Mr Wilkie proposed restrictions on poker machines. He was extremely sincere in his opposition to them.

This is Julia Gillard, she was extremely sincere in wishing to form government in Australia after the last election.

This is Julia Gillard sincerely forming government with the Support of Mr Wilkie, who believed he had secured a sincere promise of pokie reform in exchange for Ms Gillard securing power.

Then something happened to change everything…

This!

The ALP owns a number of the clubs that in turn, own a number of pokie machines, State ALP received hundreds of thousands in donations every election from these clubs.

Now Julia is left honouring an agreement she feels little or nothing about, if she does this state ALP branches will lose a huge source of funding. State ALP may be in  sincere “discussions” about this..

So its perfectly simple, to keep a promise she made which will cause her party financial pain, and make another “Kevin” challenge inevitable, or burn Wilkie.

Facinating Mr Wilkie, come closer and tell me more...

Wilkie is toast.

From the Australian, a bit of vital background…

“But Mr Hatch told The Australian Online he didn’t see how the Canberra Labor Clubs group, which donated about $600,000 to the ACT branch of the Labor Party in 2009-10, could isolate the compensation from other revenue sources.”

I was there on Thursday about 1500, and the house was locked up, bailiff notices on the doors, all secure.

Friday morning I went to the house with the lady from the Department of Housing, I beat her by about 5 minutes and found the place had been broken into overnight. Empty houses in an underclass neighborhood are an open invitation to burgle.

I confirmed a bit of the gear was mine (barely worth retrieving) and left. I went back a bit later with my other half and the camera, I think its necessary to document why some of the “poor” should be left in the street as an example to others.

The rather inviting front...This place was occupied for only around 8 months, on average it takes Homeswest a good 3 months to "take back" an abandoned property. Side of the house.

Breakfast of champions.

Note security screen door torn off the hinges.

Back of the house

Back again

The break in, smash the window near the door

Kitchen

For a change ants, not cockroaches on the floor.

Holes punched in walls.

At least whats in the fridge is still "fresh"....

I was lying about the roaches, here they are...

Corridor in the house...

Kitchen/dining..

Goldilocks was here?

The household "shrine"?

Pity the next door mob..

Forest rescue is yet another of those tedious self anointed savers of the world. In there world every form of industry and progress is bad and must be stopped, usually by pooling their dole payments and weed and strapping themselves to bits of machinery.

Unfortunately said machinery is not generally allowed to be switched on as long as they are strapped to it.

Recently 3 tools boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in an attempt to cause maximum drama.. The Japs havent played ball and offloaded them to an Australian customs vessel and they returned to Australian soil today.

Yes thats "captain" Watson visiting the ferals at their camp site. Wonder if they entered into a conspiracy to break the law while they were there?

 I thought Id have a look at their website to see if they received any corporate funding, apparently they dont… A rather non-transparent organisation when it comes to funds.

But I hit the mother lode when I had a look at the poems/drawings section on the website. A psychologist would have a field day analysing this stream of bong-smoke drivel.

All glory to the Hypnotoad.....

Abscence of organised religion isnt the same as non-religious.

Heres a few highlights.

Nice customer of mine, sweet old lady looking after her kids in a crap street. Department of housing just dropped 3 families from “out of town” there because of feuding in Mullewa.

Surprise, surprise they are still fighting in town, culminating in a street fight with about 150 or so people involved, sticks, rocks, shanghais and lots of fisticuffs over a day and a half. Right on the corner of my clients house. She moved everything of value she could into her bedroom as she expected her house to be smashed as well.

I had a chat to her for a while and she informed me Homeswest (public housing) had refused to put on security screens as she wasnt in a “high crime” area.

I gave our local MP a ring and it appears homeswest might be changing their mind on this one…

Yesterday, go to a clients place to pick up a washing machine for repair, spot police forensics at the end of the street taking photos. Pull up in the driveway and noticed I was parking on a heap of blood splatter.

