Hard News: Postmodern Banks Anxiety
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Not quite on topic, but I liked it:
Richard Dawkins responds to The Pope's first speech on British soil, blaming Nazism on the atheists:
It goes ZING! quite a lot.
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All I could think was "Pot Kettle Black" when I read that John Banks satirical story and Mr Bhatnagar's response.
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50 Cents Twitter stream is like some genius Tracy Jordan rip-off.
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Richard Dawkins responds to The Pope's first speech on British soil, blaming Nazism on the atheists
So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics... Fuck you, arsewipe -- nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich. And I really loved the idiots who had an infantile snigger when he said "buggering boys". Classy to the max, if you drop the C and L.
And thanks for calling out Speuloni -- not only a cheap shot, but she'd be the first to cry foul if anyone pulled that shit on Phil Goff, whose daughter's own drug discharge without conviction is a matter of public record. It might be more useful to focus on policy (or lack of it) that passive-aggressive character assassination using people's families as an offensive weapon, don't you think?
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I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a few people have taken the fake John Banks Twitter account for the real thing.
It's pretty appalling too that far too many media outlets have been sucked in and believe that Jim Anderton actually said "Only an earthquake could stop me from winning".
The Listener ran it in Jane Clifton's page last week, others ran it as well.
However, as RNZ's Media Watch pointed out yesterday, Anderton was actually discussing his leaving the Labour Party in the late '80s and the quote was selctively edited to make it seem as if he was talking about the Chch earthquake.
If I was him, I'd be seeking apologies from those who printed and broadcast it.
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So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics...
It would have been unwarranted had His Holiness not gone there first. After that, quoting Hitler's own testaments to his faith, and senior church leaders' testaments to Hitler, seemed fair enough to me -- although I do understand your point.
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However, as RNZ's Media Watch pointed out yesterday ...
People on the internet with half a clue had pointed it out two weeks ago. I suppose Clifton had the excuse of a long lead time to publication, but if she's going to make a cheap shot, she should have some faint idea of what she's talking about. She could easily have found the real quote -- plenty of other people did -- but she was apparently too lazy to bother.
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Andrew Geddis on Pundit exposes the National and Act Party members of the Law and Order select committee for the chumps they are, noting not only that their support for Paul Quinn's Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill is unprincipled, but that their recommendations inadvertently extend the right to vote to the very worst criminals currently in our jails.
"They are not only moral pygmies, but they are really, really dumb," he writes.
Andrew normally is much more restrained in his blog posts, given that he's now a respectable academic and probably this country's leading expert on electoral law.
You know it's a fuckup of fucked up proportions when he's come out so strong.
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It would have been unwarranted had His Holiness not gone there first.
Is Dawkins three years old? Plenty of people have condemned the Pope's foolish and intellectually dishonest comments without responding with equal foolishness and intellectual dishonesty. It was a cheap and nasty shot while preaching to the converted (and using his weird logic, Philip Pullman is still a sodding Anglican because he was raised in the CoE and, AFAIK, never "formally renounced" it) which I expect from Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck at their most unhinged, not someone who loves to wave around his academic credential and belief in reason.
and senior church leaders' testaments to Hitler, seemed fair enough to me
And I could quote whole libraries of secular individuals whose confidence that the Nazis were at least better than the Communists or chaos in the streets, and would be easily brought into line, ended up being tragically misplaced. What that proves either way is quite beyond me.
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(and using his weird logic, Philip Pullman is still a sodding Anglican because he was raised in the CoE and, AFAIK, never "formally renounced" it)
But that was sort of his point: if you're going to claim everyone who was ever baptised Catholic as a practising member of the flock, you have to count Hitler too.
I have been thinking about this. Paul Reynolds' funeral service was something of a revelation to me -- it was the first Catholic service I've ever attended, and I could see how people would find it rich and rewarding. But I don't like that Pope Ratzinger fellow.
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Quality post, thank you Russell.
I also had a nice guffaw when I saw Aaron Bhatnagar's indignant reaction in the paper this morning. Although I thought first of that dodgy anti-Hubbard ad left sitting on his website directory, rather than the Wikipedia episode.
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I got on Muldoon's enemy's list after I accidentally thought he was not a parody account and was just some dude who'd called his account "Rob Muldoon".
Hey, can I help it that my regular Twitter followers frequently toot about drinking, swearing and heh-heh-hehing?
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So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics..
Umm I think the target was catholic theology. But if you want to take it personally be my guest.
Sir Rob has a heart of gold.
Pity he found it in the afterlife.
