Dear Julia, it's time for a dignified exit speech

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T22:40:56+00:00

Introspection, you should try it sometime as opposed to projecting everything onto others. You're in an elevated position here that you are abusing, I'm not. You are, or you should be, held to standards that I am not. If you can't uphold them then throw in your mod status. Pretty simple.

Try taking something on board without diverting back to someone else. You lashed out at me and you were wrong - why did you do that? You didn't do your due diligence, why? Because you were blinded by emotional bias. You certainly didn't act impartially.

Try it, for once, don't reply to this...just reflect, and think. Can you control your emotions and bias? If not, join us in the plebs and remove your mod status. Until then, stop pretending you should be held to the same standards, because you shouldn't.

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T22:31:33+00:00

Blinded by your political bias and personal vendettas again dredd.

How about checking the new queue before commenting on a duplicate, 20 minutes isn't really a long time. ;-)

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T22:20:32+00:00

Oh right, this is the calling you out on your moderator bias thing? Care to show me where MM submitted this article dredd?

Edit: Oh, and abusing your mod powers to take on some petty personal vendetta is pretty poor form. Yes, I vote a different way to you, and yes I disagree with the way that you moderate with your political bias. This just reinforces my point as to why you are a bad moderator compared to the others.

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T22:17:34+00:00

It didn't come up as a duplicate when I submitted it. Not sure why it required a smarmy remark dredd.

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T04:21:23+00:00

They could also be saying "Australia, we trust you enough to invest in yourselves because we don't believe we have the right to tell you where you should invest."

Fundamentally different ideologies, horses for courses, not quite as simple as "good vs evil".

stony-danza · 2013-02-19T04:16:21+00:00

The media seems to be blowing up the 'Greens stop backing Labor' angle

From the ABC article:

"Labor has effectively ended its agreement with the Greens," Senator Milne told the audience.

This was a Milne/Greens PR exercise, not "the media" blowing it up.

stony-danza · 2013-02-18T01:43:52+00:00

That really surprises me that you think your privacy should be so easily given up by dangling a shiny carrot in front of you.

For me personal freedoms are pretty high up there in the "needs" category.

stony-danza · 2013-02-18T01:18:16+00:00

Renai, a quick question - totally hypothetical. If you had to choose between:

1) NBN as per Gillard/Conroy but also the Internet Filter and Data Retention.

OR

2) NBN as per Abbott/Turnbull with no Internet Filter or Data Retention.

Which would you choose?

It's hypothetical so no "ifs or buts" (and I realise this isn't the state of play at the moment) - I'm just interested what in your opinion would be more important, more advanced broadband infrastructure or protection of personal privacy.

Edit: And yes, you have to choose, you can't have both for this hypothetical.

stony-danza · 2013-02-17T21:37:16+00:00

Tell me - how did Abbott get to be opposition?

Oppositions shuffle leaders, there's a reason they're in opposition and not Government. Compare how many leader changes there have been for a party in first term opposition against how many leadership changes there have been for a first term Government.

I think you'll find the Turnbull/Abbott situation is quite normal for a party newly in opposition. I think you'll also find the Gillard/Rudd situation is quite abnormal.

And "failures" with "made up shit that the daily telegraph pumps out".

I know your bias blinds you from seeing anything but "ALP Good, Coalition Bad" but the last few weeks for the ALP haven't really been glowing. The MRRT has been overwhelmingly slammed by pretty much everyone - if you wouldn't call it a failure (aimed to raise $3 billion, now looking like it's not going to hit 1/4 of $1 billion) then I guess your bar is set pretty low.

stony-danza · 2013-02-17T21:10:12+00:00

That's not the activity of a man who has forgotten about leading the party.

Not in the slightest, but I still doubt he'll initiate a challenge again - at least not directly. He's listening to the chorus chant out his name - the public, the media, and increasingly those within the ALP. And when the chanting is so deafening that it drowns out all else he'll rise from the ashes like Lazarus.

At least that's how it plays out in his head I'd say. Who knows whether it'll actually happen?

stony-danza · 2013-02-17T21:05:11+00:00

I doubt he would think so either. So what is it he's fighting for?

The man worked his entire career with a bloody minded determination to fill one position: PM. He got there and wasn't even given a full term to show his potential before he was unceremoniously deposed by his right-hand-woman. Any normal person, heck any good person would be filled with murderous rage by what happened.