A 15 year old girl had stabbed 3 people there the night before, off her tits on speed, my customers have decamped, I think its his sister who did the stabbing.

Today, bumped into a customer, he described some of the trials hes been in for the last few weeks. Brought a foil of dope from a dealer and had left the dealers house when he was bashed unconscious and had his dope and money stolen. Hes a Willuna bloke so hes got a few of his boys out looking for the assailants, says he will “cripple them” when they are found. Hes about 55.

His daughter had all her possessions stolen when she was about 2 weeks away from giving birth. In addition some blokes shot her in the head with ball bearing from a shanghai, split her head open but didnt drop her. Spoke quite proudly of how the doctors said “if your skull wasnt so thick it might have killed you”.

I might buy this soon...

Speaking to another older lady customer of mine and she blames a lot of it on facebook. Apparently the young ones are flat out baiting each other into fights and whole families are joining in.. plus the written word lasts longer than a spoken insult.

Im pretty sure my town will see a few murders soon, there have been a number of people bashed unconscious, and it just seems to be escalating. My mate the copper reckons its most likely to end with some house fires as people try to drive others out of town…

Nearly every bit of this dysfunction is people on welfare, black and white….

N.B. Works equally well as an accompaniment to Australian Parliamentary Question Time coverage.

- via

What did comment trolls do before the internet? Strip down, paint themselves red, and yell at the parakeet?—
James Lileks (@Lileks) November 09, 2010

Having just spent an hour or so watching the New Hampshire GOP Republican debate, having gleaned various tidbits over the internet since a while back, I can honestly say I don’t know.

Yet.

In comments at that link, Ron Paul’s supporters come across as a tad too fervent, as does Paul himself. He just comes across as a bit whiney. Quick to complain about a problem but a bit wishy washy with any solutions.

Romney arguably won, but he comes off as Obama-lite+religion. He’s big government but I will say he’s tending to own his opponents. He does look presidential and has the establishment’s backing… not necessarily a good thing when up against Obama who REALLY has the Establishment’s backing and REALLY (at least) talks presidential (except here where he sounds about as formidable as Julia Gillard).

Gingrich came off well but he failed to seize various moments – a knack Romney is a master of – and that, overall, made him less memorable. However, he really did come across as knowing the issues (and solutions, direction that should be taken) better than the rest, but he just couldn’t quite clinch it.

Perry sounded good and almost seized opportunities as well as Romney, but I’m not so sure America is ready for another Texan president.

Santorum: the other front-runner at the moment. Hey did OK. Didn’t seize on Romney but did identify more clearly than others that Iran is a big deal now whether you want it or like it or not. But like the others, except Romney, he kowtowed to the panel and failed to define himself properly.

Huntsman came across as more philosophical without adding any qualitative substance. He kept identifying issues without ramming home what he’d do about them. He came across more like a dictionary or Wikipedia than anything else. He explained in detail what we already vaguely knew.

They all had some good things to argue yet none of them wiped the floor.

So time will tell, and we have a few months, to who will actually seize the nomination.

Three points.

1: They are still debating, being scrutinised, still sorting it out, so don’t fall into any pundit’s trap of egging on any one nominee just yet. That is folly and akin to gambling on a horse in the Melbourne Cup when it’s the only bet you make each year.

2: Any one of them will be a better choice than Obama who thanks to these debates is finally, sort of, being scrutinised himself, if not BY the main stream media, at least ON the main stream media.

3: The nominees have proved stronger and more worthy than the MSM and the Right blogosphere have led me to conclude thus far.

UPDATE

Although Romney’s narrative may not have been the best, the point is he managed to iterate it better than the others, despite whatever question was posed.

(cross-posted)

We blame Global Warming.  Also, Tony Abbott.

Next?

-via @AwkwardMsgs1111

So wander over, offer your congratulations and thanks to Anthony Watts for his tireless efforts to bring some sanity – and SCIENCE – back to the discussion of nature, weather, technology and global warming climate change, check out Christopher Monckton’s guest post Hurrah for 8 orders of magnitude! and make sure to have a browse through some of the WUWT classics reposted here.

