Interesting things too
"Old Blowie the Blowfly I kinda get. You know, wafts in through an open door, annoys everyone for a bit buzzing about and battering himself against the closed windows, then you find him dead in the bathtub. Poor simple bugger.
I'm here all week. Try the veal."
You blokes speculating about who’s who here reminds me of the old days in Richmond or Fitzroy seeing tables of old Greek or Italian men drinking espressos, smoking, playing cards and talking complete shit happily in the knowledge they were safe from getting into trouble from the misses for the afternoon. Carry on ...
So, here’s the real story about the ABC and their supposed racist, Marxist stance on chess.
https://www.facebook.com/valentinejames/posts/10160034241908677
So in summary
1. ABC Journalist James Valentine decided with current issues it would be a good idea to do an episode on why white goes first in Chess, clearly suggesting it's related to race, clearly ridding the back of current race related issues for some cheap race baiting..
2. Decides to do some research by ringing a Chess expert John Adams, but unfortunately the Chess expert isn't a fan of the ABC, and the journalist doesn't get the reaction he had hoped for, even worst he gets a completely negative reaction.
3. The Chess expert then goes to Twitter and other media outlets exposing the story.
4. Now the journalist is trying to save face, by saying ABC never said Chess was racist, even though he rang a Chess expert up with the clear intention of linking white going first with race issues. (clearly race baiting)
It's pretty simple, no phone call asking silly questions, no negative reaction.
If you fark up at least take ownership of your fark up, dont go blaming others or saying oh i didn't mean it that way blah blah blah....but off course only reason he does a post like that on his FB is because 90% of his follower are going to side with him and blame the Chess expert.
The Chess expert never asked for the ABC to ring up asking stupid race bait questions.
“I read a tweet from a father teaching his child chess. The child asked, “why does white always go first?” The father paused, aware of current cultural context and wondered exactly how to answer. He wondered if there was any racial background to the rule. “
Did you miss this bit Indo? “ The child asked…” It all started with a child, a pesky lefty child
And the Black King nails the White Queen for the win. Who cares.
"The Chess expert never asked for the ABC to ring up asking stupid race bait questions."
erm...
The Chess expert went public with his opinion before the ABC had even considered whether they were going to broadcast the topic.
I woulda thought that the Queen would be nailing the King - how empowering is that!
We should be celebrating chess as championing gender equality.
Totes woke.
It's chess. Plastic pieces of non colour. A game. Nothing sinister.
Au contraire, it's a representation of gender and racial power struggles and imbalances.
Well everything is open to interpretation i guess...just gotta question the interpreter.
Well everything is open to interpretation i guess...just gotta question the interpreter.
Tones Abbott would love chess with all the knights, bishops, a queen, a king and all the pawns to do all heavy “lifting”.
Indo, you've missed the point by light years.
I'm imagining you've never listened to James Valentine, so have no idea of how he presents his topics. He's a muso, saxophonist in The Models, and a funny prick behind the mic, not edgy, but self-effacing, warm, he doesn''t everm ever put anyone down, and he never "race baits".
Even Brietbart has more of a grip of the 'story'.
You and Sypkan...sheeeeesh...
"Au contraire, it's a representation of gender and racial power struggles and imbalances." Classique Monsieur Andy.
May I add,
"One's decisions have consequences for the future. We know that each move we make, in life or in a game, determines a unique path for the future. In both chess and life, our possible paths are in practice infinite. ... In this, chess is like a story: there is an ending that makes it clear what it all meant."
Quote: “And the Black King nails the White Queen for the win. Who cares.”
That move is impossible under the rules of chess. The King cannot get close enough to the opposing Queen to ever nail her.
Edit; Actually, it is a possible move if the opposing queen sacrifices: ie. moves to a square alongside the king without the protection of any of the pieces on her side.
Im so over all this white / black bullshit, equality crap the Me2 rubbish
political correctness madness the world has lost it.
The problem the world faces is China slowly but surely controlling the
world economy and be the dominating power.
Idiots start protesting and boycotting the source which is CHINA
The sleeping dragon is awakening and making world wide moves.
Right argument, wrong game
hehehehe
Why is it that the white ball is always hitting the black ball - and the red ball - and the yellow ball - and even the brown ball??
Clearly a complete reconsideration of pool and snooker is in order.
haha. Surfside. Well played. That's why i always got smoked in chess. Cheers!
"If you can't sink the pink, pot the brown".
- Voltaire
"Two in the pink, one in the stink".
- Margaret Thatcher
That last quote DC, I’m sure GaryG had something to say about that!
Haha I knew I'd seen it before, and proof that facto lives on in the afterlife.
Proof of multiple lives existing simultaneously?
Educational nonetheless.