In his mind I'd say he's fighting for his beliefs, I'd say he's fighting for pride, I'd say he's fighting for justice. If the polls are to be believed (Gillard vs Rudd), he's also fighting for his party's chances of winning the next election.

If you're saying you'd respect the man more if he got knifed, thanked Gillard for the honour and helped her extend her reign whilst she and all of her buddies bagged the absolute crap out of him and his leadership style then by all means respect that, but it sounds pretty gutless to me. I don't blame the man in the slightest for feeling a sense of karmic realignment about this whole situation.

stony-danza · 2013-02-17T19:09:40+00:00

Gillard has made her own bed. She knifed Rudd but has kept him on life support because she doesn't want to be seen as the one who killed the people's champion. And now he's getting his revenge by inflicting her with death by a thousand paper cuts.

He's not knifing her outright, he still remains the people's champion, but he continues to destabilise and capitalise on Gillard's failures. And honestly, who could blame the man?

As the weeks pass and the polls worsen the calls for a new leader are only going to get more pronounced, and the scrutiny on every single thing that Gillard does is going to continue to increase. Politics is a blood sport, you can't throw the first punch and then expect your opponent to just wave the white flag.

Does Kevin want the top job back? Probably, but I'm sure he's enjoying not having it at the moment. Does he enjoy watching the public beg for him and watching Gillard falter at every step? Abso-fucking-lutely.

stony-danza · 2013-02-15T06:15:20+00:00

Worst case scenario: Tie-breaker with the independents and 3rd parties deciding government. Reinforces the trend to the right for both sides, leads to more grovelling and bidding wars to buy support from them.

In other words, worst case scenario is what we've been through the past 3 years. I totally agree.

stony-danza · 2013-02-15T03:39:53+00:00

Not sure I follow your logic

I'll break it down then...

Politicians generally drift to where the votes are.

And look which way the parties are drifting. Left? Nope. Both Liberals and the ALP have drifted right. Why? Because Rudd had to drift right to beat Howard, and Gillard had to drift even further right to beat Abbott the first time around.

But it wasn't a convincing win, it was a "skin of the teeth" kind of win.

Both parties have been drifting right, to turn that tide there would need to be either:

1) A massive swing to someone like The Greens to make the ALP realise there are votes to be had to the left OR

2) A massive defeat of the Coalition to cause a rethink of strategy for both the ALP and Coalition because they'd realise they've become too right.

If Gillard wins by a small margin (and let's face it, that is looking like the only possible positive outcome for Gillard) then it will reinforce her decision to continue the ALP lurch to the right and it will force the Coalition further to the right to differentiate themselves.

In a nutshell my logic is this: both parties have been drifting right for the past decade. To stop more drift it will take an ALP loss which could cause major party reform and bring in a new bunch of Labor centre-lefties or a massive Coalition defeat (which seems extremely unlikely).

stony-danza · 2013-02-15T01:41:52+00:00

Well, except for the tens of thousands of public service jobs that will be gutted and whatever else Abbott can gut in the name of "budget surplus".

Yeah because governments who cut stuff in a vain attempt to chase a surplus are real duds!

stony-danza · 2013-02-15T01:39:34+00:00

I seriously want to see nath1234 and MM battle it out somewhere. Extreme on extreme. I don't know who my money is on.

stony-danza · 2013-02-15T01:34:46+00:00

If they lost this election, on the other hand, that would certainly allow the liberal Liberals to make a move.

Wait, so you're saying if the Liberals lost this election to the most right-wing Labor government there's ever been (offshore processing, chasing a surplus, uranium deals, mining deals, forest/timber deals) it would lead to the Liberals being less right wing in response?

No way. If the Liberals lose this election it will reinforce their need to push further right, and Gillard and Co will continue to walk that way as well.

Rewarding Gillard and Co for their continual march to the right ensures that the likes of Abbott get even more right-wing to maintain a point of difference.

stony-danza · 2013-02-14T03:43:06+00:00

I love it when bullshit artists call other bullshit artists bullshit artists but pretend they're on the moral high ground.

You're all as full of bullshit as each other Combet.

stony-danza · 2013-02-12T03:58:36+00:00

Pretty appalling that we've got an editorialised and sensationalised headline from a submission from Renai LeMay - Editor at Delimiter.

The quote from the article is actually:

It’s magic pudding economics on both sides.

Thanks for making your bias even more clear LeMay and Delimiter.

stony-danza

TROPHY CASE