As Tim Blair noted in his recent post PEAK LOVE, “Climate panic is in decline…”  And though the self-inflicted damage of the content of the Climategate emails and many of the stupid hyperbole-ridden ham-handed advertising and “awareness” campaigns by the Warmies themselves (and their Love Media enablers) are partly to credit for the loss of credibility of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming’s Gonna Kill Us All®  movement, much credit must really go to the big guns of the bloggy “Deniosphere” such as Anthony Watts, Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole and our own Blogfather Tim Blair.

“Ha ha Warmist losers. For you the war is over.”

If you get your news from any American paper that subscribes to the Associated Press feed (such as the Washington Post), you might be thinking right about now that the Team Elephant presidential primaries have resolved into a two-man race: “front runner” Mitt “Presidential Hair” Romney, and Rick “Bomb the shit out of Iran!” Santorum.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won most of the delegates in the Iowa Republican caucuses, edging former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Romney won a projected 13 delegates and Santorum won 12. Texas Rep. Ron Paul was shut out.

Wow, it doesn’t get any clearer than that. It looks like Dr. Paul and the remaining warm bodies still running are shit outta luck.

Just one problem: it’s a complete lie.

The fact is, Romney and Santorum TIED Ron Paul with seven delegates each. Newt Gingrich and Governor Perry Gardacil are still alive with two delegates each.

So why do you suppose that the AP and WaPo are reporting factual untruth? I mean, aside from the fact that Big Media (the BM for short) generally tends to side with Big Government politicians?

I’ll leave that to you to decide. My opinion is that it is part of an intentional push to eliminate the “anti-Romney” candidates who actually stand a chance of beating “The Hair”. “The Warhead” doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this or any other election, so he’s safe (from the perspective of the Elephant elites) to leave in the race.

The BM doesn’t just report on the presidential races. It influences them as well. On purpose.

Just. Beautiful. RT @edmundtadros From the archives…Josh Groban Sings Kanye West Tweets bit.ly/yaxwqR via @TheWallUS—
sdog (@s_dog) January 05, 2012

Pardon any typos; I’m still wiping the tears from my eyes.

Click here to read on.

My son tried to make a purchase yesterday using my PayPal account. The payment was declined by PayPal.

Unfortunately, you’ve hit your initial PayPal sending limit of $10,000.00 USD. That’s why your recent payment was declined.

 

Your sending limit is the maximum amount of money you can send or use for purchases before you need to become Verified.

  

We place initial limits on all accounts to increase security and help prevent fraud. Once you link and confirm a bank account or get approved for PayPal credit, your account will be Verified and you’ll be able to make as many payments as you like with PayPal.

My reaction was complete incredulity. They were fine pushing my money through their service right up until, apparently, the moment I spent too much money? WTF?

I took a day to stew over how to handle it. Then I sent this reply.

Yesterday you rejected a payment on the premise that I have “exceeded my spending limit”. Let’s break this down logically, shall we? In order to exceed my limit – a completely arbitrary limit set by you – I had to pass $10K through your service. Since sellers who use your service kick back a substancial fee to you per transaction, that means you’ve made a great deal of money from transactions made by me and members of my family.

 

But that’s not good enough for you. No. You insist that, in order to continue utilizing your service, I must provide you with my bank account information or use your credit card for future transactions.

 

I’m not sure what it is that motivates this strong-arm action on your part. Is it greed? Control? What? All I know is that what you are demanding makes no rational sense to me.

 

I will not provide you with my bank account information. Why would I do that, when you’re regular targets of hackers – particularly Anonymous hackers – who would be able to run wild with my financial information? Nor will I be coerced into using your credit card.

 

I passed $10K through your system over the past several years. I will not pass one additional penny though it. Find someone else to strong-arm. I have other options that don’t involve being bullied by a service provider.

To summarize: PayPal can kiss my lily-white ass.