As Anthony makes a dive-bomb to the sea (at a speed and from an altitude which would kill him) a white blur flashed alongside him. Anthony catches up to the blur which turns out to be a seagull and asks what the bird was doing:
"I'm sorry if I startled you," the stranger said in a voice as clear and friendly as the wind. "I had you in sight all the time. Just playing...I wouldn't have hit you."
"No! No, that's not it." Anthony was awake and alive for the first time in his life, inspired. "What was that?"
"Oh, some fun-flying, I guess. A dive and pullup to a slow roll with a rolling loop off the top. Just messing around. If you really want to do it well it takes a bit of practice, but it's a nice-looking thing, don't you think?"
"It's, it's...beautiful, is what it is! But you haven't been around the Flock at all. Who are you, anyway?"
"You can call me Jon ."
Actually seen that bejangled on the back of a leathered weathered old biddy at Middleton Tavern once."If you can't pot the pink....
I remember a song mash-up that was bandied around a West Coast SA pub one New Years:
"We're the boys from the bush
And we're back in town...
If we can't sink the pink
Then we'll pot the brown"
I dunno if the local cockies were that impressed.
Lee Kernaghan was never the same.
Then there’s the old joke about Eddie Charlton (millennials google the name) playing a rather adult game of snooker with his “companion” querying the delay and Eddie conflicted on whether he should pot the pink or the brown.
Haha everyone knows the pink is worth 2 more points than the brown.....
110 AFP raid ALP pollie's home & say they still can't find Angus's Shopping docket.
Skyrocketing Pollster's Post Office photos of a Lebo / Chink / Jap Traitor whatever?
Mob go crazy, yelling to lynch the UNAUSTRALIAN Pollie...("Kill all foreign guys!")
Trump could strap the traitor to an electric chair & Mob would say he got off lightly.
Moselmane puts up a good fight, but the Outrageous Racism Slurs just cut deeper.
Witch hunt flushes out the UNAUSTRALIAN who vow to lynch the scapegoat.
Looks like we Lynched ourselves one of them there Political Prisoners...Ma!
Scomo's Skyrocketing ** STaR Shots* * hit their target...angry mob finish him off.
https://www.facebook.com/7NEWSsydney/videos/3091170020963732/
https://www.facebook.com/9NewsSydney/videos/360051158294154/
Now, spoon down yer * *STaR Shot ** Spangled Banner Cereal or fuck off to China.
Yes Siree Sir!
Toxicology
It might be thought that even a government as addicted to the neo-liberal Kool Aid as Morrison’s collection of n’er do wells, parasites and profiteers might baulk at the idea of adminstering poison as an antidote to a disease. But think again children, there is no limit to their Trumpian excesses.
The idea probably arose as a response to Trump’s suggestion that ingesting or injecting disinfectant was an appropriate treatment for COVID19. It’s an old concept. If you are going to lie……go big. So as the Australian economy heads for a cliff, with the end of Job Keeper and the Job Seeker Supplement, and employment heads for a lengthy stay in the double digits, our fearful leader plans to deliver a dose of austerity unlike anything seen since the Great Depression.
No doubt their justification will be based on Thatcher’s Britain in the 70s when it contributed to an economic recovery. The reality though is that there is simply no comparison between Australia in 2020 and Britain in 1976. The British economy was in trouble because of low productivity and uncompetitive industries. Thatcher’s solution was both unfair and unnecessarily brutal but it targeted the fundamental problems.
The problems facing Australia in 2020 are entirely different and will not be solved by austerity. The most fundamental problem is the inequitable distribuution of the nation’s wealth. This has forced up asset prices and restricted consumption. Every economist in the country, not in the employ of either the government or their corporate sponsors, has pointed to increased wages and welfare benefits as the most neessary economic reform. This is not a bleeding heart lefty position to improve the lot of the disadvantaged. It is the simple economic truth.
Morrison repeatedly asserts that we are all in this together and everyone has a role to play. The problem is that while that role for many will be life pretty much as usual, the role for others is looking more likely to be grinding poverty. It is worth thinking about the consequences of this kind of poverty. Consequences like increased homelessness, increased property crime, increased domestic violence, increased child abuse, reduced educational attainments and increased hunger and malnutrition.
Those who hate the poor and blame them for their own situation might roll their eyes at this but the other outcome of austerity is a reduced ability to pay down national debt making it the worst possible strategy, not only in humanitarian terms, but also in economic terms. The idea that “all being in this together” might involve those who are doing well making some sacrifices to aid those who are not does not apparently enter into the thinking of these neo-liberal arses. They purchased the last election with some help from a bloated, in every sense of the word, plutocrat and they will continue to serve their corporate masters……not the people they were elected to govern.
"Every economist in the country, not in the employ of either the government or their corporate sponsors, has pointed to increased wages and welfare benefits as the most neessary economic reform. This is not a bleeding heart lefty position to improve the lot of the disadvantaged. It is the simple economic truth."
