From 'roo land, Tim Blair brings the snark

But it’s unfair to criticise our Olympians in isolation. They are but a reflection of the nation as a whole – a nation that just dropped more than $300 million on an Olympic quest currently returning more sobbing fits than medals.

Which brings us back to whales. If whale-weeping were an Olympic event, the Australian team would be carrying more gold than a gangsta rapper’s gob. Show us a dead, dying or doomed whale and we start, well, blubbering at world-record speed.

Our Olympians are the product of a culture given to whale wussiness. We shouldn’t expect our swimmers, for example, to emerge from the pool stern of jaw and clear of eye when the rest of us can’t keep it together every time a stupid humpback rocks up on the beach minus a pulse.

And on suggested training:
...As Michael Milton declared last week:
“Our athletes are too soft!”
Good call. Paralympian Milton went on to suggest that “we drop our potential gold medallists in the middle of the desert and let them find their way home”, which is the kind of hardcore training regimen you’d expect from someone who has survived a downhill ski run at 213kmh.

On one leg.


One of his commentaries on Globular Warmering*:

Manne defines “denialists” as “orthodox members of a tightly knit group whose natural disposition is not to think for themselves”.

Yet somehow these drones are easily able to resist the powerful intellects of Manne and his global army of consensus bunnies. It’s a mystery. Maybe they’ll be convinced by the latest from wild-eyed enviropath Bill McKibben:
The planet does indeed have an enemy ... we need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. …This industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet, and they’re planning to use it.
Unknown is when the Vulcans or Klingons gifted this physics-changing power to the oil and coal companies.

*I used that term on facebook in an argument once, and was dismissed because "If you can't even spell it right, why should I listen to anything you say?" Having it pointed out that I was using it to laugh at him and the other True Believers didn't help matters at all.