It’s bad enough that Abraham Lincoln is revered in this country, notwithstanding the Constitutional wreckage his presidency left behind. But most Americans – including, until yesterday, me – aren’t aware that another Constitution-wrecker is being given special posthumous honors on an annual basis.

Just learned on @dailyrundown that each yr a military honor guard lays a wreath on Woodrow Wilson’s tomb. Can next R president stop this?

WHA-WHA-WHAT?!?!?!?!? Woodrow effing Wilson?!?!?!?!?

For those of you unfamiliar with the disgrace that was Woodrow Wilson, his presidency was the first real-world implementation of fascism, a full decade before the original Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, coined the term. Wilson employed legislative coercion, media control, and even outright thuggery to achieve his ends. His current address is that dark corner of Hell where despots and tyrants spend their days. This piece of shit gets a military honor guard? Every frickin’ year?

That ain’t right. It just ain’t right.

And here I was worried that the media, the Team Elephant establishment, and the other GOP candidates were going to take down Ron Paul. It appears he’s pretty good at it himself.

Ron Paul is taking “no comment” to a whole new level.

The Republican presidential candidate walked out on a CNN interview Wednesday following a heated discussion over racist newsletters that were sent out in his name more than two decades ago.

The usually mild-mannered, Texas congressman – who’s leading in some Iowa polls – became irked when network reporter Gloria Borger pressed Paul about the newsletters.

Paul said he was sick of being “pestered” by reporters about the issue.

He can’t seriously believe that he can withstand allegations of racism and bigotry by running away, can he? I admire the guy, to be sure, but even I have issues with the way he handled this.

*sigh* I guess I’d better get used to the term “President Romney” in 2013.

The pattern has been played out over and over. A potential Team Elephant presidential candidate starts to rise in the polls. A bulls-eye is affixed to that candidate. A combination of Republican elites, their allies in the punditocracy, and Big Media (the BM for short), which simply can’t help itself when an opportunity to dump on a Republican presents itself, begin hammering on any and all perceived defects of said candidate. Next thing you know, the new frontrunner is cast on the scrap heap, either to quit (like Herman Cain) or to flounder haplessly trying to regain momentum (like Michele Bachmann and Governor Perry Gardasil).

Now that Newt Gingrich is dropping faster than shares in Freddie Mac, Ron Paul has surged into a virtual tie and perhaps even the lead in Iowa.

That’s bad.

“Vulture, WTF? I though you were a Paul guy.” I am. Which is why I’m dreading what awaits. A decent and honorable man is about to be dragged through the slime, called everything but a child of God, and accused of all sorts of thought crimes ranging from racism to anti-Americanism.

Think I’m kidding. The threats have already started from the faux conservative media.

The establishment Elephants will NOT tolerate any attempt by the American people to choose a candidate other than Mitt Romney (and his presidential hair). They don’t care who they wreck in the process.

And we wonder why we have the caliber of candidates we have. Only the bravest, the most foolish, or the most power-mad need apply. Decent people need not apply.

Why would I call it a coronation? How could I call it a coronation when there is no clear front-runner and the first primary hasn’t even occurred yet? Follow along as I read the tea leaves.

Conservative media: Fox News (“fair” and “balanced”) is in the tank for Romney. Big time. Some of Fox’s so-called analysts are so far up Romney’s butt that they taste his lunch mere seconds after he does.

Fox has proclaimed Romney winner of nearly all of the debates. Yet after one of the debates, Michele Bachmann surged into the lead in the polls. After another, it was Herman Cain. After yet another, it was Newt Gingrich. You should be getting the idea by now. No matter Romney’s showing, he’s the winner.

Every time Fox gets on the subject of the “Primary front runners”, Romney’s name is first on their lips. No matter where he is in the latest polling, first, second, even FOURTH, he is always “a front runner”. Meanwhile, if he is first or second, NO ONE beyond second place gets a mention. Hell, when he was in fourth place in an Iowa poll recently, the candidate ahead of him, Ron Paul, was omitted from mention in the front runners discussion. But not Mitt.

