in. And stay tuned for further developments.
You probably remember Margaret Thatcher’s famous observation that “There is no such thing as society”. It appears however that her successors are prepared to abandon her ideology completely:
In the book, Mr Cameron says: “I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now.
“Margaret Thatcher in her time realised that the big challenge was reviving Britain’s economy, and we should recognise that the challenge for the modern Conservatives is reviving our society.
“It’s dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities.”
Thatcher, on the other hand, said:
I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.
It will be interresting to see what Cameron actually means by way of applied practical programs. It also marks finis to any suggestion that our home-grown Tories are in any way influenced ideologically by their British counterparts. For better or worse they will have to cling grimly to the US Republicans … or even *gasp* develop some ideas of their own!
I don’t know what is most noteworthy about this extract from Saturday’s “I’m much better of a Christian than my opponent” face-off in the US presidential campaign:
1. The earnest inanity of the question;
2. The stupendous inanity of John McCain’s courageous, principled response;
3. The rapturous applause of the mob in response to 2.
Gateway Pundit was reduced to sputtering rage by Obama’s polite effort to show how idiotic the question was:
He’s not talking about another country there– He’s talking about the US perpetrating evil. Is anyone else outraged with that statement?
But I think much more of this kind of thing and Obama will be a goner. Who wants a pansy in the White House who talks about humility? McCain will pre-empt the Second Coming and DEFEAT EVIL! GO JOHN YOU DA MAN!!!!
Onward Christian soo-oljers, marching as off to war …
Great Britain has more gold medals than us. And I suspect this catastrophe can only get worse now our gallant swimmers have finished their heroic struggle against the drug cheats. John Coates, just name the amount you need to restore our national pride and we’ll sign the cheque gladly. None of this millions nonsense, this is no time for restraint and after all we have a record surplus to get rid of somehow.
I open the bidding with a billion dollar Sporting Excellence Endowment. Anyone care to raise me?
Meanwhile the Williams sisters have issued a cover version of The Andrews Sisters ‘Rum ‘n’ Coca Cola’ won a gold medal in tennis. Can anyone explain why this event happened, or who cares? (Apart perhaps from the Williams sisters and I seriously doubt that they do either.)
There’s a softball contest too. And baseball. Sigh.
Imagine if the first televised debate in 2010 between Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson Malcolm Turnbull Peter Costello the leader of the opposition du jour was about their religious beliefs, moderated by the pastor of Hillsong and conducted in the church itself. Most Australians would go WTF?? Yet that’s exactly what’s about to happen in the good ol’ god-fearing USA:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will spend Saturday night discussing issues of faith and leadership in a forum moderated by the Rev. Rick Warren.
Warren, the author of the best-seller “The Purpose-Driven Life,” will spend an hour interviewing each candidate at his 20,000-member Saddleback mega-church in Southern California.
There are all kinds of reasons to find this a troubling development in the world’s only superpower - I don’t recall any precedents in previous election campaigns - but the biggest concern is that faith, by definition, is irrational. I don’t feel at all comfortable about men who make their faith a central element of their political persona being in control of a military budget that matches the rest of the world put together, especially when it seems to be a militant Christian faith that perceives the alternative Muslim faith of a good slice of the global population as a hostile existential threat.
I believe that the American military has done more to preserve and foster goodness and liberty on Earth than all the artists and professors in America put together.
Ok, before Barack Obama officially became the Democratic nominee for president I didn’t really care when he wanted to whip his shirt off for a photo op and frolic in the surf. Now, I just think it’s weird. Is it too much for me to ask the next POTUS to keep his dang shirt on?
Dead right love. He’s like a piece of uncovered meat left out in the sun.
Sometimes a few lines can present a sublimely complex message.
WASHINGTON — President Bush declared Friday that the United States and its allies “stand with the people” of war-torn Georgia against Russian “bullying and intimidation.” He then left Washington for a 10-day vacation at his Texas ranch.
Still I guess George can relax, safe in the knowledge that in the addled mind of John McCain he is already president of the USA, telephoning his Georgian counterpart every day and despatching his trusted VP Joe Lieberman to Georgia on a fact-finding mission. Watch out soon for sneers that Obama hasn’t even made one trip to Georgia so d’uh, who wants a greenhorn like that in the White House when a Georgian lobbyist calls at 3 am?
