Gammy knees
Material girl with a gammy knee
Miranda Devine
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 23, 2008
Of all the gossip spewing out of the imminent Madonna divorce, the most poignant item is that the 50-year-old pop star is enraged with estranged husband Guy Ritchie because he told her she “looked like a granny” on stage. The granny comment is reported to be part of a “dossier” of unhusbandly conduct by Ritchie, 40, which has been put about by Madonna’s lawyers and presumably leaked to the media as part of a tit-for-tat soap opera that does little for the dignity of either spouse, but much for the entertainment of the masses in hard economic times…
Old commies
Ex-communist lacks ‘balance’ on history curriculum: Kroger
Julian Drape
National Indigenous Times
October 22, 2008
CANBERRA, October 22, 2008: The fact the man charged with suggesting a new national history curriculum for the Rudd government was once a communist affects his ability to be “balanced”, a Liberal senator has claimed. Victorian senator Helen Kroger made the claim during a education Senate estimates hearing. She said she was concerned historian Stuart Macintyre – “a chief protagonist in the history wars” – was a communist during his student days. “Professor Stuart Macintyre was certainly a communist,” Senator Kroger said. “While I respect that everyone should have the opportunity to form their own views on the history of our great country, what concerns me is that the working group under him is one that reflects broad academic sentiments … so that a balanced position is taken.” There needed to be “divergent academic views” shaping the national curriculum.
Prof Macintyre quit the Communist Party in 1979 before joining the Labor party.
The Melbourne University academic is head of the government’s history advisory group, which last week released a draft history curriculum discussion paper. He was appointed by the interim National Curriculum Board. The history paper suggested a greater emphasis on world history with less focus on Australia. The states and territories have agreed to implement a uniform curriculum from 2011.
Labor senator Kim Carr, representing Education Minister Julia Gillard, was quick to defend Prof Macintyre’s “qualifications to undertake this work”. Senator Kroger’s concern that only one view of history would be taught as a result of the discussion paper was completely wrong, he said. “For you to become excited that a pre-eminent Australian like Prof Macintyre should have a role to play in the development of the curriculum is misplaced,” Senator Carr said. “You don’t have anything to fear. If anything was unbalanced it was the (previous) HoWARd government’s approach to the teaching of history.” – AAP
Macintyre is also the author of The Reds: The Communist Party of Australia from Origins to Illegality, Allen & Unwin, 1998. It was awarded The Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award in 1998. Reviews: David W. Lovell (Centre for Independent Studies), Learning From the Communist Experience?, Policy, December–February 1998–1999; Mike Head, An apologia for Stalinism, wsws.org, June 16, 1999. Professor Macintyre can often be found stalking the Parkville campus carrying a big red flag, selling copies of The Guardian, and exhorting students to burn the Library and storm Parliament.
Stupid trees
‘Last stand’ for logging activists
Andrew Darby
The Age
October 23, 2008
FOREST activists who survived a violent attack by loggers in Tasmania’s old growth Upper Florentine valley will return for what they say is a make-or-break summer of protest…
The f@#$ing logger with a m*&^%$f@#$ing sledgehammer gives that c%^t Reverend Monsignor Geoff Baron a run for his f*&^ing money:
He’s a rude boy.
Forest activist Ula Majewski says the contractor also attacked a blockade with a sledgehammer, as another forest contractor watched on. Ms Majewski says the man is not seriously injured but he will be reporting the attack to police. “Violence of this kind is usually perpetrated by a very small minority of logging contractors but we would like logging contractors to focus their anger on companies like Gunns Ltd who continue to support an economically unsustainable logging industry,” she said.
Well I come from a long long line
Of tree falling men
And this company town was here
Before my grandpappy settled in
We kept enough trees a-standin’
So our kids could tow the line
But now a big corporation came and bought us out
Got us working overtime
CHORUS
But tell me
Where are we gonna work
When the trees are gone?
Will the big boss have us wash his car
Or maybe mow his lawn?
I’m a man, I’m a man, I’m a lumberjack man
But I fear it ain’t for long
Where are we gonna work
When the trees are gone?
Now these corporate mergers
Make no sense to me
But they got this junk bond debt to pay
So we’re clear-cutting down the trees
Now that old fishin’ hole
Where I used to take my son
We trashed it out last Monday morn’
Oh Lord, what have we done?
CHORUS
Now these Wall Street money men
They got me mad
I’ve got a family to feed and falling trees
Is the only job I ever had
Say now folks, we just can’t stand here
While this slash and burn goes on
We’ve got to slow down this big corporation
Before all the trees are gone!
Rapping Ernie
Hey SpaceCadet, why don’t you and your Commie Poofter mates fuck the hell off out of Town.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mwVLCj25YuI