Talk radio isn’t quite as blatant; in fact, many talk show hosts are reluctant to be seen as endorsing anyone, such is the general distaste for Romney among the listening public. But almost without fail, all talk show hosts assert that no matter who the Republican nominee is, no matter how much they might deviate from conservative principles, we HAVE TO vote for them – ANYONE but Obama. Never mind that a vote for Romney is a vote for “Obama-lite”. You gotta do it!

Columnists of various stripes have wandered hither and yon regarding Romney. But two powerhouse conservative pundits have lined up foursquare behind him: Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer. Both of these two alleged conservatives have shelved principle and gone with “electable” as be-all/end-all for their candidate. Never mind that it was said of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that he was unelectable. This is different.

Bang the war drums: Every candidate still in the race, with the exception of Ron Paul, is obsessed with proving their warrior bona fides. “I would go to war with Iran NOW!”, one after another will thunder. The audience (God help us!) eats that shit up. It would appear that so-called conservatives have bought into the propaganda that never-ending pre-emptive war is “defense”. Again, God help us!

One is left in amazement that a candidate can spew vitriol with regards to all of the wasteful spending in Washington, and yet opine that the military, estimated to hit around $1.4 TRILLION in spending in 2012, needs to be beefed up. We’re drowning in debt, but without war-without-end and the trillions of dollars it requires, we’re going to be overrun by cave-dwelling terrorists, and conquered.

The military-industrial complex lives and thrives.

The Team Elephant elite: They’ve made it clear for over a year – Romney is their guy. I suppose they’d settle for Gingrich in a pinch (much as they settled for McCommie last cycle, when Rudy Giuliani was their preference). But they’re adamant. It WILL be Romney or an equally conviction-free statist. Period.

Do you really think the attacks on Governor Perry Gardacil, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann happened because Big Media (the BM for short) hates “real” conservatives and wanted to destroy them? Those attacks were friendly fire. Those attacks were orchestrated. Don’t be surprised if Newt succumbs to something similar to what happened to Cain between now and mid-January.

“Okay, Vulture. You believe there’s a coronation afoot. What do you say we do about it, smart guy?”

What CAN we do? Truthfully, we in the West have gone so far down the slippery slope to ruin that I don’t think it matters any more who we elect.We might crash and burn and start to recover sooner with one candidate over another.

But crash and burn we shall.

Blogger/journalist Tim Blair has never been one to take a lot of notice of plaudits, awards or milestones – in fact, he assiduously ignores them – but the recent passing 10-year anniversary of his blog should not go by without comment.

For many Australians of a conservative or libertarian bent, about ten years ago, just reading or watching the news was like being asked to wade through a floating garbage dump of dogma to try and read what was written on the ground. What’s more, most of us were left cursing, as only the most watered down of our thoughts would ever make it through as a letter to the editor.

Tim Blair changed all that with his blog that tackled the idiocies of the left pretty much as they happened. His blog filled a niche that conservatives were crying out for, and his comment sections soon became almost as entertaining as the articles. [...]

Along the way, he has invented terms such as Blair’s Law and the Gore Effect as well as alerting the world to the alarming tendency of lefties to tilt their heads in photographs.

And then there’s the Plastic Turkey meme, the new verbs “to beclown” and “to Fisk,” and probably a whole lot more that others can add in comments.

One thing Gavin didn’t mention was how global Tim Blair’s appeal has turned out to be  - in fact, one sledge often thrown at him by some of his resident trolls is that he has “too many” American fans and commenters.  For some reason, his Leftoid Australian detractors believed that was some sort of fatal “gotcha”.

Ah, his trolls!  Not only have Tim’s blogging efforts attracted some of the most clever and witty commenters over the years, they’ve seen him collect some of the most dedicated, demented, obsessive and sometimes just chuckleheadedly-silly assortment of sockpuppets and trolls ever seen in one place.