I'm not an economist but I reckon Jobkeeper is a prime example of this happening short term which I don't think Scotty & Co were clever enough to realise would happen. There are a lot of folks out there at the moment getting Jobkeeper but who are still employed. I don't think this is how it was meant to work but they now have some spare cash in the bank which they are spending big time. I have never seen the traffic jams so big at Bunnings and speaking to a few of my building supplier mates they are all flat out and have never been busier. Some might say that's because people aren't at work at the moment, but I guarantee you it has more to do with the extra cash in their pockets.
I agree Gary. The question is what will happen when they pull the plug on those payments.
Ross Gittins wrote a good article on this subject yesterday in the SMH. The comments are gold.......
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/morrison-in-for-a-rude-shock...
yorkes he makes the point that the tax cuts will not boost the economy as they are aimed at the top and so much more likely to be used to pay down housing debt or invested than spent on goods and services. This is the fundamental failure of their policies. To boost the demand for goods and services you have to increase the incomes of those at the bottom. This is anthema to them and those who fund them.
Given the likely deep and long recession with likely unemployment rates over 15% how many of the one million foreign workers here on temporary work visas have left the country since Covid19?
I think the government takes the view, as it seems you do Guy, that foreign workers are disposable. They can stay as long as they help the economy but are not entitled to support when it tanks. Presumably some are still working but I suspect that most are in difficult circumstances and would like nothing better than to return home.....which is preumably somewhere between difficult and impossible under present conditions.
Okay well that confirms it for me, Blowfly is Blindboy.
Herc couldn't do a post that long without abusing someone or talking about himself.
And Facto has never had a personal opinion that long.
How are people seeing things where they live in regards to affecting people's work or business etc ?
For instance where i live, it's been really mixed.
Some people and business I'm sure are hurting especially business that cant open or are very restricted in how much business they can do, less hours/work for employees etc.
But strangely enough talking to tradies and from my own experience, business is booming it's like everyone is doing things to their homes.
And my friends that own takeaway business say it's been like a non stop summer, i guess because restaurant restrictions means people are going for takeaway instead.
Also just the population seems to have increased, so busy everywhere, heaps of people coming down and staying in their holiday house's more often, and i guess many people that have been forced to work from home, have decided they might as well move down to their holiday houses, , id assume supermarkets etc are doing good business.
Also real-estate agents here are saying they are busy and houses getting snapped up as soon as they go on the market (maybe peoples work being more flexible so looking at moving down?) but always hard to believe real estate agents.
I can see this Covid-19 thing actually being a big influence on widening the gap between have's and have nots, for the very reason that its actually been a positive for some business, but a negative for others.
Actually blowfly I support the temporary work visa program but only where there is a genuine need, as the formal legislation, rules and regulations dictate. The problem with this visa program as it’s currently used by shonky employers and administered by the LNP government is its used to lower the wages and conditions of average Australian workers = Workchoices by stealth.
Further, any foreign worker visa program we have ought to support a very specific soft diplomacy foreign affairs policy whereby citizens of our nearby Pacific and Asian neighbours can worker here in preference to workers from Europe or Ireland.
Guy I agree that those elements exist in the program. My concern is that once a visa is issued then it shoud not be subject to revision by the government if conditions change. Further, having granted them entry and temporary residence, we take on some responsibility for their welfare. It is in no-one's interest to leave them broke and homeless, which seems to be the path that is being taken.
How very perceptive of you Indo!
Haven't heard from VicLabor for awhile. Guy, I daresay he would outright refute your stated position and then proceed to call you out for hate speech and adding to the entrenched systemic racism that engulfs our society. You're on a very slippery slope there champ.
And, Blowfly, FFS, sorry to have a go at you the other day, but it would be lovely if people would keep to one on screen identity. I don't understand it? Is it some kinda fool me once, fool me twice thing?
All good zen, I had a shot at you too. I will try to stay as blowfly.
Blindboy was a much nicer name but no worries. Nice to hear from you.
Hey Zen, had a previous exchange with Mr Shouty on the subject, found his contribution less abrasive than you might ordinarily think.
Shows we can all evolve Guy.
I'm not surprised though- heart in the right place I guess.
blowfly, JQ, Laurie, BB, whatever you call yourself matters not.
I for one have nearly always enjoyed the input that you bring.
Everyone has their own unique writing style that's difficult to hide completely.
I mean how many times has facto changed his name and/or account, but its always the same D-C!
Having said all the above, blowfly (if I might make an observation is a pretty shit name)
can I suggest you just name yourself 'Lozza' and we can all move on?
I reckon most if not all people on here have their heart in the right place.
Ben might change me back to blindboy if I ask but I am not interested in being involved in the levels of hostility that occurred before so I'll see how it goes before asking.
@thermalben*, if you are thinking of changing blowfly back to blindboy can I suggest 'Lozza'?
*asking for a friend
For when one interesting things thread isn't enough.