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But that was sort of his point
It was not much of a point that could have been made, if it had to be, in less noxiously flame-trollish manner. The depressing thing about both Ratzinger and Dawkins is they're astoundingly intelligent men whose self-righteous and unearned intellectual arrogance feeds a tin-eared lack of proportion and sheer human decency.
Umm I think the target was catholic theology. But if you want to take it personally be my guest.
Thanks for that, Andin. I'm sure you neither need nor welcome my permission to "take it personally" when Muslims in general, or Muslim women in particular, are subject to distorted and dishonest caricatures. Heavens forfend the truth about Islam -- and it's enormously complex history -- might be a little more complex and ambiguous than Islamophobes would have us belief.
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Aaron appears to have dynamited his blog. Whither now those of us who wanted to re-read the epic saga of how he won back the Auckland mayoralty for Banks?
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Who is behind the helenclarkonz twitter account? It is one of my favourites. Very funny.
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I'm glad the rampant hypocrisy of Aaron Bhatnagar has been pointed out.
Also, has anyone noticed that ACT's Peter Tashkoff looks like famed horror writer, Garth Marenghi? I find the resemblance very suspicious.
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Muslim women in particular, are subject to distorted and dishonest caricatures.
By whom exactly? Or are we just going to trade silly comments.
Heavens forfend the truth about Islam -- and it's enormously complex history -- might be a little more complex and ambiguous than Islamophobes would have us belief.
Complex and ambiguous the whole thing is, Yes?
My second best Yoda impersonation.And no just because Tea baggers..whoops ..partyers, think islam is the devil. I don't regard them as fellow travellers.
However those who have had the benefit of a secular education yet still cling to childish superstitions dreamt up by people who didnt know what a light switch might be, yet who were somehow able to divine a god. Will just have to put up with me pointing and laughing.
And If you wish to quiz me on my religious credentials.
Could it wait till next week, Im going bush this week.
Hugs and kisses -
argh nightmare... Garth Marenghi
Fiction emulating life?
but ...he's an ACTor... -
I'm generally ambivalent about Dawkins, because as much as I share his atheism (though I tend to call myself a "sceptical agnostic") I just can't be bothered fighting religion much of the time. It's just an irrelevance to me, and unless the religious attempt to force religious beliefs into secular laws I'm generally accepting of people's faith. If your belief in a supreme being gives you personal consolation or joy, then good luck to you. But if you use that belief to tell people what they can see or who they can love, then I will fight that.
However, there's one passage from that speech that got to me:
Original sin means that, from the moment we are born, we are wicked, corrupt, damned. Unless we believe in their God. Or unless we fall for the carrot of heaven and the stick of hell. That, ladies and gentleman, is the disgusting theory that leads them to presume that it was godlessness that made Hitler and Stalin the monsters that they were. We are all monsters unless redeemed by Jesus. What a vile, depraved, inhuman theory to base your life on.
(from Dawkins' original speech notes )
Of course, that extreme conception of "original sin" is not one to which many of the people I know, even those who express some religious beliefs, would subscribe. But if this sort of theology continues to be taught to children, and is done so in state-funded schools, then that is something that should concern even the most tolerant atheists amongst us.
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So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics... Fuck you, arsewipe -- nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich.
He wasn't blaming Hitler on Catholics. You could perhaps draw the conclusion that he was blaming Hitlerism on Hitler's Catholicism, though he wasn't implicating Catholics in general, and certainly not the Catholic victims of the Third Reich.
I think his whole point was about Papal hypocrisy. He showed the irony in Ratzinger blaming atheism for the actions of a Catholic and then attacked Papal doctrine.
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By whom exactly? Or are we just going to trade silly comments.
No, but the next time you try patting me on the head I'll bite off the offending digits.
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Slightly on topic: my girlfriend's mother was involved in running the mayoral debate last week. Her "inside baseball" notes on each of the candidates were about what you'd expect-Len Brown was pleasant and funny, Banks was an arrogant plonker, and she couldn't even remember the names of the other two, except that Brown noted (with a heartfelt sigh) that he always ended up standing between Banks and the guy that used to work for him (which I assume was Colin Craig) and that they hate each other.
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Nick Nolte
Real or fake?Prize for getting it wrong is having your fingers cut off.
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Prize for getting it wrong is having your fingers cut off.
There aren't many celebrities that'd use an actual mug shot as their display pic on Twitter.
I admit, I do love 50 Cent's Twitter. He comes across exactly like a 4chan-er, trolling and all. I could see him posting in a /b/ thread.
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