Bibliogryphon
-
Content Count
11,831 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
149
Posts posted by Bibliogryphon
-
-
Well he has disappeared from his hotel.......keeping low profile I reckon, esp as hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the yanks.
Either that or bumped off.
I am expecting him to turn up face down in Hong Kong harbour after having tragically committed "suicide".
-
I've yet to get around to reading "Whit" and also "Complicity". Started to read them, got sidetracked after the first couple of chapters, then completely forgot where I was in the story.
If this is a problem then try Excession it doesn't matter where you pick it up it makes no sense at all.
-
The conspiracy i heard lately that i thought was bizarre at first but the more i look into it the more it seems plausible is that Jose Manuel barroso had something to do with the disappearance of Madelaine McCann.
Any links to back that one up (or should that be UkiP)?
-
Davey you have outdone yourself with the social commentary, explained it well - I would like to echo your points and I have the odd one of my own.
I view part of my job is to remain politically neutral. I strive to look at things more in societal terms than in political ones. Australia is a very indecisive place; a lot of the time not knowing what decision to make (which is why we probably won't become a republic or legalize same sex marriage), before packing the whole thing in and heading down the pub for the afternoon.
As I'm sure most of our international mates on this site can relate to this in some way. Every little thing is made into a big deal..,case and point; recently our PM appeared on a Perth radio show, hosted by a KNOWN shock jock. He asked an inappropriate question (big surprise there) and boom; instant soundbites and a victimized PM can garner some sympathy.
Yes, they blew that out of proportion. I hadn't come across that shock jock before but he was trying too hard to be funny and it fell flat. His biggest problem was that he then kept on going with it but the whole thing was coming after Gillard's "misogyny" speech and the restaurant menu that conveniently surfaced the following day.
Last week whilst on yard duty a group of year 8 girls came over to me and complained that the boys on the oval and kicked a ball into them, hitting one on the elbow, there wasn't even a scratch. I asked them what they were doing over there and they replied they were just sitting and talking. When I suggested that it was probably a bad idea to sit so near, that the boys were completely within their rights to play their game on the oval and that they have an entire yard with infinity other places to sit. The attitude of the girls changed from playing victim to being aggressor as it wasn't the response they were looking for. They stormed off in a huff.
Good on you!
i thought WOW, if that isn't a reflection of modern Australian society; where everyone wants to be precious and demand justice for the most trivial thing at the expense of common sense.
This is by no-means the only example of this kind of thing happening - and I do appreciate the karma of the bully getting bullied and then crying foul because of it (a la Alan Jones).
Yes, I think Australian society has changed a lot in the last few decades. At the risk of sounding like an old man, Generation Y represents this over-privileged culture. I know of similar examples but I won't cite them now.
As far as notions of "black and white armbands of history" is concerned I encourage students to observe and consider every aspect of an issue in order to reach an informed and rational conclusion about it. To accept other peoples ideas (no matter how stupid) in a calm, respectful and civilized manner and debate the issue based upon firm evidence, not ideology. For the most part this takes a while to instill this in their thought processes. I usually confuse each class with the question "If all your friends jumped off a bridge at the same time, would you?"
answer "Yes"
"Why is the answer Yes?"
I give them a few moments to think about it - they rarely come up with the answer.
"Because my friends are mostly rational people, so there must be a valid reason to jump off the bridge - I don't want to hang around on the bridge to see whats going to happen." or something similar.
I have found that when you study and/or teach history certain truths come to the fore; wars and atrocities are inevitable, evil exists and hugs the limelight, good exists but is usually dormant until something drastic happens,
Interesting. I didn't know you were a teacher. When I was talking about one party's ideology dominating the curriculum in Canberra was in control of all schooling, I was thinking about a few specific cases besides the black armband debates: one was when Julie Bishop was education minister and she wanted everyone to follow Harold Bloom's theories. Another is the bloody frightening, nationalistic emphasis that has been placed on Anzac Day since Howard first came to power. Some people feel that the Libs use Anzac Day as a kind of Australian nationalistic origins myth in the same way that the ALP use Eureka and the Shearers' Strikes.
On a more personal note, I really enjoyed history at school but I find it disgusts me now to learn about the constant cycle of wars. We should be progressing as a society but we aren't.
often these two entities are blurred and nobody has an idea of whats good and whats evil anyway,
I am more sceptical about moral relativism. My views on the subject are still evolving and maturing though.
as a society becomes more sophisticated people become less self-sufficient and more co-dependent, Ideas and innovations are usually poo-pooed unless money can be made, even the village idiot can be right sometimes, ideology often masks itself as rationality (FOX NEWS) and that people need to harden the F**k up.
Yes Fox News is poison. Thank goodness we still have cross-media ownership laws here which is probably the one good thing about the media landscape in this country. Having said that about the populist media, Universities are just as bad. Commerce/business departments are awash with Harvard-trained hardcore capitalists and the Humanities world at certain unis still have a lot of old Marxist cultural theorists. I think as life progresses, most of us grow to discern the bullshit from the things of value though. I'd very much like to see a few changes to our universities: one thing would be a lot more accountability to give students more rights via an independent body that can handle complaints. (At the moment, the only options are to complain to the head of school and they will almost always side with their lecturer or to the student union, which is useless.) Julia was actually flagging an independent body like this three or four years ago but I haven't heard anything more of it.
Secondly, I would like to see uni positions be for fixed terms only, after which a lecturer must leave the job and return to work in the real world for a while. That would stop them becoming so bloody insular and means they would have to check their pet theories against what is happening out there in the actual workforce. Yes, it would mean they would have to leave research projects half way through if they weren't finished and another team would have to take over but it would be worth it to overcome a lot of the problems and politics and corruption I have seen in Australian tertiary education.