Go over and read Gavin’s whole piece, and be sure to leave your thoughts & favourite memories/recollections in comments either here or there.

Happy Tenth Blogiversary, Tim!

P.S. Where’s Wronwright with that mead…?

P.P.S. As our blogroll has been rather neglected of late, if you are one of the #BlairNation troupe of bloggers (new motto, #WeAreUs – thanks Julia!) and aren’t listed over on the right-hand side there ——->
just drop your blog link in comments and we’ll get it updated. Cheers.

UPDATE:  More comments now at The Blogfather’s here:  TEN YEARS OF LOVE.  As Puce would have said, CLICK.

The underside of the USS Oklahoma and the upright USS Maryland amongst the smoke

Every December 7th I think of an article in an old American Heritage magazine (April 1966).  It is the account of the Pearl Harbor attack from the perspective of Seaman Stephen Bower Young, mess cook, inside the USS Oklahoma.

The USS Oklahoma in 1916

The USS Oklahoma was a 583 foot (178m)  long battleship displacing over 27,000 tons which on December 7, 1941 was hit by torpedoes and capsized with Seaman Young trapped inside.

It is worth a read. The online article doesn’t include the pictures so I’ve included them here.

Seaman Stephen Bower Young

From left to right : the sunken USS Arizona with masts and turrets still above the water, the USS West Virginia and the USS Tennessee, the USS Maryland, and above that is the capsized USS Oklahoma.

The underside of the USS Oklahoma with the masts of the USS Maryland in the background.

Go ahead, read it.

All together now: "Awwwwww!"

Nobody doesn’t love owls. Except maybe communists.

Darwin is aptly named, its a fairly “survival of the fittest” sort of town, your stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure- in-chief could easily find himself in trouble.

So an Australian insurance agency has offered a 2 for 1 insurance swap, if you lose one moron we will replace him with 2 (offer no good for Bidens, we have some standards).

As a bit of a shameless publicity plug a TIO insurance has given him crocodile insurance for his stay.

Obama to be covered for “Croc Attack”

TIO has issued one of the Territory’s most high-profile visitors in history with the

most unique insurance policy on the market; Crocodile Attack Insurance.

The policy, which will payout should US President, Barack Obama suffer a fatal

attack by a crocodile, is a standard insurance product offered by TIO.

“TIO has been supplying Territorians with cover against crocodile attacks for

over 23 years,” said Richard Harding, Chief Executive.

“It’s a unique product for a unique environment and we’re excited to be issuing

one of these policies for Obama as a memento of his time in the Territory” he

said.

TIO has had the policy framed and it will be presented to the world leader during

his brief visit to Darwin on Thursday.

Ends

For further information

please contact:

Elshonner Johnson

In related news PACO industries denied claims they had started work on a full sized one of these…

I predict a certain demographic will take a special eyes glued to the screen interest in this video. (I mean, of course, car dorks)

Mahomet has buttocks on his head

Time magazine’s Paris bureau chief Bruce Crumley then wrote a disappointing piece full of vitriol aimed not at whoever the firebomber might be but at the publisher.

Although the current title is “Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr” judging from the URL the original title was “Firebombed French Paper A Victim Of Islamists Or Its Own Obnoxious Islamophobia” He opens with :

Okay, so can we finally stop with the idiotic, divisive, and destructive efforts by “majority sections” of Western nations to bait Muslim members with petulant, futile demonstrations that “they” aren’t going to tell “us” what can and can’t be done in free societies?

Probably when some muslims stop demanding that everyone must follow their religious rules regardless of everyone else’s chosen religion and when they understand that sticks and stones may break their bones but cartoons are no reason to firebomb.

Honestly, transgressivism tends to become boring without the reaction. (want to test my claim? Watch these probably NSFW videos and try to deny that after perhaps a moment of shock they didn’t become tedious, boring and even predictable.)

But do you still think the price you paid for printing an offensive, shameful, and singularly humor-deficient parody on the logic of “because we can” was so worthwhile?