And the other president can be forgiven for taking a well-earned break. After all he’s done his bit in the crisis, sending ships full of aid, even if the ships don’t actually exist and even if they did, they don’t have permission to pass through Turkish waters. Silly technicalities like that are no problem when you’re master of the universe.
The US political class just loves showing the world how desperately keen they are to get politics embedded well and truly into sport. I guess that’s what happens when your national sporting manias are focused on sports that nobody else in the world takes seriously, thereby limiting your exposure to international competition to an occasional Olympics or world championship.
Earlier this year we experienced a welter of demands that the US do something to show its disapproval of the Chinese over events in Tibet: boycott the opening ceremony, or have the president refuse to attend, or something like that. Nothing came of it of course - the frat prat in the White House was too keen to show the world that he didn’t know how to display his own country’s flag.
In the latest development, Congressional leaders are itching to show the Russkis who’s setting global standards for morality.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (UPI) — The co-chairpersons of the U.S. House “Georgia Caucus” said they would introduce a resolution asking that the 2014 Winter Olympics be moved from Sochi, Russia.
The resolution asking the International Olympic Committee to act said Russia’s invasion of Georgia just before the 2008 Summer Olympics makes the country an unacceptable host for the 2014 Winter Games, Reps. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., and Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said in a news release.
Presumably the Iraq-invading USA doesn’t intend to bid for the Games any time soon, but maybe Russia can play tit-for-tat by boycotting the 2010 winter affair in Canada.
The irony of course - or one of them - is that the only country prohibited from competing at the Beijing Olympics was Iraq … banned because of political interference in its sporting bodies. Obviously the occupying power has taught the Iraqis Clausewitz’s dictum ‘that war sport is simply a continuation of political intercourse’. Or in a more liberal translation from the original, ‘if they don’t play by our rules they can get fucked’.
I thought I was having a nightmare the other night. John Howard was back in Canberra with the Governor-General. Then I realised he had a ribbon around his neck like one of those prize steers at the Royal Easter Show and he must have got an award of some kind, although for the life of me I couldn’t remember seeing it mentioned anywhere. I meant to look it up but forgot.
Anyway Tim has solved the mystery, explaining that our late unlamented leader got a gong ‘as a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia”’.
Honestly, how do these people keep a straight face when they give out these things?
Howard’s singular service to the legislature was to make it an irrelevant sideshow while he accumulated as much power as possible for the executive government. Once he had control of both houses, parliament was a joke and he made his contempt for parliamentary processes obvious. Important, complicated legislation was rushed through before MPs could even read it and the committee system was turned into a Coalition tool for bashing Labor state governments.
It could have been worse I suppose. They could have given him a medal for services to human rights and international understanding. We should be grateful for small mercies.
Concerning proposed new privacy laws, particularly a private right to sue for egregious and unjustifiable invasions of privacy, Richard Ackland asks a question on behalf of his fellow journalists:Â How Will We Catch Scoundrels?Â
To which the answer is fairly obvious: “Look in the mirror.”
As the members of the Law Reform Commission say:
“Those who are against this recommendation … have argued mainly from the premise that it would have an adverse impact on freedom of speech and investigative journalism. However, these arguments quickly move on to the potential consequences for the continued publication of celebrity tittle-tattle and paparazzi photos.”
I’m not generally a knee-jerk defender of the rich and privileged and, being unable to fake a smile convincingly for a photo, have no special empathy for thespians. My personal stake is an ingrained dislike for obviously bullshit, self-serving and hypocritical special pleading. Journalism’s argument here has been effectively paraphrased by Homer Simpson:
“Look, all I’m saying is, if these big stars didn’t want people going through their garbage and saying they’re gay, then they shouldn’t have tried to express themselves creatively.”
Actually who needs to Homerfy the real argument in all its glorious idiocy? You agreed to be photographed at the premiere of your movie, QED I can, nay must, stalk you in the fruit & veg aisle and publish upskirts of your vagina.Â