/end rant 2.
This is very interesting. Particularly the focus on the USA as the biggest influence. Where does this leave the Republican tendancy in Australia after the whole referendum is being part of the commonwealth now staus quo.
Would the introduction of a presidential figure make things better or worse for the electorate?
-
Oi! Hartnell is my favourite.
Haha, don't take too much offense. Strangely, I'm only being so ranty because I can't stand the show as it currently is. Somehow I'm conflating the two. I guess I figured that anyone who's enough of a hardcore obsessive to watch the shite "new" show would also get hard at this announcement. I don't mind some of the older episodes too much, really. Although they never repeat them any more.
I have some misgivings about the new series but have come back to the series after David Tennant left. Doctor Who has never been about special effects but about story telling and when it is at its best it can tell brilliant stories. The new series does not seem to have adapted to the format although I do like Matt Smith's portrayal.
-
Looks like there could be more to the Michael Hastings story, as the local news in La was saying his car exploded and his body burned beyond recognition and dental records will be needed to verify the body. This guy was the one whose story essentially ended the career of General Stanley McChrystal
hmmm
If this is a conspiracy then whoever is responsible for the accident is pretty crap. Surely to make it look like an accident should make it look like a like an accident and not a bomb. They should have asked Prince Philip for help.
-
I don't know if there's a separate thread for rock stars but if there is I couldn't find it.
Anyway, according to Huffington Post, Axl Rose walks with a cane now (!). Unless he was just thinking of buying that cane from the yard sale and was just playing around with it....
He's walked on and off with a cane for ages, I don't think it means anything at all. I think he looks very well for a man of his age and history.
OK so I wouldn't pick him out as Axl Rose in a line up but he looks reasonably fit, the weight gain is not excessive and it would probably concern me more if he was more gaunt. However I am not a medical man.
-
Appears at a mental health tribunal.
sitting in court wearing dark glasses, curly/wavy grey hair. He's got a feeding tube. He speaks with a very soft voiceWell at least, according to the court sketch, he can actually sit up. Somehow, when you hear about someone who's been force-fed via a tube for over a decade, you don't visualize them as being very upright.
I hope the tribunal take all the factors into account and whether the following submission would have any influence:
"Your honour, I have picked Mr Brady as my DDP joker and could really do with the points"
-
1
-
-
Leftfield choice of Stan Lee. I can only be wrong.
-
The whole tone of the BBC website coverage is treating him as if he was already dead - life and times etc
-
China - not for any reasons about oppression and human rights violations but I am in Hong Kong airport about to go into China and when I was here a month ago I couldn't access the Deathlist. So for that reason alone I put the entire country into Room 101.
-
Croatia = biggest bunch of cunts on the planet,are you England in disguise????? cannot believe a team managed by the silly pair of wee ginger shites fucked the 4th best team in the world up the arsehole in their own home.
I am presuming that there was some money at stake behind that last post. I had to go to the BBC website to understand the context. Unless BadEgg is Croatian.
-
I am thinking that Phil will survive and Nelson won't but I thought he was a goner earlier in the year.
-
He's had his surgery, and is "progressing satisfactorily" at this point.
Is it good DL etiquette to like your own posts?
-
2
-
-
-
Last year.
So obviously David Hope wasn't ill enough to be admitted to your elite ninja force of proto-corpses
-
On visit to BBC today when John Humphries said that the DoE looked well at the garden party yesterday the Queen retorted (Do your own voice) "That's because he isn't ill"
Make of that what you will!!!
-
Hope is ill, Habgood isn't. I found the latter out AFTER picking him on the DDP grr
This year? Even taking into account my dyslexia the first entry under H is Margherita Hack. I will correct my list though eagle eyed one!
Hear sorry am to very that I
Said Susan Hampshire
-
Hope is ill, Habgood isn't. I found the latter out AFTER picking him on the DDP grr
This year? Even taking into account my dyslexia the first entry under H is Margherita Hack. I will correct my list though eagle eyed one!
-
Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is having treatment for advanced prostate cancer...
Whilst adding Dr Sentamu to my long list I quickly decided to check if anyone had picked the two previous incumbants of the post who are still alive and noone had. They are David Hope (b. 1940) and John Hapgood (b.1927). They vill also go on zi list.
-
The United Kingdom's pride and dignity died a shattering death on this day 10 years ago in Riga...
I think you'll find pride and dignity went years previously!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rdtglC5k320#t=99s
As Eurovision entries go this was quite predictable and most of the derision comes from the fact that they scored nul points but considering this was the year of the Iraq war how much of the scoring was politically based. It is sad to say that since thiis debarcle we have actually entered worse songs such as Scooch and the guy whose name I can't remember but he rapped sat on a school desk and his backing dancers were all dressed as school girls.
Edit: I have subsequnetly identified this as our 2006 entry "Teenage Life" by Daz Sampson.
-
It will be his 92nd Birthday on Monday and he will be spending it in hospital.
Do you think we should send cake?
-
Dunno if anyone was watching the UK Open, but fucking hell, Kirk Shepherd has "suicide risk" written all over him.
How's that?
Vicious attack with a marker pen!
-
1
-
-
Swimming champion and Hollywood actress Esther Williams dies at 91.
She was sufficiently famous for her to be picked by a number of DDP teams.
Conspiracy Theories
in DeathList extra-curricular
Posted
Well the mention of David Icke seems to suggest to me that we are well into Wackyland with this one. The first article seems to get a bit hysterical and doesn't produce much in the way of evidence.
I will go back to my much less far fetched theory.