He really doesn’t understand free speech. If violence becomes what sets the limits for free speech then other people will abandon civility and adopt violence to get their way.

Don’t publish a cartoon of Mohammed or don’t show Mohammed on South Park may not seem like too much of a loss but book burning totalitarians tend to be greedy and they have no intention of recognizing reciprocal rules.

The basis for banning depictions of Mohammed more expansive than one might expect. The prohibition of depicting Mohammed is based on the koran’s exhortation against idolatry. The worry is that if people see a cartoon prophet on a magazine or an uncensored episode of South Park then hundreds of millions of muslims throughout the world will toss away their Korans and start worshiping the magazine with the cartoon Mohammed. Or pray five times a day to an image of a cartoon Santa Claus in a bear suit pretending to be Mohammed.

Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus are, like Mohammed, prophets in islam so, while it isn’t mentioned much, they too are off limits.

For some idolatry isn’t allowed even in a religion that isn’t related to Abrahamic traditions, like Buddha statues in Afghanistan that were blown up by the Taliban. Having a different religion that is permissive of images is no excuse. Even being a godless infidel is no excuse.

The hadiths forbids the drawing people or animals (“All the painters who make pictures would be in the fire of Hell. The soul will be breathed in every picture prepared by him and it shall punish him in the Hell, and he (Ibn ‘Abbas) said: If you have to do it at all, then paint the pictures of trees and lifeless things“). Trees that look like people might be questionable.

That’s a lot of things that need censored; I’m not surprised that some book burning totalitarians decided to start censorship campaign with a narrower focus.

CNN broadcast the motoons but they apparently thought Mohammed looked like a dick so they thought it had to be pixelated.

Back to Time’s Paris bureau chief Bruce Crumley:

But that seems more self-indulgent and willfully injurious when it amounts to defending the right to scream “fire” in an increasingly over-heated theater

btw, shouting fire in a crowded theater is okay if there is a fire.  But it seems the proper analogy would be to defending someone writing a movie and another person objecting to the characterization.

Don’t like it? Don’t buy it. See, avoiding barbarism isn’t that hard.

Although, he mentions that violence is unacceptable his analogizing cartoons to falsely shouting fire in a theater (speech that can be restricted) implies that he thinks Charlie should be restricted.  Some implied excuses for censorship in the article:

…idiotic, divisive, and destructive efforts by “majority sections” of Western nations to bait Muslim members

Who decides what is baiting?  Can “minority sections” publish offensive things?

… it published another stupid and totally unnecessary edition mocking Islam.

Has he seen youtube? The stupid and totally unnecessary proliferates.

…But do you still think the price you paid for printing an offensive, shameful, and singularly humor-deficient parody on the logic of “because we can” was so worthwhile?

ban the unfunny!

Apart from unconvincing claims of exercising free speech in Western nations where that right no longer needs to be proved, it’s unclear what the objectives of the caricatures were other than to offend Muslims—and provoke hysteria among extremists. After it’s 2007 reprinting of those, Charlie Hebdo was acquitted by a French court on inciting racial hatred charges lodged by French Islamic groups over those and other caricatures

Exercising of the right of free speech “no longer needs to be proved” and the very next sentence notes that they had been charged with a crime for publishing a cartoon. It is amazing that someone would write that “exercising free speech … no longer needs to be proved” in an article about a publisher getting firebombed apparently because they were trying to exercise their right to free speech.

One nice thing about free speech that many people forget is that speech you don’t like can make for a great idiot detector. Sure, you may find something offensive but you can use that experience to mark that person as an idiot. For example, I now know that Time magazine’s Paris bureau chief Bruce Crumley is an idiot. Thanks Free Speech!

Alternate headline : Time magazine’s Paris bureau chief Bruce Crumley doesn’t know how to use quotation marks

Crumley writes :

As part of its gag, the paper had re-named itself “Sharia Hebdo”.

Judging from the photo it appears that it renamed itself “Charia Hedbo”